On the block bounded by E, F, 4th, and 5th streets, more than 300 Chinese people once lived in a bustling Chinatown in Eureka. High unemployment, economic uncertainty, and perceived competition for jobs were used as excuses for anti-Chinese hate. Across the Pacific Northwest, a brutal wave of ethnic cleansing followed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the first U.S. law to ban immigration by race. On February 6, 1885, after a white Eureka city councilman was accidentally killed by a stray bullet and blame fell on two Chinese men, a mob of more than 600 gathered near Chinatown and erected a gallows at the corner of 5th and F streets. Eureka leaders ordered all Chinese people to leave within 24 hours. Fearing for their lives, families were forced to leave behind furniture, merchandise, shrimp boats, and vegetable farms. Charlie Moon, a ranch hand, and Chinese miners near Orleans were among the few who remained. By 1886, Chinese residents were driven out of Arcata, Crescent City, and nearby towns, and Eureka's segregated one-block Chinatown was obliterated. Across California, Chinese people organized the first general strike in California, vegetable growers boycotted households and hotels that supported the expulsions, and in 1886 Eureka's displaced Chinese community sued the City in Wing Hing vs. the City of Eureka, one of the nation's first lawsuits for reparations.