Madera’s first Chinese residents came here from the town of Borden. They had arrived at that spot in 1872 with the laying of the Southern Pacific tracks, but when Madera was founded in 1876, most of them shifted their attention to the new little village four miles to the north.
Just as it had been in Borden, when they moved to Madera, the Chinese were pretty much isolated in Chinatown on the west side of the railroad tracks. Most considered themselves to be simply sojourners in this strange, new land and were quite content to live outside the mainstream of Anglo society. For the most part, they took care of themselves and solved their own problems — except for that time in 1885 when a cook in a Madera hotel got himself in trouble with a meat cleaver.
The man’s name was Wing Lee, and he was hard-working, generally quiet, and law-abiding. He was employed as a cook in the Russ House, a hotel in early Madera located on West Yosemite Avenue. On Tuesday evening, Aug. 19, 1885, he was at work in the kitchen when one of his fellow countrymen surprised him by entering the building from the alley.
The unnamed acquaintance had come to collect a debt, which Lee had been hotly disputing. The intrusion of his antagonist at his job infuriated the cook, and soon a shouting match developed. When the disagreement turned physical, the intruder grabbed a meat cleaver, but he just wasn’t fast enough. Within moments, Lee had the hatchet, and he made his opponent wish that he had never set foot in his kitchen. Wing Lee dealt his adversary a vicious blow on the forehead which sent the wounded man running down Yosemite Avenue, his face covered with blood.
The Chinese cook was of course arrested, and when he was taken to jail by Officer McDowell, his main concern was his employment; would he lose his job? He got his answer the very next day.
Before noon the hotel proprietor appeared in court to put up Lee’s bail, and he was released. By supper time the cook was back on the job. The guests of the Russ House apparently had grown so accustomed to Wing Lee’s fine cuisine, that the owner wasn’t about to let a minor disturbance, such as what took place in his kitchen, cost him the services of his valued chef. It would take more than a flourish of the meat cleaver to strip the Russ House of one of its most prized assets.
The record doesn’t say whether or not Wing Lee ever paid the debt he owed. Nor is there any indication as to how much damage was done to his opponent’s head with the meat cleaver. One thing, however, is certain. Wing Lee had powerful friends at the Russ House. They weren’t about to allow a simple quarrel between two Chinese residents spoil a good thing. Wing Lee was needed; he was back on the job to stay.