It was the most notorious street in Southern California. If you were looking for gambling, prostitution, or a stiff drink, Los Angeles Street was the place to go. Its original name was Calle de los Negros – street of the blacks. Frank Damon says at the time, "negroes" was a derogatory term for Mexicans, but the street itself was infamous for a massacre of local Chinese.

Damon heads Las Angelitas del Pueblo, the docents who lead walking tours of old L.A. He says in October of 1871, a fight broke out between two gangs over a woman. An Anglo man tried to intervene and was shot and killed. "Within a couple of hours," he says "nineteen Chinese were brutally killed by the Anglos. Men, women, and children. They were both shot and they were hung."

The murders were reported around the world. But it wasn't the first time L.A. was labeled a dangerous city. In the 1850s, there was, on average, one murder a day. That means about 20 percent of the city's population met an untimely death.

(Airdate for this story: 9/8/07)