A Slight Epidemic: The Government Cover-Up of Bubonic Plague in a Major American City: What Happened and Why It Matters

Even the most well-meaning government controls can be more damaging than any disease. When Los Angeles and the State of California reacted to an outbreak of bubonic plague in a Hispanic neighborhood in 1924 government officials acted ruthlessly--on only partial information--to contain the outbreak and keep news of it quiet. As a result, many people died, a vibrant neighborhood was wiped out -- the whole experience now a lost episode in American history. Here is the first detailed look at the Macy Street Bubonic Plague Story. A lively working-class neighborhood near downtown Los Angeles, Macy Street was close to today's Chinatown. Then, during several weeks in November and December, death ravaged the District. The family of a woman who ran a busy boarding house got sick. At first, neighbors and extended family nursed the family with traditional treatments. But, when others started getting sick, they called in City officials. Identifying the fever as Bubonic Plague, City officials panicked. To keep word of the disease silent, they set up a military perimeter around the entire Macy Street District and cast the outbreak as a Mexican problem. It was effective, in a few weeks, the outbreak ran its course and within a few months, the Macy Street District was a ghost town, burned and bulldozed to erase any memory of the event.