Chinese history in Seattle

I was reading up on Chinese President Hu Jintao's planned visit to Seattle, which was cancelled due to schedule changes after Hurricane Katrina, when I came across this really interesting information in a Seattle Times article:

In Seattle, the Chinese-American community is one of the oldest in the nation.

It was during the 1850s that the earliest settlers began arriving here from the famine-stricken Guangdong province to search for gold or to lay railroad tracks. By 1876, about one in six people in Seattle was Chinese.

In the 1900s, immigrants also arrived from Hong Kong and Taiwan to pursue their own Horatio Alger, rags-to-riches dreams. Mostly due to racial covenants that prevented them from owning property in many parts of the region, many clustered in Chinatown and nearby areas such as Beacon Hill. By the 1980s, large numbers had moved out into the suburbs.

One in six people were Chinese?? Wow, that's crazy!