Detroit and the last days of Harry Houdini

When Harry Houdini stepped onto the stage in Detroit's Garrick Theatre on October 24, 1926, he was about to begin the last performance of his career---and his life.

Harry Houdini

Two days earlier, the famed magician and escape artist had been reclining in his dressing room before a show in Montreal when a college student named J. Gordon Whitehead knocked on the door. Houdini frequently told fans that he could withstand any punch, and Whitehead asked if the boast was true. Houdini said it was, and gave Whitehead permission to throw a few jabs. However, Whitehead started hitting while Houdini was still lying down; the magician didn't have time to tense his stomach, so the punches inflicted more damage than Houdini expected. In pain, the magician motioned Whitehead to stop. Houdini managed to complete his performance, but he was in extreme physical distress as he headed toward his next destination---Detroit.

The Garrick Theatre in Detroit, site of Houdini's last performance

By the time Houdini and his crew arrived in the Motor City, he was running a fever of 102 degrees and suffering from appendicitis. He refused surgery, though, and showed up for his performance at the Garrick Theatre. By that time, Houdini's temperature had reached 104 degrees, and he passed out while performing his act. Eventually, Houdini acknowledged that he needed medical attention, and was rushed to Detroit's Grace Hospital, where doctors discovered that he had peritonitis (an inflammation of abdominal tissue), likely caused by a ruptured appendix. Though Houdini held out hope that he would recover, his injuries eventually got the best of him, and he died at 1:26 p.m. on October 31. He was 52 years old. His body was taken to Queens, New York, where he was buried in Machpelah Cemetery.

Detroit's Grace Hospital, where Houdini died

For years afterward, Houdini's wife, Bess, held seances on Halloween in an attempt to contact her husband. Perhaps not surprisingly, especially given the fact that, in life, Houdini had insisted spiritualism was a fraud, she had no luck. To this day, fans of the paranormal gather every Halloween to commune with Houdini's spirit. So far, he hasn't shown up.


For more information:

Houdini started life as Erik Weisz, and immigrated to the United States from Hungary when he was four years old. He adopted the name "Harry Houdini" in homage to two of his heroes: an American magician named Harry Kellar, and a French magician named Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin. Houdini was best known for his daring escapes from sticky situations. One of his standards was the "Chinese Water Torture Cell" trick in which his feet were locked in stocks and he was immersed upside-down in a glass container filled with water. A curtain prevented panicked audiences from seeing his struggle to escape, but escape he did, every time.


The Garrick Theatre no longer stands, but was located on Griswold Street, near the current site of the David Stott Building. Likewise, Grace Hospital, where Houdini died, is no longer part of the Detroit landscape, having been demolished in 1979.


Whatever happened to J. Gordon Whitehead, the man who inadvertently caused Houdini's death? After the incident, Whitehead dropped out of college and became a recluse, eventually dying of malnutrition in 1954. He's buried in an unmarked grave in a Montreal cemetery. Some conspiracy theorists insist Whitehead was hired to kill or injure Houdini by the spiritualists whom Houdini had debunked, but no proof exists that this was the case.

An interview with Steve Lehto, author of "Death's Door"

Yesterday, I wrote about the Italian Hall tragedy, which took the lives of 73 people during a contentious copper mining strike in 1913 ("The tragedy at Italian Hall"). Today's post features an interview with attorney and author Steve Lehto, whose book, "Death's Door: The Truth Behind the Italian Hall Disaster and the Strike of 1913," explores the incident, as well as the labor strife that led up to it. The book is an excellent read, and I highly recommend it. (UPDATE: "Death's Door" is now in its second edition, which includes the text of the first edition, as well as text from one of Lehto's previous books, "Shortcut: The Seeberville Murders and the Dark Side of the American Dream." Both "Shortcut" and the first edition of "Death's Door" are out of print, but you can find their content in the second edition of "Death's Door," which I've linked to above.) 

Here's what Lehto had to say about "Death's Door," the tragedy, and the strong emotions his work elicits from readers.

Steve Lehto

What piqued your interest in the Italian Hall disaster? Why did you decide to write about it?

"The Italian Hall disaster had 73 known victims. Of those, 59 were Finnish. My family is Finnish and in the Finnish community, this event is well-known. I liken it to being our 'Titanic.' Everyone knows about it and it is revered. I had always heard about it growing up but did not know much more than the thumbnail sketch of it. After I got a degree in history and my law degree, I decided to research it and see what we could figure out today after looking at the evidence."



As you conducted your research, what did you find that historians were saying about the incident? Did that differ from what you discovered during your own research process?

"Many historians had embraced the 'newspaper' version of the event without taking into account that the local papers were biased heavily in favor of the mines and mine management. As a result, their narratives were essentially, 'This was an unsolvable accident, for which no one was to blame.' It was not the truth. Several of the best-known histories of the event have whole sections of endnotes which are nothing but references to newspapers with names like 'The Daily Mining Gazette.' Guess whose side they were on?

"I went back and looked at primary sources and found a lot of legal documentation. Much of it had not been seen before and what had been seen had been misunderstood. People without legal training can miss things. For example, I found a good copy of the coroner’s inquest transcript. I immediately noticed that they did not provide translators for any of the witnesses and made them answer questions in English---even when they spoke little English! (And other inquests from this time used them.) This kind of thing is hugely important but was overlooked by everyone.

"Strangely, there are historians who still embrace the 'newspaper' version of events. I’m not sure why they do it. I guess the research is really easy, since all you have to do is read the old newspapers. I admit I find it fun to read old newspapers, but I think historians should recognize that newspapers are often horribly unreliable and biased."



What were some of the most interesting or significant things you learned while researching the book?

"That many of the stories being told about the hall were fictional. People often said the tragedy was caused by doors that opened 'the wrong way.' This was even put on the historical marker at the site. I found photos that proved the doors opened correctly. Even so, it took over five years to get the marker changed. (It was changed this past June, using language I drafted.)

"I was surprised by how the government was run by big business back then. The people who ran the mines ran the government and could get almost anything done that they wanted. When crimes were committed, they could assure that no one would be prosecuted---most of the time---and they were the ones who saw to it that no one was ever prosecuted for the Italian Hall disaster. This was corruption pure and simple. I know that corruption has always existed, but it was just at such a level that I found it startling."

 

How did the Italian Hall disaster affect the community of Calumet, both in the short and long term?

"The Italian Hall disaster happened in the middle of a very divisive strike. The disaster caused the divide to be even more pronounced, and that divide remains today, almost 100 years later. I still meet people who are so inclined toward one side or the other they don’t even want to examine the evidence."



When your book was published, what types of responses did you get from readers, especially those in Calumet?

"I met a lot of people who were happy the story had been written, but also heard from people who were upset by it. I have even gotten death threats from people who say that I should have left the story alone. I was surprised, to say the least, by the overreaction. There are also a couple of people in the UP who show up at my talks and yell at me. Literally yell at me. One of them had to be hauled out by security. I had to threaten another with a restraining order. This event can apparently still generate some strong emotions in people."



What’s next for you?

"I am consulting on a documentary which will air [nationally] on PBS in December (the 17th at 8:00 p.m.) about the Italian Hall. It is called 'Red Metal: The Copper Country Strike of 1913.' I am hopeful it will bring the story to a broader audience. This story is not known as well outside of Michigan just yet. I am also writing a few books, including one on Preston Tucker, which should come out next year. [Ed. Note: Preston Tucker was a Michigan native who designed and engineered many well-known cars, including the 1948 Tucker Sedan, during the mid-20th century.]



In keeping with this blog’s “Michigan” theme, I always ask this question: What is your favorite thing to do, or favorite place to go, in Michigan?

"I have several but I guess if you had to pick one based on how often I find myself drawn there, it is the top of Brockway Mountain Drive, just outside of Copper Harbor. I go there several times each year."

 

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For more information:

Lehto has written several other books, including several Michigan-themed titles. Check out his Amazon author page to see what else he's written.

The tragedy at Italian Hall

Several hundred people gathered in Calumet's Italian Hall on December 24, 1913. Their goal? To celebrate the Christmas season and get their minds off the mining strike that had crippled the community for the past five months. The celebrants were the miners themselves, as well as their wives and children---families who had struggled to make ends meet long before the strike that sought better wages, hours, and working conditions for the region's copper miners. Guests milled about the Italian Hall's second floor, enjoying refreshments, listening to piano music, and visiting Santa, who handed out small gifts that thrilled children already used to deprivation in their short lives.

1913 photo of Italian Hall, located in the
Houghton County village of Calumet

Suddenly, a man called out a single word: "Fire!" At first, no one paid much attention, but the calls continued, growing in urgency: "Fire! Fire!" There was no sign of a blaze, no acrid smell of smoke, but in the confusion, crowd members panicked and rushed toward a stairwell that led to the front door. As the first guests hurried down the narrow passageway, dozens, then hundreds, of people clamored after them. The force of all those bodies sent the first guests to the floor. The people behind them stumbled, and soon, the staircase was full of bodies, one on top of another, trying desperately to escape, but slowly suffocating in the cramped space. By the time rescue workers cleared the staircase, 73 people had died, 59 of them children.

The Italian Hall's second floor, the day after the tragedy

In the following days, as community members laid to rest their deceased family and friends, questions abounded. Who had raised the false alarm of "fire"? Why had he done it, and was he in any way connected to the mining companies---especially Calumet and Hecla, the area's largest copper mining operation? The Christmas party had been sponsored by the Ladies Auxiliary of the Western Federation of Miners, the union to which many of the region's miners belonged, and witnesses reported that the man who yelled, "fire" had worn a button identifying him as a member of an anti-union group known as the Citizens' Alliance. Was some sort of pro-management conspiracy behind the tragedy that took the lives of 59 children?

Funeral procession for the victims of the Italian Hall tragedy

(Note: That question has never been definitively answered, though theories abound as to the mystery man's identity. Tomorrow, I'll post an interview with Steve Lehto, author of "Death's Door: The Truth Behind the Italian Hall Disaster and the Strike of 1913," a book about the Italian Hall tragedy that reveals the identity of the man Lehto believes gave the false alarm. If you're interested in reading or purchasing this book, make sure you get the second edition [to which I've linked], as the first edition doesn't contain this information.)

The strike ended in April 1914, and the results were mixed for the miners. They could not bargain collectively, nor could they stop using potentially dangerous tools like the one-man drill. However, many miners returned to find that they now had eight-hour workdays, and would eventually receive higher wages. In the following years, federal labor laws, as well as the increasing power of unions, achieved even more gains.

All this was likely little comfort to those who lost people they loved in the Italian Hall that fateful Christmas Eve in 1913. The hall was eventually torn down, though its front archway remains, and now stands in a park maintained by the Keweenaw National Historical Park.

Italian Hall arch

For more information:

Folk singer Woody Guthrie wrote a song about the Italian Hall tragedy. It's called "1913 Massacre." Here's a clip:

Michiganders aboard the Titanic, Part I: The Bishops

While researching my previous post about the Knorr ("Michigan-made ship makes 'Titanic' history"), I began wondering how many Michiganders had been aboard the Titanic when it sank in the North Atlantic in the early morning hours of April 15, 1912. I "Wikipediaed" that question ("Google" is a verb now, so I can make "Wikipedia" one too, right?), and learned that several dozen of the 2,224 people on board the ship either came from, or were heading to, Michigan. One couple was in first class, a few families and individual travelers had second-class cabins, and the rest settled for third-class passage. I can't write about all of these individuals on my blog, but every so often, I'll publish the story of a Michigan-based person (or people) who was aboard the Titanic on its maiden voyage. The first post in this series is about the Bishops, a newlywed couple who were the only Michigan residents to obtain a first-class cabin aboard the ill-fated ship.

 

This is what a first-class cabin on the Titanic looked like.

Dickinson (Dick) and Helen Bishop had been married only about five months when they boarded the Titanic following a whirlwind honeymoon through Africa and Europe. The couple wasn't hurting for money. Nineteen-year-old Helen was the daughter of Jerrold Walton, owner of the Sturgis-based Royal Easy Chair Company. Twenty-five-year-old Dick had inherited a sizable estate following the death of his first wife, who came from a wealthy family in Dowagiac.

Helen and Dick Bishop

The Bishops' trip overseas was undoubtedly exciting, but an encounter the couple had during their stay in Egypt might have warned of things to come. According to Helen, a fortune-teller told the young newlywed that she would experience three disasters: a shipwreck and an earthquake, both of which she would survive, and a car accident, from which she would die. The prediction was eerie, but not enough to keep Helen off the Titanic, which she and her husband boarded in Cherbourg, France on April 10.

The couple's first few days on the boat were uneventful, and likely filled with the kind of activities--musical performances, elaborate dinners---available to first-class passengers. On the evening of April 14, Helen and Dick were in their stateroom when the Titanic struck an iceberg. Helen later said that she didn't feel anything when the impact occurred, but several minutes later, someone came to the Bishops' stateroom instructing them to make their way to the deck. Helen did, but officers sent her back, telling her that all was well. Shortly afterward, Helen and Dick were getting ready for bed when a friend knocked at their door and told them the ship was listing. The Bishops weren't sure how serious the situation was, and made a few trips between the deck and their room before they realized that the Titanic was in trouble. Leaving behind most of their possessions (including Freu Freu, a dog they had acquired in Italy), the Bishops found seats aboard the first lifeboat to leave the ship. They and their shipmates drifted in the icy water for several hours until the steamship Carpathia rescued them shortly after 4 a.m. on April 15. (The Titanic had completely sunk at about 2:20 a.m.)

One of the Titanic's lifeboats approaching the Carpathia

After their rescue, Dick and Helen testified at a Senate inquiry into the disaster, then returned to Dowagiac, hoping they could settle down and put the incident behind them. The Bishops likely thought they had used up all their bad luck for a lifetime, but sadly, this was not the case. In December 1912, Helen give birth to a baby boy, Randall, who died two days later. Afterward, the Bishops took a trip to California, where they encountered an earthquake---the second part of the fortune-teller's prophecy. The third part of the prophecy came true, at least in part, in November 1913, when Dick and Helen were involved in a car accident that, though not fatal, left Helen with severe head trauma that ultimately led to the end of the Bishops' marriage in 1916.

Helen's bad luck continued; she slipped and fell at a friend's house three months after her divorce from Dick, and died of her injuries at the age of 23. She is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Three Rivers. The Dowagiac Daily News reported on her death the same day it ran an article announcing  Dick Bishop's new marriage, to a woman from Chicago. Dick went on to serve in World War I, and eventually moved to Illinois. He died of a stroke at age 73 in February 1961.

An interview with Ross Richardson, discoverer of the Westmoreland

I recently spoke by phone with Ross Richardson, a diver who, in 2010, located the wreckage of the Westmoreland, a ship that sank in Lake Michigan in December 1854 during its final run of the year between Chicago and Buffalo. After the Westmoreland left Milwaukee on December 6, a winter storm battered the ship, causing it to plunge into the icy waters near the Manitou Islands, off the Lower Peninsula’s northwest coast. Only half of the 34 people on board survived.

For nearly 150 years, explorers searched for the wreck, and not simply out of curiosity. Rumors swirled that, along with its cargo of winter provisions for residents of Mackinac Island, the Westmoreland had contained a fortune in gold coins, as well as a couple hundred barrels of whiskey. Beginning in 1872 and continuing through the 21st century, dozens of divers plied the waters near the Manitou Islands, searching for the ship and its legendary treasure. (One of those divers was a man named Jim Sawtelle, who searched for the Westmoreland in 1957, and who would play a small role in Richardson's discovery over 50 years later.) Though some claimed to have found the Westmoreland, no one could provide proof...until Richardson began his search in 2010.


Ross Richardson

Richardson, a Lake Ann resident who had long been interested in shipwrecks and had even learned to dive so that he could explore them, first read about the Westmoreland in a book called "Shipwreck!" by David Swayze. "I thought it would be a really interesting ship to find," Richardson said. "It's uncommon to have a cargo of treasure in the Great Lakes." Richardson began researching the ship while taking part in other shipwreck-related projects and discoveries. In the summer of 2010, equipped with a boat and a side-scan sonar that gave him a search range of 360 feet to each side, Richardson hit the lake to begin his hunt. What he found led him to create a website (www.michiganmysteries.com) and to write a book ("The Search for the Westmoreland") about his discovery. Our interview starts near the beginning of Richardson's search on July 7, 2010.
 
 
How did you search for the wreck?
 
"Shipwreck hunting is very slow and methodical; we call it 'mowing the lawn.' You set up a search grid and travel down it at about four miles an hour. Then you come back at a parallel line. It's very tedious; you can spend years looking before you even find a shipwreck. It's not everybody’s cup of tea."
 
 
Tell us about how you found the Westmoreland.
 
“I found it at the beginning of the third square mile I looked at after starting the search. It’s really remarkable to find a shipwreck that quickly. I’ve been involved in searches for airplanes and other ships, and sometimes we looked at over 100 square miles before we found anything.
 
"It was a nice summer day, and it was pretty calm. I was by myself; I do most of my searching by myself. I had just started another run when I ran over this unmistakable shape. I knew immediately it was a ship. It was in 200 feet of water, and I was kind of stunned.

Sonar image of the Westmoreland (bottom), with comparison photograph of a similar ship above
(no known photographs exist of the Westmoreland)

“I grabbed my phone and called Jim Sawtelle. We’d become friends over the past few years, and I said, ‘Jim, I got this target.’ He said, ‘When you get back to that area again, run it over a few more times.’ The images ended up being pretty stunning. They showed a large ship with hogging arches, which are basically suspension bridges built over the hull of a ship to give it strength. I called Jim back and said, ‘This looks really good.’ I knew I had to dive it and film it.” 

 

Image of the Westmoreland, with its hogging arches (located in the center of the picture)

 
At that point, what did you do?
 
“I went back on July 10 with an underwater video camera that I had bought on eBay for 99 bucks. It was just me and my brother on the boat. He can barely swim, so at this point, I’m about as ‘by myself’ as I can get in the water. We dropped down the grapple, which is a metal hook that snagged the ship. I geared up and got the camera ready to go.
 
“The big thing was that I didn’t know what I was going to see when I was down there. I didn’t know where we’d snagged into the wreck. I went down the line, close to 200 feet deep, and looked below. My first sight was of the bow of this giant ship, and I was like, ‘Oh, man.’ I stopped for a minute and caught my breath. I wanted to go back toward the stern and film the hogging arches. If I could film them, I could prove the wreck was the Westmoreland. After about a minute, I could see the hogging arches, upright in this great ship.
 
“The 1874 explorers said they had salvaged the engine and boiler, but I had my doubts about [whether they had done so] because the wreck was so deep; at that point in time, divers had only a 130-foot depth range. I went back farther, and toward the stern I saw the engine, the engine cylinder head, the boiler, and the four lifeboat cranes still on the back, standing upright.

“I was heading toward the stern and about to turn around, when slowly this big ship’s wheel appeared. Man, it was just beautiful. It was fully attached, no spokes were missing. I knew then that this ship was a virgin [i.e., had never been explored], because if anyone had been down there, they would have cut that wheel off and put it in their living room so fast.
 
“At that point, I looked down at my computer and saw that two-thirds of my breathing gas was gone. I was only halfway through my dive, and two-thirds of my life support was gone, so I hauled it back to the upline. It was one of the most scary things I’ve ever been through in my life.
 
“These shipwrecks, they’re like underwater haunted houses. They’re very creepy. You’re down there by yourself, everything’s dark, you’re so far away from everything else. If something happens, there’s nothing you can do.”
 
 
What was running through your mind once you realized you’d found the Westmoreland?
 
“That was probably one of the most amazing times in my life. I love shipwrecks, so to do something like that was like landing on the moon. It would be like, if baseball was your passion, hitting a grand-slam home run to win the World Series.”
 
 
How did you reveal your news about having found the wreck?
 
“It opened up an interesting dilemma. I had found a virgin wreck, which I wasn’t expecting, and it was one that might contain ten to twenty million dollars in gold coins. My worst nightmare would be to hear that another diver had found it and was now a millionaire, living in the Cayman Islands. I was very nervous that other people might be looking for it, so I did a press release to claim the shipwreck as ‘mine.’ I also created a website because, being a history buff, I wanted to share the wreck’s history with people.”
 
 
What else did you do after you found the Westmoreland?
 
“I teamed up with a dive buddy who was a very skilled diver, and we explored the shipwreck, looking for the safe. We were ‘going for the gold.’ I wanted to document the wreck, but I also wanted to go over every surface of it to make sure there wasn’t a chest of gold there. If there was, I think we both would have faded into the sunset with it.”
 
 
So, you didn’t find any gold?
 
“We didn’t find any gold.”
 
 
What’s going on now with the Westmoreland? Has anyone else been diving it?
 
“Only close friends of mine have dived it. I’m keeping the location [of the wreck] to myself. When I wrote the book, I originally included the [global positioning] numbers so that other people could dive it, but everybody told me, ‘No, don’t give the numbers out.’ The night before the publisher sent the book to the printers, I called them up and said, ‘Pull the numbers out,’ and they did.

“Very few people are interested in diving that wreck, anyway. It’s a decompression dive. To me, the most significant thing about the wreck is its history, and that’s why I wrote a book about it.”

Richardson's book, "The Search for the Westmoreland"

 

What’s next for you?
 
“I’m writing my second book, which is going to be along the lines of my website. It’ll deal with missing people, planes, and ships in the Michigan region. I have a friend who’s a retired Traverse City detective, and in the 1970s his parents disappeared in a plane somewhere over Michigan. They haven’t been found yet, and it’s the craziest thing. This plane probably crashed in the woods somewhere, and you wouldn’t think that there’s a place in the Lower Peninsula where people could be in a plane for thirty years and not be found. It fascinates me that there are still things out there in Michigan that haven’t been discovered.”
 
 
I probably know the answer to this question already, but what is your favorite place to visit, or your favorite thing to do, in Michigan?
 
“I would say exploring. There’s so much to explore, so much to see on land, so much diversity. Then, when you get out in the water, there’s another entire planet that’s been unexplored. For me, Michigan is the perfect place because you can explore right outside your door. You can find something that no one else has found before. It’s really quite a place.”

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For more information:

Richardson has posted his footage of the Westmoreland on YouTube. It's AMAZING... I got shivers down my spine watching it. Here it is:

 

 

Richardson has also posted other videos on his YouTube channel, nmiwrecks. Be sure to check them out!

Devastating fire uncovers an archaeological treasure

For three days in September 1881, a fire ravaged much of the Thumb area in Michigan's Lower Peninsula. The blaze decimated towns throughout four counties, and shot so much ash into the air that people in New England observed yellow skies and experienced twilight levels of darkness at noon. The Thumb Fire ultimately burned more than one million acres and took the lives of 282 people.

When the flames died down, residents set to work cleaning and salvaging what remained. As crews examined a rocky surface that vegetation had previously hidden, they encountered an unexpected sight. Carved into the smooth sandstone were a startling array of images: birds, hand prints, abstract swirls and lines, men holding bows.

Carving of a man holding a bow, one of many images at the Sanilac Petroglyphs.

The carvings were not the work of a recent artist, as up to that point, foliage had obscured the surface upon which they rested. Researchers investigated and determined that the carvings were at least 300 to 1,000 years old, and were the work of an unknown Native American tribe that lived in the area during the Late Woodland Period. The images, located in Sanilac County, became known as the Sanilac Petroglyphs, and are the only known Native American rock carvings in the state of Michigan.

Although researchers could not determine which tribe had carved the images, we do know a little about the petroglyphs' carvers based on the era in which they lived. Native Americans who resided in Michigan during the Late Woodland Period (500 to 1650 AD) were hunters who used bows and arrows. (This means they also followed the old adage, "carve what you know.") Eventually, many of them turned to farming as a means of support, and settled into villages, abandoning their previous nomadic existences as hunters and gatherers.

Today, the Sanilac Petroglyphs attract thousands of visitors every year, and are an excellent resource for tourists interested in the state's native cultures. Yet this popularity comes at a price. The soft sandstone that made an attractive surface for Native American carvers has left the petroglyphs susceptible to erosion and graffiti from modern-day idiots. (I'm calling a spade a spade here.) However, the state has made efforts to protect the site from future damage, so, with luck (as well as respect from the viewing public), the Sanilac Petroglyphs will be around for years to come.

For more information:
Sanilac Petroglyphs State Park website

Facts about the fire: 
The 1881 Thumb Fire came on the heels of the Great Fire of 1871, which afflicted towns, villages, and cities across the state. Both fires stemmed from a variety of causes, primary among them the devastation that logging had wreaked on the landscape. Once loggers removed all the trees from an area, they left behind stumps, branches, and unused wood that made perfect fodder for fires. When weather conditions became hot and dry (as they did during the summers of 1871 and 1881), fires started easily, and quickly spread across the ravaged landscape.

The Thumb Fire was the first official disaster relief project tackled by the American Red Cross, which Clara Barton had founded that same year.

Grand Haven's fallen ship, the Escanaba

The Grand Haven Coast Guard Festival is currently in full swing, running through Sunday, August 4. Attendees will gather at Escanaba Park on Friday, August 2 at 4 p.m. to celebrate Coast Guard members, living and deceased, and to honor the Coast Guardsmen who lost their lives seventy years ago during World War II on the ship that gave the park its name: the Escanaba.

The Escanaba in 1935. 

The Escanaba was a United States Coast Guard cutter built in Bay City and commissioned in 1932. Named after the town and river in the Upper Peninsula, the Escanaba was docked at the Coast Guard station in Grand Haven. Its duties were similar to those of other Coast Guard cutters in the area: breaking ice, conducting rescues, and enforcing laws along the coast.

When the United States entered World War II, the Escanaba moved to Boston and began its new life as an escort for convoys in the North Atlantic. It also conducted search and rescue operations, though on a larger scale than those it had performed in the Great Lakes. The Escanaba was responsible for saving the lives of hundreds of people, from vessels like the SS Cherokee, a passenger ship struck by torpedoes in 1942, and the USAT Dorchester, a United States Army transport ship that fell victim to a torpedo strike on February 3, 1943.

A few months afer the Dorchester rescue, the Escanaba met a fate similar to that of the ship whose sailors it had saved. On June 10, 1943, the Escanaba, along with a few other ships, was escorting a convoy from Greenland to Newfoundland. Shortly after 5 a.m., witnesses saw a wall of flame and a burst of smoke emanate from the ship. No one had heard an explosion, but whatever felled the Escanaba did major damage, as the ship sank so quickly its crew members had no time to issue a distress signal. Out of the Escanaba's 105-man crew, only two survivors and one body were recovered from the Atlantic's cold waters.

At the time of the disaster, investigators suggested that a torpedo may have struck the Escanaba. Today, many students of the tragedy believe the Escanaba may have struck a drifting mine, a buoyant device that explodes when a vessel approaches or contacts it. Regardless of what felled the Escanaba, Grand Haven residents were heartbroken over the loss of their "hometown" vessel, and eventually raised more than $1 million to build another cutter with the same name. The city also started the tradition of memorializing the crew of the Escanaba, who bravely served the Great Lakes and whose dedication to their country was so great that they were willing to sacrifice their lives for it.

Additional Information:

USCG webpage about the Escanaba

Survivor of 1927 Bath School Disaster dies at age 100

One of the last survivors of the Bath Consolidated School bombing, America's worst school-related mass murder, died July 18 at the age of 100.

Bath bombing survivor, 100, dies

Merrien Josephine Cushman wasn't at the school the morning of May 18, 1927, as her grades were high enough that she had earned time off from classes that day. However, her younger brother, Ralph, showed up as usual, and lost his life in the tragedy that killed 45 people (mostly children) and injured at least 58 others. The mass murder was the work of a deranged Bath resident, Andrew Kehoe, who bombed the school over slights he believed he had suffered at the hands of fellow community members.

Kehoe had moved to Bath, about ten miles north of Lansing, in 1919, and quickly became a thorn in the side of local leaders. He was an intelligent man, but impatient and frugal. One source of his ire was the Bath Consolidated School building, which the community built so that all the district's students could attend a single school, rather than divide themselves among the one-room schoolhouses they had previously attended. Kehoe railed against the higher taxes the consolidated school required, but construction proceeded regardless, and the school opened in 1922.




Bath Consolidated School

Kehoe eventually served as treasurer of the Consolidated School board, where his combative personality and penny-pinching ways made him a difficult person with whom to work. During this time, Kehoe suffered a series of financial and emotional setbacks; his wife was sick with tuberculosis, he couldn't pay his bills, and, in 1926, his mortgage company announced the start of foreclosure proceedings on his farm. Many students of the disaster believe Kehoe's "last straw" was the fact that he lost a race for town clerk in 1926; it was after this supposed slight that he developed his plans to bomb the school.

Kehoe began stockpiling explosives, which he planted in the school's basement under the guise that he was working on its lighting system. On May 18, 1927, a few days shy of graduation, Kehoe set his plan in motion. Sometime in the days before the bombing, he had killed his wife, Nellie. Around 8:45 a.m. on the 18th, Kehoe set off firebombs he had wired throughout his farm. (Nellie's body would later be found there, in the charred remains of a chicken coop.) At almost the same time, an alarm clock, set by Kehoe, detonated the explosives he had planted under the school. The school's north wing collapsed into a heap of rubble, taking its young occupants and their teachers with it.

View of the Bath Consolidated School, after the bombing

Kehoe's deadly work wasn't done. As volunteers rushed between his farm and the school, trying to save whoever they could, Kehoe drove his truck, loaded with explosives and metal shrapnel, into town, and parked it near the school. He called to Superintendent Emory Huyck, with whom Kehoe had a fractious relationship, and Huyck approached the truck. A witness later testified that he saw Kehoe and Huyck grapple over a gun that Kehoe had brought with him. Suddenly, the truck exploded, killing both Kehoe and Huyck, as well as three other people (including an eight-year-old boy). The blast injured several others.

By the time Kehoe was done wreaking his vengeance, 45 people (including Kehoe and his wife) had died, and 58 had been injured. More would surely have died save for the fact that the explosives Kehoe wired under the school's south wing did not detonate, possibly because of a short circuit caused by the first explosion.

While Bath struggled to recover, donations poured in from across the nation, including $75,000 from James J. Couzens, Michigan's U.S. Senator. In 1928, the new James Couzens Agricultural School opened on the site of the consolidated school building, and served students until its demolition in 1975. The site now contains a memorial park, the centerpiece of which is a cupola that survived the school bombing and that pays tribute to those who lost their lives on one of the deadliest days in Michigan history.

To read more:

Bath Massacre: America's First School Bombing, by Arnie Bernstein

The Bath School Disaster, by M.J. Ellsworth

Mayday: History of a Village Holocaust, by Grant Parker