The Italian Hall Tragedy

Although I have lived in the lower peninsula most of my life, my family is from the Keweenaw. In fact, my family’s ties to the region are quite strong. My grandfather was even a major figure at Suomi College. Here’s what I stumbled across in "History of the Finns in Michigan," (by Armas K. E. Holmio) on page 402.

"In the history of Suomi College the music and commercial departments, figuratively speaking, make up special chapters of their own. Waino A. Lehto was the head of the commercial department as well as its guiding spirit for over 40 years. For the last few years of his term of service he also served as dean of the college. He was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1894. He left Suomi College in 1964, a number of years after the usual age of retirement."

In fact, my middle name Wayne is an Americanized version of his first name Waino. While researching the Italian Hall, I was asked on more than one occasion if I was related to "Pops" Lehto. One woman even told me that she took his accounting class "a few years back." Then, I ran across his oral history that he gave in the Finlandia Archives. That’s where these pics are from: Gary at Finlandia was kind enough to scan them from a 1964 yearbook for me and send them down.

Sometime late in the day of Christmas Eve, 1913, someone with beautiful penmanship recorded the first official notice of the Italian Hall calamity. The fire department’s log book notes the run that resulted from a call of Fire from Box 45. There was "No Fire," but there was a "disaster."

"Fire call and a stampead following down stairway. All piling on top one another at foot of stairs. 73 lives were crushed out. Mostly children."

This is a scan of the actual page, still kept at Calumet. I’ve enlarged the portion about the 24^th. Click on the images to see them fully. As always, let me know if you have questions.

Steve

I have created an album (look to the right of the page) called Electric Park. Electric Park was one of three parks in the Copper Country in the early 1900s, set up to boost trolley and rail ridership. The parks had pavilions, swings and picnic areas. Bands would play and refreshments were available. Electric Park was centrally located between Calumet and Hancock (the other parks were in Freda and Eagle River) and is the place most people in those two towns went to for socializing and entertainment in the summer.

Electric Park’s best known feature was a big sign that the trolley passengers saw when they arrived: it said "Electric Park" in huge letters, covered with electric lights. Remember that at this time, electricity was still a relatively new thing.

The park’s attendance dropped dramatically the summer of the strike and the park fell out of vogue with the coming of affordable automobiles. The park closed and the buildings were sold for scrap. Now, all that remains is a clearing in the woods and a few pieces of concrete – including the remnants of the trolley platform. These pictures were taken in 2002.

Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Steve

One of the most fascinating things today is how the Internet speeds up research and broadens the net we can cast when we go looking for information.  Back when I was in school (we had word processors but no Internet), we had to go and dig through libraries and archives, not knowing what we would find.  Today, we can poke around on the net before going to the library, which often yields interesting results.  For example, I found quite a few things on the net that I never would have found otherwise.  Here's one:

That is an actual page from the deed to the Italian Hall.  It is currently owned by Brad Curtin, who lives in WI and is someone I "met" on line.  I saw a post he made on pasty.com where he mentioned that he had this.  An email later, and I was looking at a scanned copy on my computer.  John Rastello -- whose signature is on the bottom right -- also testified before the Coroner's Inquest into the tragedy.  Ominously, the attorneys (at the top right) who oversaw the execution of this document, were the same attorneys who handled affairs for the mines and the Citizens Alliance. 

 It was a small world in Calumet 1913.  And much of it is caught on this page.  Thanks Brad!

 Steve 

The Italian Hall was a two story building in Calumet, built in 1908.  It replaced a building that had burned down in 1907 -- which replaced a building that was blown down in a windstorm a few years earlier.  In 1908, the papers noted how the Hall seemed to attract bad luck.  Here is a picture of the Hall as it looked around 1913.

On the far left, you'll see the arch that led to the upstairs meeting room where the party was held on Christmas Eve.  The lower floor of the building was occupied by Vairo's saloon (that's the sign that sticks out from the building) and a "Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co" store.

You'll notice that this photo has writing across the face of the building -- this photo was probably taken and used to make a postcard.  Much of the news of the time was spread from place to place by postcard.  This photo's caption reads:  "Italian Hall Calumet, Mich.  The door at the left is where the people were jammed."  I assume that the writing was done directly on the negative and that's why it comes out white in the print.  (If I'm wrong about that, please let me know!)

 As always, you can click on the picture and see it much larger.  Also, if you have any comments or questions feel free to email me or post comments here.

You have to use your imagination sometimes as you drive slowly around the Copper Country. Here is a photo of a vacant lot. The weeds are high – the photo was taken in August – but under the foliage somewhere is the remains of an old boardinghouse. There are still old houses up and down this street in Seeberville, but the one on this spot is long gone. One reason might be tied to the history of this lot. The boarding house here was the site of a double murder in 1913.

The miners’ strike which began in the Summer of 1913 had ripples of violence throughout, but the first deaths attributable to the strike happened here, at the boardinghouse run by the Putrich family. Some guards from the mines – strike breakers brought in from out of state – had an argument with some striking miners. The guards had come to the boardinghouse to round up some of the men and take them to the mine captain’s office for a lecture about crossing company property. When the men refused to come willingly, the guards tried to grab one man and in the ensuing struggle, the guards drew their guns (most of the guards were armed) and began firing at the men in the yard and then into the house.

Witnesses later said the house was so filled with smoke from the guns that people inside the house couldn’t see anything but smoke. When the smoke cleared, two men died who had nothing to do with the initial confrontation.

Why is this important to the Italian Hall story? Hearings were held – including a coroner’s inquest – into the deaths at the Putrich boarding house. Those hearings, saved for posterity in transcript form, show that the powers that ran Houghton County in 1913 were capable of conducting well-run hearings when they wanted to. Murders could be investigated and solved. Murderers could be tried and convicted. Researchers of this topic are well advised to compare the transcripts from these hearings to those conducted later for the Italian Hall tragedy.

Several men were convicted of murder in the Putrich Boardinghouse incident (often called the "Seeberville" murders), but no one was ever brought to justice for what happened a few months later at the Italian Hall. If you go to the Copper Country, visit Seeberville. It’s not on many maps, but it’s just outside (southeast) of Painesdale. At the top of the hill, you’ll see the Seeberville sign. Take that road down and you’ll find this lot on the right hand side a few hundred yards. It’s quiet and empty now, but it wasn’t always that way.

We have a tentative title for the book: "Death's Door."  The topic of how to come up with a good title for a book would be too extensive to launch into here, but we had to come up with something that captured the event from a variety of angles.  (And I'll admit: the editors at Momentum Books came up with it.)  Although the doors did not cause any of the deaths, the doors and the arch at the bottom of the stairs are a focal point of the story.  After all, those who made it through the doors to the arch survived.

 Here is the photo that is most commonly shown of the doors to the Italian Hall.

One of the amazing aspects of this story -- and something I wound up spending an entire chapter on -- was how much dispute there was (and still is) over which way these doors opened.  We can talk about that later on: for now I just wanted to mention the name of the book.

As always, email me with questions and comments.

Steve

Welcome to my blog . . . I am a writer of history and have just finished a book on the Italian Hall tragedy.  If you do not know of the event, you should see www.1913massacre.com, which is a project devoted to the song Woody Guthrie wrote about it.  Although the song is not a documentary (as far as accuracy goes) it is a good starting point to approach the story. 

Simply put: during a party on Christmas Eve (1913), someone yelled FIRE in the second floor of the Italian Hall in Calumet, MICH, causing a panic.  In the following moments, at least 73 people died in the crush at the bottom of the stairs leading out of the building. 

Since then controversy has surrounded the event and despite various investigations, no one was ever identified or prosecuted for what was most likely a crime (i.e., there was no fire and the person who yelled FIRE did so specifically to cause a panic.)

My book is set to be published later this year by Momentum Books LLC.  Check back here for  updates on the publishing schedule and for other things of interest from the Copper Country.  Let me know if you have questions.

--Steve