Halloween Time Books Reviewed

Death’s Door: The Truth Behind Michigan’s Largest Mass Murder By: Steve Lehto
Non-Fiction, true crime 213 pages copyright 2006

This book tells the story of the largest mass murder to take place in Michigan. A case where the killer was never found and at this time will likely never be found as all who knew was really happened are most likely dead by now. It is known as the Italian Hall tragedy which took place on December 24, 1913 in Red Jacket (also know as Calumet) in Michigan’s copper country in the U.P.(upper peninsula for non Michiganders) A man called fire in a crowded building where a Christmas party was taken place and 73 or 74 people (depending on the source) were killed the vast majority of them were children. According to most everyone there was no fire. Also, most believe it was connected with the mining strike that had been going on for ½ a year as witnesses near the man saw a pin like that that the pro-mine owners wore and the hall was filled with children of the striking miners. This was an event that was sung about in Woody Guthrie’s “1913 Massacre” and later used by Bob Dylan, although many people in the area were upset at the inaccuracies in the song. This book was written by a lawyer from Michigan who looking into this case as a lawyer would. He read accounts of the event and the events surrounding it from that time from all the sources possible. He also used interviews, other later recordings of the people involved talking about the event and pictures and drawings of the hall at that time in order to dig threw it and find out what most likely happened. Some sources were almost completely unreliable such as the town paper and police that were controlled by the mine owners. Some sources were less then optimal because most of the miners involved spoke English as a second language (often not very well), but were often forced to give their testimony on the event in English with no translators and were questioned by people with an agenda to take any blame away from the minds and so the questions they were asked were not the questions that we would like asked and the answers are often short and not completely understandable. But by taking all this information and putting it together a picture of what most likely happened develops making this a good starting point for anyone interested in this part of Michigan history.