• Sunday-What'sUP October 10 - 04:46 am

Here's a spot we've visited on several occasions during this 14 year daily trek through Michigan's Upper Peninsula. We've explored the Italian Hall disaster as it happened in 1913, and we've seen the memorial arch as it is today, but this is a glimpse of a moment in between, when the infamous building was torn down. I'm not sure of the date, although we get a clue from the vehicles in the second photo, suggesting the early 80's.

Also, I just learned that the documentary "1913 Massacre", based around Woody Guthrie's song, was completed this summer. Find out more at 1913massacre.com.

Colors across the U.P. are about at their peak. Have safe travels, and have a good week :o)

What a tragic ordeal, all the lives lost. The second picture I can hear Ricardo Montalban saying, "Cordoba, look what they have done to my car!"

One would hope that the film does not follow the song too closely. I am a fan of Woody Guthrie's work, he was a great artist and represented America's poor when that was politically incorrect. However, much Woody's hyperbole in 1913 MASSACRE is been proven incorrect by more unbiased historians such as Lankton, Thurner, and Hoagland.
Steve Lehto in DEATH"S DOOR concludes in favor of the unknown man wearing a Citizen's Alliance button calling fire theory. There are other theories which are equally plausible. Testimony from the corner's inquest has been published. All of this is available for one to draw their own conclusion. Beware, there still is some highly biased, bad history being published. BIG ANNIE OF CALUMET is the most note worthy piece of bias and inaccuracy published in recent times - by a professor of history at UC Bakersfield no less, a symptom of our failing education system.
We will never be 100% sure of what happened that night. Hopefully the makers of this film have approached the topic with an open mind.

Dropped the "O" in coroner!

hmmmm.....very interesting. After reading the website you posted, Charlie, I got knocked off the internet...hmmmm :-S

I click on Oct. 9th Whats Up and I get it for Oct. 2nd. Whats' up with that?

Thank's for the head's up on the What'sUP. It's fixed now.

I knew three men who were children at the time, and attended that tragic Christmas party.
Vivian Nordstrom from Bete Gris, was in the pile by the door. He had a quarter in his hand that he had just be given for a gift. It cut into his hand because he wasn't about to let go of it. He would show people the scar.
Emil Leskela and his brother Alex from Kearsarge were near the bandstand. Emil told the story many times of how his mother saved them both by holding them against the wall. He said someone shouted fire and she told them there was no fire and to stay there.

I'm surprised to see the arch in the first photo, the top of it knocked down. I always thought the arch at the memorial site had been left in its original location untouched by the demolition. Obviously they rebuilt it, perhaps farther back from the street.

E Neil Harri, thank you for posting that info. It is so interesting to read about personal experiences like that.

BTW there was an E Neil Harri aerial picture shown by the weatherman on a local TV station down here in the Saginaw, Flint, Bay City area.

I am glad you got the heads up on the whats up, thanks for fixing it. (*_*)