The Devil's Right Hand

Chicago's "Thrill Killers" & their "Perfect Crime"

2013-05-21T11:05:00.002-05:00

CHICAGO’S THRILL KILLERS & THE “PERFECT CRIME”

On this date, May 21, 1924, the sons of two of Chicago's wealthiest and most illustrious families drove to the Harvard School on the city's South Side and kidnapped a young boy named Bobby Franks. Their plan was to carry out the "perfect murder." It was a scheme so devious that only two men of superior intellect, such as their own, could accomplish. These two were Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold. They were the privileged heirs of well-known Chicago families who had embarked on a life of crime for fun and for the pure thrill of it. They were also a pair of sexual deviants who considered themselves to be "brilliant" --- a claim that would later lead to their downfall.

Nathan Leopold, or "Babe" as his friends knew him, had been born in 1906 and from an early age had a number of sexual encounters, starting with the advances of a governess and culminating in a relationship with Richard Loeb. He was an excellent student with a genius IQ and was only 18 when he graduated from the University of Chicago. He was an expert ornithologist and botanist and spoke nine languages fluently. Like many future killers, his family life was totally empty and devoid of control. His mother had died when he was young and his father gave him little personal attention. He compensated for his lack of fatherly direction with expensive presents and huge sums of money. Leopold was given $3,000 to tour Europe before entering Harvard Law School, a car of his own and a $125-a-week allowance.

Richard Loeb was the son of the Vice President of Sears & Roebuck and while he was as wealthy as his friend was, Loeb was merely a clever young man and far from brilliant. He was, however, quite handsome and charming and what he lacked in intelligence, he more than made up for in arrogance. Both of the young men were obsessed with perfection. To them, perfection meant being above all others, which their station in life endorsed. They felt they were immune to laws and criticism, which meant they were perfect.

Chicago’s infamous “Thrill Killers”, Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold standing on either side of their famous defense attorney, Clarence Darrow.

Loeb fancied himself a master criminal detective, but his dream was to commit the perfect crime. With his more docile companion in tow, Loeb began developing what he believed to be the perfect scheme. He also constantly searched for ways to control others. Leopold, who was easily dominated, agreed to join him in a life of crime. Over the course of the next four years, they committed robbery, vandalism, arson and petty theft, but this was not enough for Loeb. He dreamed of something bigger. A murder, he convinced his friend, would be their greatest intellectual challenge.

They worked out a plan during the next seven months. The plan was to kidnap someone and they would make it appear as though that person was being held for ransom. They would write the ransom note on a typewriter that had been stolen from Loeb's old fraternity house at the University of Michigan and make the family of the victim believe that he would be returned to them. Leopold and Loeb had no such plans though ---- they intended to kill their captive.

In May 1924, they rented a car and drove to a hardware store at 43rd and Cottage Avenue, where they purchased some rope, a chisel and a bottle of hydrochloric acid. They would garrote their victim, stab him with the chisel if necessary, and then destroy his identity with the acid.

The next day, they met at Leopold's home and wrapped the handle of the chisel with adhesive tape so that it offered a better grip. They also gathered together a blanket and strips of cloth that could be used to wrap up and bind their victim. Leopold also placed a pair of wading boots in the car because the boys planned to deposit the body in the swamps near Wolf Lake, located south of the city. They packed loaded pistols for each of them and looked over the already typed ransom note that demanded $10,000 in cash. Neither of them needed the money but they felt the note would convince the authorities that the kidnappers were lowly, money-hungry criminals and deflect attention from people like Leopold and Loeb.

They had only overlooked one thing ---- a victim.

They first considered killing Loeb's younger brother, Tommy, but they discarded that idea. It was not because Tommy was a family member but only because it would have been hard for Loeb to collect the ransom money without arousing suspicion. They also considering killing Armand Deutsch, grandson of millionaire philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, but also dismissed this idea because Rosenwald was the president of Sears & Roebuck and Loeb's father's immediate boss. They also came close to agreeing to kill their friend, Richard Rubel, who regularly had lunch with them. Rubel was ruled out, not because he was a good friend to them, but because they knew his father was cheap and would never agree to pay the ransom.

They could not agree on anyone but did feel that their victim should be small, so that he could be easily subdued. With that in mind, they decided to check out the Harvard Preparatory School, which was located across the street from Leopold's home. They climbed into their rental car and began to drive. As they drove, Leopold noticed some boys near Ellis Avenue and Loeb pointed out one of them that he recognized --- 14-year-old Bobby Franks. He was the son of the millionaire Jacob Franks, and a distant cousin of Loeb.

Chosen by chance, he would make the perfect victim for the perfect crime.

Bobby was already acquainted with his killers. He had played tennis with Loeb several times and he happily climbed into the car. Although at their trial, both denied being the actual killer, Leopold was at the wheel and Loeb was in the back, gripping the murder weapon tightly in his hands. They drove Bobby to within a few blocks of the Franks residence in Hyde Park and then Loeb suddenly grabbed the boy, stuffed a gag in his mouth and smashed his skull four times with a chisel. The rope had been forgotten. Bobby collapsed onto the floor of the car, unconscious and bleeding badly.

Bobby Franks

When Leopold saw the blood spurting from Bobby's head, he cried out, "Oh God, I didn't know it would be like this!"

Loeb ignored him, intent on his horrific task. Even though Bobby was unconscious, he stuffed his mouth with rags and wrapped him up in the heavy blanket. The boy continued to bleed for a time and then died.

With the excitement of the actual murder concluded, Leopold and Loeb casually drove south, stopped for lunch, and then drove for a little while longer. They had supper as they waited for the sun to go down. Eventually, they ended up near a culvert along the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks. It emptied into a swamp along Wolf Lake.

Leopold put on his hip boots and carried Bobby's body to the culvert. They had stripped all of the clothes from the boy's body and then after dunking his head underwater to make sure that he was dead, they poured acid on his face in hopes that he would be harder to identify. Leopold then struggled to shove the naked boy into the pipe and took his coat off to make the work easier. Unknown to the killers, a pair of eyeglasses were in the pocket of Leopold's coat and they fell out into the water when he removed it. This would be the undoing of the "perfect crime."

After pushing the body as far into the pipe as he could, Leopold sloshed out of the mud toward the car, where Loeb waited for him. The killers believed that the body would not be found until long after the ransom money had been received. With darkness falling, though, Leopold failed to notice that Bobby's foot was dangling from the end of the culvert.

They drove back to the city and parked the rental car next to a large apartment building. Bobby's blood had soaked through the blanket that he had been wrapped in and had stained the automobile's upholstery. The blanket was hidden in a nearby yard and the boys burned Bobby's clothing at Leopold's house. They typed out the Franks' address on the already prepared ransom note. After this, they hurried back to the car and drove to Indiana, where they buried the shoes that Bobby had worn and everything that he had on him that was made from metal, including his belt buckle and class pin from the prep school.

Finally, their "perfect crime" carried out, they drove back to Leopold's home and spent the rest of the evening drinking and playing cards. Around midnight, they telephoned the Franks' home and told Mr. Franks that he could soon expect a ransom demand for the return of his son. "Tell the police and he will be killed at once," they told Mr. Franks. "You will receive a ransom note with instructions tomorrow."

The next morning, the ransom note, signed with the name "George Johnson," was delivered to the Franks, demanding $10,000 in old, unmarked $10 and $20 bills. The money was to be placed in a cigar box that should be wrapped in white paper and sealed with wax. After its arrival, the Franks' lawyer notified the police, who promised no publicity.

Meanwhile, Leopold and Loeb continued with the elaborate game they had concocted. They took the bloody blanket to an empty lot, burned it, and then drove to Jackson Park, where Loeb tore the keys out of his stolen typewriter. He threw the keys into one lagoon in the park and the typewriter into another. Later in the afternoon, Loeb took a train ride to Michigan City, leaving a note addressed to the Franks in the telegram slot of a desk in the train's observation car. He got off the train at 63rd Street, as it returned to the city, and rejoined the waiting Leopold. Andy Russo, a yardman, found the letter and sent it to the Franks.

However, by the time the letter arrived, railroad maintenance men had already stumbled upon the body of Bobby Franks. The police notified Jacob Franks and he sent his brother-in-law to identify the body. He confirmed that it was Bobby and the newspapers went into overdrive, producing "extra" editions that were on the street in a matter of hours.

One of the largest manhunts in the history of Chicago began. Witnesses and suspects were picked up in huge numbers and slowly the "perfect crime" began to unravel. Despite their "mental prowess" and "high intelligence," Leopold and Loeb were quickly caught. Leopold had dropped his eyeglasses near the spot where the body had been hidden and police had traced the prescription to Albert Coe & Co., who stated that only three pair of glasses with such unusual frames had been sold. One pair belonged to an attorney, who was away in Europe, the other to a woman and the third pair had been sold to Nathan Leopold.

Police officers search for clues at Wolf Lake, where Bobby Franks’ body was found

The boys were brought in for questioning and began supplying alibis for the time when Bobby had gone missing. They had been with two girlfriends, they claimed, "May and Edna." The police asked them to produce the girls but the killers could not. Leopold claimed that he had apparently lost the glasses at Wolf Lake during a recent bird-hunting trip. The detectives noted that it had rained a few days before but the glasses were clean. Could Leopold explain this? He couldn't.

Then, two novice reporters, Al Goldstein and Jim Mulroy, obtained letters that Richard Loeb had written with the stolen typewriter --- which had already been found in Jackson Park. The letters matched the type on the ransom note, which was a perfect match for the typewriter that Leopold had "borrowed" from his fraternity house the year before.

Loeb broke first. He said that the murder was a lark, an experiment in crime to see if the "perfect murder" could be carried out. He then denied being the killer and claimed that he had driven the car while Leopold had slashed Bobby Franks to death. Leopold refuted this. Finally, the boys were brought together and admitted the truth. Loeb had been the killer, Leopold had driven the car but both of them had planned the crime together --- they were both guilty of Bobby Franks' murder.

The people of Chicago, and the rest of the nation, were stunned. It was fully expected that the two would receive a death sentence for the callous and cold-blooded crime.

After the confession, Loeb's family disowned him but Leopold's father turned to Clarence Darrow, America's most famous defense attorney, in hopes that he might save his son. For $100,000, Darrow agreed to seek the best possible verdict that he could, which in this case was life in prison. "While the State is trying Loeb and Leopold," Darrow said. "I will try capital punishment."

Darrow would have less trouble with the case than he would with his clients, who constantly clowned around and hammed it up in the courtroom. The newspaper photographers frequently snapped photos of them smirking and laughing in court and the public, already turned against them, became even more hostile toward the "poor little rich boys."

Darrow was fighting an uphill battle, but he brought out every trick in the book and used shameless tactics during the trial. He declared the boys to be insane. Leopold, he said, was a dangerous schizophrenic. They weren't criminals, he railed, they just couldn't help themselves. After this weighty proclamation, Darrow actually began to weep. The trial became a landmark in criminal law. He offered a detailed description of what would happen to the boys as they were hanged, providing a graphic image of bodily functions and physical pain. Darrow even turned to the prosecutor and invited him to personally perform the execution.

Darrow's horrifying description had a marked effect on the courtroom and especially on the defendants. Loeb was observed to shudder and Leopold got so hysterical that he had to be taken out of the courtroom. Darrow then wept for the defendants, wept for Bobby Franks, and then wept for defendants and victims everywhere. He managed to get the best verdict possible out of the case. The defendants were given life in prison for Bobby Frank's murder and an additional 99 years for his kidnapping.

Ironically, after all of that, Darrow only managed to get $40,000 of his fee from Leopold's father. He got this after a seven-month wait and the threat of a lawsuit.

Leopold and Loeb were sent to the Joliet Penitentiary. Even though the warden claimed they were treated just like all of the other prisoners, they each enjoyed a private cell, books, a desk, a filing cabinet and even pet birds. They also showered away from the other prisoners and took their meals, which were prepared to order, in the officers' lounge. Leopold was allowed to keep a flower garden. They were also permitted any number of unsupervised visitors. The doors to their cells were usually left open and they had passes to visit one another at any time.

Richard Loeb was eventually killed by another inmate, against whom he had been reportedly making sexual advances. The inmate, James Day, turned on him in a bathroom and attached him with a razor. Loeb, covered in blood, managed to make it out of the bathroom and he collapsed in the hallway. He was found bleeding by guards and he died a short time later. It was later discovered that Day had slashed him 56 times with the razor. When Clarence Darrow was told of Loeb's death, he slowly shook his head. "He is better off dead," the great attorney said, "For him, death is an easier sentence."

Leopold lived on in prison for many years and was said to have made many adjustments to his character and some would even say rehabilitated completely. Even so, appeals for his parole were turned down three times. Finally, in 1958, the poet Carl Sandburg, who even went as far as to offer Leopold a room in his own home, pleaded his fourth appeal. Finally, in March of that year, he was released.

He was allowed to go to Puerto Rico, where he worked among the poor and married a widow named Trudi Feldman Garcia de Quevedo, who owned a flower shop. He went on to write a book about his experiences called Life Plus 99 Years and continued to be hounded by the press for his role in the "perfect murder" that he had committed decades before. He stated that he would be "haunted" by what he had done for the rest of his life.

Nathan Leopold died of heart failure on August 30, 1971, bringing an end to one of the most harrowing stories in the history of the city.

Sending Leopold and Loeb to prison, according to many people, did not bring about an end to this macabre case, thanks to two restless ghosts that continued to walk for many years afterward. The spirit with the most horrible connection to the case was that of Bobby Franks, who took nearly 50 years to find peace.

During this time, visitors to Rosehill Cemetery on the north side of Chicago often reported seeing the ghost of a young boy standing among the stones and mausoleums in the Jewish section of the graveyard. It is here where the Franks family mausoleum is located, although its location is not listed on any maps of the cemetery and employees are instructed not to point it out to curiosity-seekers. Even so, this tomb can be discovered within the confines of the beautiful burial ground and starting in the 1920s, maintenance workers and visitors alike encountered the ghostly boy. Many came to believe that it was the ghost of Bobby Franks, unable to rest in the wake of his bloody and violent death.

Franks Mausoleum

The boy was often seen wandering here but only from a distance. Whenever he was approached, the apparition would vanish. These sightings continued for years but eventually, they seemed to fade away. It's been noted that the encounters ended at nearly the exact same time that Nathan Leopold died in Puerto Rico. Could there be a connection between these two events? It certainly seems possible and perhaps Bobby Frank can now find peace on the other side.

The other ghost from this case was that of famous attorney Clarence Darrow. When Darrow died in 1936, his ashes were scattered over the lagoon at Jackson Park, just behind the Museum of Science and Industry. While standing on what has been named the Clarence Darrow Bridge, many people have somewhat regularly spotted what is likely Darrow's ghost on a veranda that spans the back of the museum. This wide stone area is at the bottom of the steps leading into the rear entrance of the museum. The ghost is reportedly seen dressed in a suit, hat and overcoat and bears a striking resemblance to the attorney. The figure is reported to stand and stare out across the water before disappearing.

Does the ghost of Clarence Darrow walk at the Museum of Science and Industry?

The story of Leopold and Loeb – along with dozens of other sensational Chicago crimes, ghost stories and strange happenings – can be found in the book WEIRD CHICAGO, from the creators of the famous tour. The book is available in print and in a Kindle edition!

The "Disappearance" of Sister Aimee

2013-05-18T09:43:00.000-05:00

The “Disappearance” of Sister Aimee

Trouble in L.A.’s Jesus Racket

During the early days of Hollywood, when most American preachers were shouting from their pulpits about the sin and depravity to be found in Tinseltown, another evangelist was presenting a kinder, gentler message. She did so with flamboyant presentations that were right out of a Hollywood musical and, in fact, the regular appearance of movie stars at her services was one of her claims to fame. The evangelist’s name was Aimee Semple McPherson and the Pentecostal church that she founded, the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, still exists today.

“Sister Aimee” as she was known to her legion of followers attracted scores of people to her flock with her extravagant services, radio show and personal appearances. But then on May 18, 1926, Aimee mysteriously vanished while visiting a beach in Santa Monica. The press and the public were shocked by her disappearance, which lasted more than a month. When she reappeared, she claimed that she had been kidnapped and held for ransom – but had she really?

Sister Aimee was born Aimee Kennedy and was raised on a farm in Ontario, Canada. Growing up, she was introduced to an inclusive, positive theology, which as practiced by her grandfather, a Salvation Army captain. After a crisis of faith, she was converted to Pentecostalism by evangelist Robert Semple, whom she joined in preaching revivals and married in 1908. Two years later, while they were awaiting their papers to travel into China as missionaries, Semple died in Hong Kong. Aimee, now with an infant daughter, returned to the U.S. and began working for the Salvation Army in New York. She married a second time, in 1912, to a grocery salesman named Harold McPherson, and gave birth to a son. Aimee tried to settle down to the quiet life of a housewife, but she was unable to do it. She felt that she was destined for bigger things and was in her heart, an evangelist.

Sister Aimee Semple McPherson at the height of her popularity.

She divorced McPherson in 1918 and she, her children, and her mother, Minnie, with nothing more than $100 and a tambourine, drove to Los Angeles. It was a trip that Aimee later referred to as a spiritual quest that ended in a revelation. She believed that the “City of Angels” was the doorway to heaven and, for a time, it certainly seemed to be.

She began spreading her message in every way possible, even throwing tracts from an airplane as it flew over neighborhoods populated by recent arrivals to the area. She was soon packing standing-room-only crowds into the Philharmonic Auditorium, the largest venue in L.A. By 1923, she had her own Angelus Temple, which seated 5,300 people and cost more than $1.5 million to build. At her services, she entertained the curious and the faithful alike with bizarre stage sketches that featured a USC football player making a touchdown for Jesus and a LAPD motorcycle cop riding in to arrest sin. Everyone loved the show and soon her popularity would rival that accorded to some movie stars. To thousands, she was “God’s Little Child.”

Besides entertaining and preaching, Aimee was also an avid organizer. She added some 250 affiliated churches, a rescue mission, a publications division, an orchestra, and a radio station, creating a massive organization that is only rivaled by today’s mega-churches. She also composed 180 hymns and several musical pageants, all of which were very upbeat and offered redemption. In keeping with her Salvation Army background, she also designed uniforms for herself and her female bodyguards.

Not surprisingly, Aimee had a talent for raising money, which supported the church, her mansion near MGM Studios in Culver City, her expensive clothes, and fine automobile. At collection time, she would often tell her supporters from the stage, “Sister has a headache tonight. Only quiet money, please.”

As the money rolled in, stories of miraculous cures began to spread. A “miracle room” in the Angelus Temple was filled with discarded crutches, wheelchairs, and even the leg braces of a 10-year-old polio victim. He was so confident when he came to visit Sister Aimee that he brought another pair of shoes with him to wear home. The stories claimed that he walked out of the Temple.

Then, in 1926, Aimee’s glory days came to an end. A scandal captured the imagination of readers across America and titillated them for weeks afterward.

On the afternoon of May 18, 1926, Aimee was spotted swimming off Ocean Park Beach in Santa Monica – and then vanished without a trace. She was presumed to have drowned, but after a massive search effort (during which a church member and a professional diver drowned), no body was recovered. Then, on June 23, three days after an all-day memorial service attended by thousands of weeping, hysterical mourners, she turned up in the Mexican town of Agua Prieta, claiming that she had been kidnapped and held in a shack in the Sonoran desert. On her return to Los Angeles, a carpet of roses was spread when she disembarked from the train and more than 100,000 of her followers lined the streets and cheered as she drove by.

But all was not what it seemed to be. It was soon discovered that, despite Aimee’s angry denials, she had actually spent the month at a cottage in Carmel, shacked up with Kenneth Ormiston, a married engineer on the staff of her radio station. For nearly six months, L.A. District Attorney Asa Keyes gathered evidence (which included a Carmel grocery store shopping list in her handwriting), planning to charge her with conspiracy to produce false testimony. “Fighting Bob” Shuler, a rival evangelist, took the opportunity to enter the fray, denouncing Aimee, her Temple, and her ministry. Since he and Aimee alternated their broadcasts on the same radio wavelength, he had no trouble reaching her followers. Somehow, he tracked down Harold McPherson and had him on the air for four straight broadcasts, airing all of Aimee’s dirty laundry. For her part, Aimee claimed the entire scandal was the “work of the Devil.”

Aimee’s fame saved her from prosecution. Inexplicably, the District Attorney decided that the case that he had built against her was too weak to bring against a person of her tremendous popularity. On the evening that D.A. Keyes made the announcement, the faithful mobbed Aimee and the newspapers spread the news in glaring headlines. But the damage was already done, for most of America, Aimee had become a dirty joke.

Aimee Semple McPherson carried on for 20 more years, preaching and defending herself against the old scandal. It never seemed to go away and in 1930, she suffered a nervous breakdown. She was prescribed Seconal to deal with her anxieties and on September 27, 1944, she died in San Francisco from an accidental overdose. Some of her closest friends attributed the accident to a combination of a broken heart and exhaustion from her endless struggle to restore her name, popularity, and influence. At her funeral, held at the Angelus Temple, more than 40,000 mourners passed by her casket and bid their farewell to “God’s Little Angel.”

Strangely, a weird rumor followed Aimee to the grave. When she was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in a huge tomb with an iron gate, guarded by two kneeling marble angels, it was said that a direct telephone line to the Angelus Temple was buried with her. That way, when she returned (as her followers believed she would), she would be able to alert someone to come to the cemetery and let her out of the tomb.

As author David Wallace said, if the story isn’t true, it should be.

"Oh, the Humanity...."

2013-05-06T09:20:00.001-05:00

“OH, THE HUMANITY…”

History and Hauntings of the Hindenburg Disaster

On May 6, 1937, one of the most photographed and familiar disasters of the twentieth century occurred as the German zeppelin airship LZ 129 Hindenburg burst into a massive ball of flames as it descended over Lakehurst, New Jersey. Seven million cubic feet of ignited hydrogen incinerated the dirigible in just 34 seconds, long before it could hit the ground. The disaster shocked the world, dealt a blow to Nazi propaganda, effectively ended the era of lighter-than-air travel and claimed the lives of 35 crew members and passengers and one person on the ground.

To this day, the anguished cries of radio reporter Herbert Morrison, as he broadcast from the scene, can still send chills down the spine of the most jaded listener. But Morrison’s famous radio report is not all that lingers of this fiery calamity. Some believe the spirits of the Hindenburg dead still linger, as well.

Dirigibles, or airships, first came to the attention of the public as a method of air travel in the late 1700s. They were really considered more of a novelty than for practical use until the latter part of the 1800s, when a few inventors began to attach propulsion motors to their balloons in order to get from one place to another.

However, the “Golden Age of Airships” really began in July 1900 with the launch of the Luftschiff Zeppelin LZ1. This grand experiment led to the most successful airships of all time: the Zeppelins. They were named after Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, who began working with rigid airship designs in the 1890s. The airships had a framework composed of triangular lattice girders, covered with fabric and containing separate gas cells. Tail fins were added for control and stability and two engine and crew cars hung beneath the hull driving propellers, which were attached to the sides of the frame by means of long drive shafts. Additionally, there was a passenger compartment located halfway between the two cars.

During World War I, airships were briefly used as bombers, but they proved to be a terrifying, yet inaccurate weapon. Navigation and target selection proved to be difficult under the best of conditions. The darkness, high altitudes and clouds that were frequently encountered by Zeppelin missions reduced accuracy even further. Their flammable hydrogen lifting gas made them vulnerable at lower altitudes. Several were shot down in flames and others crashed en route. They began to fly higher, above the range of other aircraft, but this made their accuracy even worse. In the end, airships were best suited for scouting during the war and the bombing raids turned out to be disastrous in terms of morale, men and material. Many pioneers of the German airship service died in what was the first strategic bombing campaign in history.

After the war, a number of nations operated airships, including Britain, the United States, Italy, France, Russia and Japan. Most discontinued their use by the early 1930s and, within a few years, only Germany was still in pursuit of the superior airship. The Zeppelin company was operating a passenger service between Frankfort and Recife in Brazil, which took 68 hours. In the middle 1930s, the company started building an airship that was specifically designed to offer passenger service across the Atlantic to the United States.

The Nazis saw the immense airships as another way of establishing their dominance in the world.

After Adolph Hitler’s rise to power, around this same time, the Zeppelin lent itself to exploitation by the Nazis. The German public perceived the development of the airships as a national achievement, rather than as a business one. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels employed airships in mass events, as a daunting symbol of Nazi power. With no other country in the world employing the massive airships on a regular basis, Germany flaunted its superiority in this area, starting a regular transatlantic service in March 1936.

On May 3, 1937, the Luftschiff Zeppelin 129 Hindenburg departed from the Rhein-Main Airport in Frankfort, Germany, lifting into the air toward the United States. The airship’s namesake was the recently deceased Paul von Hindenburg, a World War I field marshal, president of the Weimar Republic and a national figure. The Hindenburg was over eight hundred feet long, 135 feet in diameter, and weighed approximately two hundred and fifty tons. To provide the lift that was required to get the monstrous ship off the ground, its sixteen gas cells had to be filled with combustible hydrogen.

The passenger lounge (with grand piano for entertainment) where passengers could rest, eat, sleep and socialize during the flight. (Below) A two-berth cabin on the Hindenburg. A wash basin was included in each small cabin, with the toilets and shower on another deck.

Since its maiden flight in 1936, the Hindenburg had completed twenty flights across the Atlantic Ocean and had broken the speed record of previous Zeppelins. Under normal conditions, its engines accelerated the airship to 84 miles per hour, but favorable winds had allowed for top speeds of up to 188 miles per hour. A westward trip from Germany to the United States took an average of 36 hours and 42 minutes. Although the Hindenburg had been built to accommodate between fifty and seventy passengers, it carried only 36 travelers in addition to 61 crew members when it embarked on its fatal final flight. The passengers could rest in twenty heated cabins at the center of the hull’s lower decks. Amenities on board included a dining room, a reading, writing and smoking room, and centrally located restrooms with showers. Panoramic windows embedded in the concave hull provided spectacular views for those on the promenade deck.

From the start of the trip, Captains Max Pruss and Ernest Lehmann had to confront a number of problems, all of them due to bad weather conditions. Storms first kept the airship from crossing the English Channel and then delayed its journey across the Atlantic. Blown off course to Newfoundland, it passed over Manhattan behind schedule at 3:00 p.m. on May 6. It finally reached the Naval Air station in Lakehurst, New Jersey, at 6:00 p.m. but heavy rain kept the airship from initiating landing procedures. After an hour, the storm passed and the Hindenburg approached the mooring mast. It was to be a high landing, known as a flying moor, after which the airship would be winched down to ground level. This type of landing maneuver reduced the number of necessary ground crew, but required more time. The landing was initiated at 7:00 p.m.

At 7:09 p.m., however, the airship made a sharp full speed left turn to the west around the landing field because the ground crew was not ready. Two minutes later, it turned back toward the landing field and began to slow. Three minutes later, Captain Pruss ordered all engines full astern so that the airship could be stopped. At 7:17 p.m., the wind shifted direction to the southwest and Pruss was forced to make a second, sweeping sharp turn, this time to the starboard. Two minutes later, the airship made another sharp turn and dropped its water ballast because the Hindenburg was stern-heavy. Six men were also sent to the bow to trim the airship, which allowed it to be on an even keel as it stopped. At 7:21 p.m., the mooring lines were dropped from the bow. The starboard line was dropped first, followed by the port line. The port line was connected to the post of the ground winch. The starboard line was left dangling.

At 7:25 p.m., a few witnesses saw the fabric ahead of the upper fin flutter as though gas was leaking. Other witnesses also reported seeing blue discharges, possibly static electricity, moments before fire erupted on top of the ship. Several other eyewitness testimonies suggest that the first flame appeared on the port side just ahead of the port fin, and was followed by flames that burned on top. On board, people heard a muffled explosion and those in the front of the ship felt a shock as the port mooring rope jerked on its winch. The officers in the control car initially thought the shock was caused by a broken rope.

Moments later, the Hindenburg caught fire and became engulfed in flames.

The Hindenburg bursts into flames. The series of photos below shows the airship as it slowly descended – on fire – to the ground.

The fire quickly spread. Almost instantly, a water tank and a fuel tank burst out of the hull due to the shock of the blast. This shock also caused a crack behind the passenger decks and the rear of the structure imploded. The stern of the ship lost its buoyancy and the bow lurched upwards. As the Hindenburg's tail crashed into the ground, a burst of flame came out of the nose, killing nine of the twelve crew members in the bow. As the airship continued to fall with its bow pointing upwards, part of the port side directly behind the passenger deck collapsed inward and the gas cell there exploded. The airship’s gondola wheel touched the ground, causing the burning ship to bounce upwards. At this point, most of the fabric had burned away. Finally, the airship went crashing onto the ground, bow first. The Hindenburg had been completely destroyed.

Various theories have been suggested as to the cause of the fire on board the airship. Contemporaries suspected sabotage or a lightning strike, while more recent experts believe that maneuvering in the storm may have caused a build-up of static electricity in the ship’s envelope. An electric discharge could have ignited the hydrogen. To this day, no one knows for sure.

Unbelievably, despite the violent fire, most of the crew and passengers survived. Of the 36 passengers and 61 crew members, thirteen of the passengers and 22 members of the crew perished. As the burning airship had crashed down on the landing field, the American landing crew had fled in a panic, but one linesman, Allen Hagaman, had been killed by falling debris.

The majority of the airship crew who died were up inside the ship’s hull, where they either had no easy escape route or were too close to the bow of the ship, which hung burning in the air, for them to find a way out. Most of the passengers who were killed were trapped in the starboard side of the passenger deck. Not only had the wind blown the fire toward the starboard side, but the ship had also rolled slightly to that side when it hit the ground, sealing off the observation windows and cutting off the escape of any passengers on that side of the ship. To make matters worse, the sliding door leading from the starboard passenger area to the central foyer and gangway stairs (through which rescuers led many passengers to safety) jammed shut in the crash, which also trapped the starboard side passengers. A few of them did escape, but most did not. By contrast, all but a few of the passengers on the port side of the dirigible survived the fire, most escaping virtually unscathed.

When the control car crashed to the ground, most of the officers jumped out of the windows and became separated. First Officer Albert Sammt found Captain Max Pruss going back into the wreckage to look for survivors. Pruss was badly burned on his face and he required months of hospitalization and surgery, but he survived. Captain Ernst Lehmann escaped the crash with burns to his head and arms and severe burns across most of his back. Although his injuries did not seem as severe as those of Captain Pruss, he died at a nearby hospital the next day.

Out of the twelve crewmen in the bow of the ship, only three of them survived. Four of these men were standing on the mooring shelf, a platform at the very tip of the bow from which the front landing ropes and mooring cables were released to the ground crew, and which was directly in front of gas cell #16. The rest were standing either along the lower keel walkway ahead of the control car, or were on platforms beside the stairway that led up the curve of the bow to the mooring shelf. During the fire, as the bow hung in the air at a steep angle, flames shot forward and burst through the bow, roasting the unfortunate men alive. The three men from the forward section that survived, elevator operator Kurt Bauer, cook Alfred Grözinger and electrician Josef Leibrecht, were those furthest aft of the bow, and Bauer and Grözinger happened to be standing near two large triangular air vents, through which cool air was being drawn by the fire. They managed to escape with only superficial burns.

The other men either fell into the fire or tried to leap from the Hindenburg when it was still too high in the air. Three of the four men standing on the mooring shelf inside the very tip of the bow were actually taken from the wreck alive, though one of them, a rigger named Erich Spehl, died shortly afterward in the Air Station’s infirmary. The other two, helmsman Alfred Bernhard and apprentice elevator operator Ludwig Felber, initially survived the fire but died at area hospitals later that night.

The four crew members who had been in the tail fin survived the disaster. Although they were closest to the origin of the fire, they were sheltered by the structure of the lower fin. They escaped by climbing out of the fin’s access hatch when the tail hit the ground.

The Hindenburg disaster remains one of the most widely known calamities in American history, thanks largely to the wide press coverage that the airship fire attracted. There was a large amount of newsreel coverage and photographs taken of the crash, as well as Herbert Morrison's recorded, on-the-scene, eyewitness radio report for station WLS in Chicago, which was broadcast the next day. This was the first transatlantic flight by a Zeppelin to the United States that year and it was heavily publicized, bringing many journalists to the scene.

The photographs and film footage of the scene were tragic but Morrison’s radio broadcast remains one of the most famous in history:

It's practically standing still now. They've dropped ropes out of the nose of the ship; and (uh) they've been taken ahold of down on the field by a number of men. It's starting to rain again; it's... the rain had (uh) slacked up a little bit. The back motors of the ship are just holding it (uh) just enough to keep it from...It's burst into flames! It burst into flames, and it's falling, it's crashing! Watch it! Watch it! Get out of the way! Get out of the way! Get this, Charlie; get this, Charlie! It's fire... and it's crashing! It's crashing terrible! Oh, my! Get out of the way, please! It's burning and bursting into flames and the... and it's falling on the mooring mast. And all the folks agree that this is terrible; this is the one of the worst catastrophes in the world. [indecipherable] its flames... Crashing, oh! Four- or five-hundred feet into the sky and it... it's a terrific crash, ladies and gentlemen. It's smoke, and it's in flames now; and the frame is crashing to the ground, not quite to the mooring mast. Oh, the humanity! and all the passengers screaming around here. I told you; it—I can't even talk to people Their friends are out there! Ah! It's... it... it's a... ah! I... I can't talk, ladies and gentlemen. Honest: it's just laying there, mass of smoking wreckage. Ah! And everybody can hardly breathe and talk and the screaming. Lady, I... I... I'm sorry. Honest: I... I can hardly breathe. I... I'm going to step inside, where I cannot see it. Charlie, that's terrible. Ah, ah... I can't. Listen, folks; I... I'm gonna have to stop for a minute because [indecipherable] I've lost my voice. This is the worst thing I've ever witnessed.

The film footage at the scene, as well as Morrison’s passionate recording, shattered public faith in airships and marked the end of the giant passenger-carrying airships. The Hindenburg crash certainly marked the end of an era – closing the story with a scene of horror that still resonates today as an eerie haunting at the Naval Air Station hospital.

The hospital, known officially at that time as Naval Dispensary Lakehurst, was in the middle of the disaster on the night the Hindenburg fell burning from the sky. The doctors, nurses and corpsman that were stationed there in 1937 offered their assistance during the tragic event, although little detail is known about how the medical personnel on the site triaged the wounded or cared for the dead. It is known that the dispensary was utilized after the crash, though, and that many of the injured were brought there. The role the hospital played has been commemorated by the state of New Jersey and has been listed on the registry of historical sites.

And many New Jersey ghost buffs have listed the hospital as one of the state’s haunted sites, as well.

The Naval Air Station in Lakehurst played an important role in transatlantic airship flights. The base commanding officer at the time was Lieutenant Commander C.E. Rosendahl, who eventually rose to the grade of vice admiral, and was a longtime proponent of airship aviation. The base hospital, which is now known as the Branch Medical Clinic of the National Naval Medical Center, became a key player in the events that followed the Hindenburg crash.

Lieutenant Carl Victor Green, Jr., the Naval Air Station base physician, along with his son, Robert, was among those watching the airship as it approached the mooring tower. The Hindenburg was running late and Robert had anxiously looked forward to seeing it arrive at the base. “It was evening, but quite light,” Lt. Green recalled in an interview many years later. “The nose of the silver ship was pointed toward the town of Lakehurst. She was poised for her pulling down and landing tower docking.”

Suddenly, there were three rapid explosions. Green remembered, “The rear half of the vessel was totally enveloped in bright orange flame. A blast of heat blew over us, standing a half-mile away.” He and his son watched in shock and terror as the mighty Zeppelin fell to the ground in a blazing ball of fire.

"I hurried to the base hospital. I watched people walking in, carried into the hospital or ambulance garage, which had become a temporary morgue,” Green said. Fortunately, only one man from the ground crew died at the hospital. The hull of the ship fell on him after he tripped and fell on the railroad tracks used to stabilize the airship after mooring. Many of the injured were treated at the hospital and several of them died.

On the morning after the disaster, smoke was still rising from the black and twisted skeleton that had once been the world’s largest flying vessel. Eyewitnesses on the scene claimed they would never forget the horrible smell of burning flesh that was in the air. A number of bodies were unidentified and they were moved into the crew’s quarters in the hangar. It had been hastily transformed into a temporary morgue. A small group of men and women filed past the charred remains of 26 of the victims in an attempt to identify them. Detachments of sailors were posted as guards around the ruins of the airship and no information was given out to the curiosity-seekers who flocked to the area. Men who served on the base at that time stated that they would never forget those darks days in 1937.

The Branch Medical Clinic of today, once a full-service naval hospital, was built in 1921 when the base first opened as an airship station. Officers and corpsmen stationed at the clinic will say without reservation that it is a great duty station for enjoying the Jersey Shore and nearby cities like Philadelphia, Atlantic City and New York but they will often add that strange things happen at the old hospital that cannot easily be explained.

It is not uncommon, they have said, to hear mysterious footsteps, rattling doors, loud crashes, voices, and to see lights flashing off and on. Many who have been stationed here have come to believe that some of those who have died in the building do not rest in peace. The majority of them believe that the spirits of those who died in the Hindenburg disaster have remained behind to haunt the clinic and the surrounding buildings.

Is the naval station haunted? Many who have worked here believe that it is. But whether you believe in ghosts or not, the crash of the Hindenburg remains a tangible part of the history of the Lakehurst Naval Station that will never be forgotten.

For more details about the disaster – and much more about the ghost stories surrounding the crash – see the book AND HELL FOLLOWED WITH IT, available in print from the website and in Kindle and Nook editions.

Death in the Haymarket

2013-05-04T10:24:00.002-05:00

DEATH IN THE HAYMARKET

Labor Struggles in Chicago’s Gilded Age

On this date, May 4, 1886, a labor demonstration in Chicago’s Haymarket Square turned deadly when a bomb exploded, starting a riot that led to the deaths of workers and police officers. It became known as one of the most famous labor incidents in American history and eventually led to the conviction of eight “conspirators” from the labor movement. But Haymarket was certainly not the only violent labor event during Chicago’s Gaslight era.

A period illustration of the events at Haymarket Square

Unfortunately, for most of the workers of the Gaslight Era in Chicago, mere words were unable to change the conditions under which they labored. Long hours and meager pay plagued the majority of the jobs that could be obtained by the lower classes and while the employers never failed to believe that their workers should be thankful for whatever job they could get – and for whatever pay they were offered – it was a sentiment that was not shared by those who actually did the work. By the 1870s, the workers were beginning to stand up for what they believed in and fight for their rights to safe working conditions, fair pay and decent hours. But those rights would not come easily, leading to bloodshed, violence and death across Chicago.

One of the first employers to suffer from labor disputes was Cyrus Hall McCormick, who developed a mechanical reaper that changed the farm industry in America forever. The efficiency of the reaper on the flat farmlands of the Midwest made it possible to grow more, plant more and harvest more than most farmers had ever dreamed of. The new invention made McCormick a millionaire many times over.

McCormick was a stout man of great temper and perhaps an even greater persistence to succeed. He believed that he truly deserved all of the success that God had given him. He fought his many competitors with constant lawsuits, widespread advertising, and yearly field days when his reapers would be pitted against other models. He offered easy credit, good service and a product that was far superior to anything else on the market. Throughout the 1870s, he sold more than 10,000 reapers and binders a year.

McCormick’s wealth came from his assembly procedures, his sales methods that put thousands of reapers into fields where wheat would have rotted before, and his constant improvements on the machines did make him a pioneer in the industry.

Even though he was generous to a number of charities and causes in Chicago, including the Presbyterian Theological Seminary (later named in McCormick's honor), he was mostly known for being tight-fisted with a dollar. His tight handling of a dollar did not endear McCormick to his employees. He worked them hard, including his own brother, and for low wages. Like all of the other Chicago titans during the Gilded Age, he was puzzled when the employees were not grateful for what they were given and was enraged when they dared to ask, and organize, for more. By the 1870s, all of the major employers in the region, including McCormick, saw constant unrest among their workers over job conditions, wages and shorter workdays. There was no question that conditions in many plants were poor and men worked ten to twelve hours, six days a week, for very little pay. Strikes and protests soon became commonplace.

Members of the Knights of Labor during the early 1880s

During the tense summer of 1877, when there were riots in the city that were part of a nationwide strike effort by railroad workers protesting wage cuts, Marshall Field volunteered the use of his delivery wagons to transport policemen from one problem area to another. Three men were killed and eight wounded during a demonstration at a Burlington Railroad roundhouse and the next day, ten more strike sympathizers were killed at the Halsted Street viaduct. Federal troops who came directly from fighting Indians out west were sent in to restore order. The following year, Field, McCormick and others secretly subscribed to a fund that would furnish Gatling guns and uniforms for the Illinois National Guard. This was done, according to McCormick's assistant, to prepare for "what danger if any was to be anticipated from the communistic element in the city."

Strikes and protests continued but the Haymarket Square Riot in 1886 would change the face of the labor movement forever.

A poster advertising the gathering of workingmen at Haymarket Square

The events that culminated in blood at Haymarket Square had been brewing since the start of Chicago’s Gilded Age. The years after the Civil War saw a rise in the power of the labor unions. Many prominent capitalists had preached the moral correctness of the war --- often more interested in the profits that could be made from it than because of any just cause --- but they failed to predict what would happen afterward. Many of the veterans who came home after the war had a different mindset than when they had left. As soldiers, they had worked together amid danger, death and destruction, fighting a war that became about ending slavery. To equate the over-demanding expectations of their employers (for next-to-nothing wages) with slavery was a simple one. Warring with the "slave-drivers" was seen as necessary but the trouble was that there were a lot of "soldiers," but no real army.

Without a union, laborers were at a great disadvantage when compared with their employers. Workers were able to come together, strike and raise hell but only for limited periods of time. Unions of the day, many of which were newly organized, were long on principles but short on any real sense of power, save for disruption of work. Once they began working through the political process, though, things began to change. They scored their first victory in March 1867 with the passage of a state eight-hour workday statute, but their sense of accomplishment was short-lived. The law was easily circumvented by employers who reduced pay, discharged employees or found loopholes to continue working their men for ten hours or more a day. Such manipulation of the law angered workers and unrest and violence occurred throughout the city. Many of the workers, and union leaders, were not content to let strikes and walkouts speak for them. Many of them endorsed a more violent form of action. That action reached its peak in Haymarket Square, where rural farmers came into Chicago to exchange produce for cash, in May 1886.

The Haymarket Square Riot began as a mass meeting of workers to protest police actions against strikers at the McCormick factory. Six workers demonstrating for an eight-hour workday had been killed by factory guards and tensions were running high. The rally at Haymarket Square involved about 2,500 workers who turned out in the rain to listen to speeches by local labor leaders Albert Parsons, Samuel Fielden and August Spies. Despite the fact that all three men were considered "dangerous agitators" and "anarchists" by city business leaders, Mayor Carter Henry Harrison issued a parade permit for the gathering, believing there was no cause for concern.

However, police officials sent nearly seven hundred officers to the scene. Police Inspector John Bonfield led his superiors to believe that a citywide riot might take place. Mayor Harrison visited the scene and finding it peaceful, ordered all reserve officers to be sent home. Bonfield refused and two hours later, ordered his men to disperse the crowd.

As the policemen moved into formation, a crudely made pipe bomb was thrown into the midst of a column of two hundred police officers. The bomb exploded and one officer was killed and six others were mortally wounded. In retaliation, the policemen opened fire on the crowd and then began shooting at the fleeing protestors. They continued to fire for more than five minutes.

Mayor Harrison pleaded for calm in the wake of the attack, but there was little interest in listening to him. Police officials were determined to not only find the man who threw the bomb, but also to track down those who caused it to be thrown in the first place – namely, the leaders of the labor union who organized the event. The policemen of Chicago began a reign of terror among the city's working class citizens. All rights were suspended and hundreds of suspects were arrested, beaten and interrogated at all hours of the night. False confessions were violently extracted from those who were thought to be "anarchists" or sympathizers of the labor unions. Whoever the bomb thrower actually was, he faded away into history.

A Leslie’s Illustrated drawing of the police officers killed during the riot

Eventually, though, eight so-called “conspirators” were brought to trial and it was widely believed that the defendants had the deck stacked against them. Rumor had it that the jurors in the trial had been given $100,000 by Chicago business leaders and that prior to the verdict being read, Marshall Field was already lobbying that the men be hanged. He also reportedly went to City Hall and demanded that the mayor repress free speech in the city, in the interest of public safety. The mayor refused, even after Field informed him that he "represented great interests in Chicago."

In the end, seven of the defendants received a death sentence. The eighth was given a sentence of fifteen years in prison. All of them were tried and sentenced on conspiracy charges to incite violence that led to the deaths of the police officers. On November 11, 1887, August Spies, Albert Parsons, George Engel and Adolph Fischer were hanged at the Criminal Courts Building on Hubbard Street. Another of the conspirators died in an explosion and the death sentences of the others were commuted to prison terms.

For many years, the police officers who died at Haymarket Square were seen as martyrs, but slowly, thanks to the rising power of the labor unions, that perception changed. Even after all of these years, debate still rages about the cause and effect of the riot at Haymarket Square, but it cannot be denied that it was one of the many bloody events that solidly shaped the city.

The Many "Demons" of Stonewall Jackson

2013-05-02T10:46:00.000-05:00

THE MANY “DEMONS” OF STONEWALL JACKSON

What Really Killed the Famed Confederate General

On this date, May 2, 1863, Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson was accidentally shot by several of his own men during the Battle of Fredericksburg in Virginia and he died a short time later, plunging the people of the Confederacy into despair and leading many to believe that the war might not be won without him. Ironically, it might not have been the bullets that Jackson. Instead, he may have died because of this own bizarre medical beliefs and the “demonic” diseases that he feared could inhabit his body!

Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson

The American Civil War was filled with heroes, on both sides of the conflict. One of the great generals of the Confederacy was Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, the brooding, Bible-quoting philosophy teacher from Virginia, whose odd personal habits and daring attacks made him a legend in his own time. As Robert E. Lee’s most trusted commander, no other general helped win more decisive victories for the South and no other commander’s death was as fatal for the Confederacy. In battle after battle, from Bull Run to Chancellorsville, the tall, bearded scholar with the gaunt, weathered face shocked and bloodied the Union forces with his brilliant cavalry strikes and tremendous infantry assaults.

Behind his gallant image, though, lurked a man obsessed with weird ailments, peculiar dietary compulsions and a dark fear that evil spirits had somehow taken control of his body. At the Virginia Military Institute where he taught, Jackson was nicknamed “Tom Fool” because of his personal eccentricities, which included sucking on lemons to ease the discomfort of what he thought was an ulcer. Students and colleagues thought of him as a dull professor who rarely smiled, but when he found something funny, he would throw his head back and let out a frightening roar. Throughout his life, he struggled to overcome the belief that his body was somehow “out of balance,” and that the only way to correct this was to remain in a rigid, upright position so that his organs remained aligned on top of one another. For this reason, he rarely sat in chairs, preferring to keep his posture erect when standing, lying straight in bed, or on horseback. In battle, he often charged with one gloved hand held high over his head, allowing the blood to flow down into his body to establish equilibrium.

Jackson was what some saw as dangerously devout about his religion. Wherever he went, even onto the battlefield, he always took along his prayer book and prayer table. A devout Christian since 1849, he believed that the Civil War boiled down to a struggle between good and evil. In his mind, he was a crusader against the forces of darkness.

His health was always a major preoccupation. He was constantly concerned with a mysterious stomach ailment. To combat it, he kept up a strict regimen of raspberries, milk, plain bread or cornbread and an endless supply of lemons that he sucked on even when charging the enemy lines. He also undertook a rigorous program of running, rope climbing and booming shouts that he believed expanded his lungs. His infirmities included rheumatism, dyspepsia, poor eyesight (which he treated by dipping his head, eyes open, into cold water for as long as he could hold his breath), cold feet, nervousness, impaired hearing, tonsillitis (which eventually required an operation) and a “slight distortion of the spine.” Some modern doctors believe that Jackson may have suffered from a fairly common and most uncomfortable condition known as a diaphragmatic hernia, a hole in the diaphragm that allows the abdominal contents to move into the chest cavity.

But even if Jackson was an off-balance hypochondriac, as General A.P. Hill believed he was, he may have had good reason to be, based on his early family life.

Thomas Jackson was born in January 1824, the third child of Julia Beckwith and Jonathan Jackson, an attorney. The family lived in Clarksburg, in what is now West Virginia, when Thomas was born. Thomas's sister Elizabeth died of typhoid fever at the age of six on March 6, 1826, with two-year-old Thomas at her bedside. His father succumbed to the same illness 20 days later. Jackson's mother gave birth to Thomas's sister, Laura Ann, the following day, leaving her a widow with a large amount of debt and three young children, including a newborn. She sold the family's possessions to pay off the debts and moved into a rented one-room house. She declined family charity, taking in sewing and teaching school to support the family for more than four years.

In 1830, Julia remarried. Her new husband, Blake Woodson, cared little for his stepchildren. The family’s money problems continued. Then, in 1831, Julia died after giving birth to Thomas’ half-brother, leaving her three older children orphaned. She was buried in an unmarked grave along the James River, marking another death in Thomas’ young life. And more were to come.

As his mother’s health was failing, Jackson and his sister, Laura Ann, were sent to live with an uncle, Cummins Jackson, who owned a grist mill in what is now central West Virginia. His older brother, Warren, went to live with relatives on his mother’s side of the family. He later died from tuberculosis in 1841. After this series of deaths and illnesses, it was no wonder that Jackson feared sickness throughout his life.

Jackson worked for his uncle for the next seven years. He learned to read and write and attended school when he could. In 1842, Jackson was accepted to the United States Military Academy at West Point. Because of his inadequate schooling, he had difficulty with the entrance examinations and began his studies at the bottom of his class. Displaying a dogged determination that was to characterize his life, he became one of the hardest working cadets in the academy, and moved steadily up the academic rankings. Jackson graduated seventeenth out of 59 students in the Class of 1846. It was said by his peers that if he had stayed there another year, he would have graduated at the top of the class. In spite of his hard work, he made a strange impression on some of his classmates. Ulysses S. Grant stated that Jackson was a “fanatic” whose delusions “took strange forms – hypochondria, fancies that an evil spirit had taken possession of him.”

After graduating from West Point in 1846, he served with distinction in the Mexican War. It was in Mexico that Jackson first met Robert E. Lee. During the assault on Chapultepec Castle, he refused what he felt was a "bad order" to withdraw his troops. Confronted by his superior, he explained his rationale, claiming withdrawal was more hazardous than continuing his overmatched artillery duel. His judgment proved correct, and a relieving brigade was able to exploit the advantage Jackson had broached. In contrast to this display of strength of character, he obeyed what he also felt was a "bad order" when he raked a civilian throng with artillery fire after Mexican authorities failed to surrender Mexico City at the hour demanded by the U.S. forces. The former episode, and later aggressive action against the retreating Mexican army, earned him field promotion to the brevet rank of major. He was later recognized by army commander Winfield Scott at a celebratory banquet in Mexico City for earning more promotions than any other officer during the three-year war.

In the spring of 1851, Jackson accepted a newly created teaching position at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia. He became professor of natural and experimental philosophy and an artillery instructor. Despite the high quality of his work, he was unpopular as a teacher. He memorized his lectures and then recited them to the class. Any students who came to him asking for clarifications were given the same route explanation as before. If they asked again, Jackson viewed this as insubordination and punished them. The students mocked his stern, religious nature and his eccentric traits. In 1856, a group of alumni attempted to have Jackson removed as a teacher. Ironically, when the Civil War came, many of those same students would rally around their old professor because of his extraordinary achievements in battle.

Jackson remained at the school until Virginia’s secession in April 1861, when he was given command of the First Brigade of the Virginia Volunteers – later known as the famous “Stonewall Brigade.” He earned his nickname while leading his troops at the First Battle of Bull Run on July 21, 1861, when General Barnard Elliott Bee, who was mortally wounded soon afterward, is said to have remarked to his men, “There stands Jackson like a stone wall... rally around the Virginians!”

Thanks to his amazing victories during the early days of the war, “Stonewall Jackson” became a household name in the South.

His nickname soon became a household word in the South and was constantly invoked by Confederate soldiers as they went into battle. Jackson’s fame continued after Bull Run and he began his masterful Shenandoah Valley campaign, one of the most brilliant in military history. Racing up and down the valley with his fast-moving infantry, Jackson decimated three separate Union armies, causing the Union to divert troops from General George McClellan’s offensive against Richmond.

In June 1862, Jackson’s brigade joined with Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in the bloody Seven Days battles, which succeeded in driving Federal troops away from the outskirts of Richmond. He later shared in the Confederate victory at the Second Battle of Bull Run. At this point, Lee praised Jackson as his finest commander. The relationship between the two men, though never intimate, was warm and respectful. It was rooted in professional respect, but it was far from personal. Lee found it hard to break through Jackson’s quiet shyness, which kept him from sharing his personal life with anyone other than his wife and a small circle of friends. A large part of Jackson’s inability to socialize with the other commanders almost certainly stemmed from his bizarre outlook on the war and his personal life. Terrified for his health, he also struggled with a preoccupation with sin. His family affairs and the demands of the military left him little time to cultivate personal relationships.

Jackson’s most daring campaign was his last one. On May 2, 1863, he led his army against a much larger Federal force at the Battle of Chancellorsville. Launching several surprise attacks against the enemy, he was able to rout an entire wing of the Union forces. Late that afternoon, however, while on a reconnaissance ride, Jackson was shot by several of his own guards, who mistook him for an enemy officer. Jackson was hit three times, once in his right hand, one in his left wrist and a third time above his left elbow.

General Robert E. Lee bemoaned Jackson’s injuries, writing that he wished he could have traded places with him. He later confided to a friend that Jackson “has lost his left arm, but I have lost my right.” In the months to come, he came to believe that he had lost the Battle of Gettysburg without Jackson’s assistance.

Complications set in following the amputation of his left arm, and the legendary general died of pneumonia at Guinea Station, Virginia, on May 10, 1863. Only a few hours before, Lee had sent a note to Jackson that read, “Could I have directed events, I should have chosen for the good of the country to have been disabled in your stead.” Lee later confided to a friend that Jackson “has lost his left arm, but I have lost my right.”

Ironically, Jackson may not have died as a result of his wounds – it may have been his bizarre beliefs about his health that actually killed him. His strange habit of covering his abdomen with cold towels in an effort to relive pains of “dyspepsia” may have led to his death. According to some sources, he fully recovered from the amputation but died when pneumonia set in after an attending servant draped the wet towels over his body without the knowledge of his doctor. Tragically, Jackson was never able to overcome the fears that plagued him as a child and refused to leave him when his life was hanging in the balance.

Mourners at Stonewall Jackson’s grave

Walpurgisnacht -- Halloween's Diabolical Cousin

2013-04-30T10:37:00.001-05:00

WALPURGISNACHT

Halloween’s Diabolical Cousin

According to occult tradition, there was once a single night of the year when evil women gathered on a demon-haunted mountain, with the denizens of Hell, and worshipped Satan, danced naked around a bonfire and engaged in a supernatural orgy – it was Walpurgisnacht, or the Eve of St. Walpurga, which occurs every year on April 30. According to pagan lore, it is the one night of the year when “evil has full sway over the world.”

The dark festival takes its name from Walpurga of Devon, England, a convent leader from the 700s who was canonized as the patron saint of rabies. Though far from as popular as its eerie cousin, Halloween, Walpurgisnacht has cast a shadow over many works of Gothic art, literature and music from the night Bram Stoker chose for Jonathan Harker to meet Dracula to Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain.”

An old postcard of Walpurgisnacht

To understand the significance of Walpurgisnacht, we also have to understand the druidic Samhain, known today as Halloween. Samhain was the solstice festival that celebrated the start of the darkest months of the year: winter. That meant that the days got shorter, food supplies dwindled and sickness and death lay ahead. This meant that the season’s conclusion called for a ritual festival to commemorate and end to that darkness, which the druids called Beltane – a spring ritual that took place six months after Samhain. Beltane spread with the druids across Europe and eventually found a home in Germany. However, around 800 A.D. Christianity also arrived in Germany with Charlemagne and many things that the pagans believed in from Wotan [a.k.a. Odin], the other gods, the burning of the dead and other things became forbidden under penalty of death. However, some of their celebrations survived, named the one held on April 30.

But – as with some many other festivals co-opted by the Church – Beltane was replaced with a day of veneration on the following morning: the Feast of St. Walpurga (an equivalent to All Saints Day). And just like with All Saints Day, the Feast of St. Walpurga proved to be much less interesting than Beltane. For this reason, Walpurgisnacht – the night before the Feast – haunted Germany long after its intended replacement was started and continued to symbolize the end of a long darkness for the people. But how dark was this final night?

A gathering of witches on Walpurgisnacht

There are many different opinions about what took place on Walpurgisnacht, but most agree that it was some sort of witch’s Sabbath. It’s been said that witches dance naked around a bonfire before copulating with demons. Others stated that it was a Black Sabbath during which witches flew on broomsticks to a secret location where they were joined by the Devil to worship. Most of the folklore in Germany was situated around the tallest mountain in Northern Germany, known as the Brocken – “the father of mountains.” On the summit of the giant, craggy peak are two formations called the Witches’ Altar (Hexenaltar) and Devil’s Pulpit (Teufelskanzel). The region has inspired a number of horrific tales and even the surrounding plateau has stories of its own – so many that it’s known as the Witches’ Dance Floor (Hexentanzplatz). It’s said that the region is named after a fleet of witches on broomsticks scared off a battalion of Frankish soldiers who were occupying the area. Ancient ruins dot the landscape and many of them, like the Pagan Wall (Heidenwall – built between 750 and 450 B.C.) offer proof to many of occult activity in the region’s past.

Occultist Anton LaVey was inspired to found his Church of Satan on Walpurgisnacht

Goethe, who set the first act of his famous play Fauston the Brocken during Walpurgisnacht, wasn’t the only one inspired by it. Famed occultist Anton LaVey was so taken by the celebration that he established his Church of Satan on April 30, citing Walpurgisnacht as one of the most important satanic holidays. On the other side of the coin, the famous “Night on Bald Mountain” scene in Disney’s animated 1940 film Fantasia was based on a phenomenon called the Brocken Specters (Brockengespenster). The Brocken Specters are giant, diffracted shadows created by anyone going above the cloud line of the Brocken. These confusing shades were dangerous to mountain climbers, especially when mist encircled the mountain, sometimes causing men to fall to their deaths. The phenomenon makes it seem as if an enormous figure is stalking you, which gave rise to the belief that ghosts and demons were haunting the Brocken – and not just on Walpurgisnacht.

Today, Walpurgisnacht continues to be celebrated in Germany, in many other European countries and in America among Satanists, pagans and occult practitioners. Many still see it as a sacred holiday and the last night of evil before the months of warmth and light control the world. In many locations, towns are decorated with witch and devil dolls, people dress in costumes, bonfires are lit, a lot of beer is consumed and costumed enthusiast party late into the night. Don’t miss your chance to revel on this last night of darkness – and lift a glass or two for me while you’re at it! Happy Walpurgisnacht!

A modern Walpurgisnacht celebration

The Man who Murdered the Assassin

2013-04-26T12:49:00.000-05:00

THE MAN WHO MURDERED THE ASSASSIN

The Enigmatic Boston Corbett – killer of John Wilkes Booth

On this date, April 26, 1865, John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, was surrounded by federal troops in a barn near Port Royal, Virginia and shot to death. Legends persisted for decades – starting almost from the time the fatal shot was fired and continuing to this day --- that Booth was not the man who died in that barn. Allegedly, he lived on for many years, only to eventually die in Enid, Oklahoma… but that’s a story for another time (see my book INTO THE SHADOWS).

For this anniversary of Booth’s accepted death, we will be taking a closer look at the man who killed him – a very strange gentleman named Boston Corbett, who may have been part of a larger conspiracy himself.

Boston Corbett is largely considered to have been the Jack Ruby of his day – the man who killed the killer of the President of the United States. Jack Ruby’s shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24, 1963, in the basement of the Dallas, Texas jail was witnessed by reporters, police officers and a national television audience. But Boston Corbett’s shooting of John Wilkes Booth on April 26, 1865, at a tobacco barn near Port Royal, Virginia was hardly witnessed by anyone – and it attracted controversy from the beginning. While he was celebrated for a short time as Booth’s killer, his real place in the Lincoln assassination remains in question after all of these years.

Sergeant Boston Corbett had been assigned to Lieutenant Edward Doherty, one of the Federal officers that had been given the task of tracking down Lincoln’s assassin. The soldiers found several witnesses who recognized Booth and eventually discovered sympathizer Willie Jett, who had arranged lodging for Booth at the tobacco farm where he was later discovered.

Boston Corbett

It was Corbett who fired the fatal bullet that killed Booth and it is at this point that many conspiracy theories about him begin. Among the theories is the idea that Corbett was under different orders than the other soldiers. Some believe he was actually told to silence Booth so that Edwin Stanton could not be implicated in a plot against the president. It is unlikely that this was the case, however, as Corbett is not believed to have had contact with Stanton before leaving Washington. He did act on orders to kill Booth, however, if not orders from government officials, then from a higher authority.

He shot Booth on direct orders from God.

He was born Thomas H. Corbett in London in 1832 and immigrated with his parents to Troy, New York seven years later. As a young man in the 1850s, Corbett went into the hat-making industry at a time when the dire occupational hazards of the trade had yet to be discovered. As he worked, he was exposed to large quantities of mercury, which often caused insanity (thus, the expression “mad as a hatter”). The inescapable inhaling of the vapors from the mercury affected the brain and caused hallucinatory episodes, twitches and tics and outright psychoses and his work as a hat-maker was certainly the root of Boston Corbett’s madness.

He worked in the trade in Troy and Albany, in Richmond, Virginia and in Boston and New York City for several years. He is said to have married during this period, losing his wife and a baby during childbirth. After this tragedy, he became homeless and began drinking. He eventually strayed into religion after attending a revival meeting in New York.

In 1857, while working in Boston, Corbett was baptized, apparently into the Methodist Church, and the experience so moved him that he adopted the name of the city where he found his faith as his own. He was by now a local eccentric. He wore his hair long because images of Jesus showed him with long locks and he preached to any passerby who paused in curiosity.

Corbett’s religious fanaticism, loud but harmless, took a violent turn in the summer of 1858. After a revival meeting at a Boston church, he was propositioned on the street by two prostitutes. The experience so disturbed him that he returned to the boarding house where he lived and castrated himself with a pair of scissors. He was treated at Massachusetts General Hospital from the middle of July to the first weeks in August for his self-inflicted wound.

What happened to Boston Corbett over the course of the next two years is unknown, but at some point, he returned to New York and in April 1861, enlisted as a private in Company I, Twelfth New York Militia. Behavioral problems marred his record from the start. They began when he heard Colonel Butterfield, commander of the militia regiment, using profanity toward his new recruits. Corbett reprimanded the Colonel for using the Lord’s name in vain and for this, was marched off to the guardhouse. A few days later, Butterfield offered to release him if he apologized, but Corbett refused.

Corbett later re-enlisted, this time in Company L, Sixteenth New York Cavalry, where he was promoted to corporal and later rose to the rank of sergeant. This was in spite of the numerous disciplinary problems that he had over his demand that officers not use profanity and his condemnation of fellow soldiers who drank. New York cavalrymen remembered their odd comrade for his periodic punishment tours where he carried a knapsack filled with bricks around the guardhouse but his commanders saw him as a fierce and resolute fighting man. He fought bravely in battle, although his odd and erratic behavior often made his superiors wary of using him for some assignments.

In June 1864, Confederate raiders under John Singleton Mosby cornered a squad of Union troopers, including Corbett, at Culpepper Courthouse in Virginia. Corbett refused to surrender, found cover and opened fire on Mosby and his twenty-six raiders. He only gave up after his ammunition ran out. Mosby was impressed.

Corbett and his comrades were sent to the notorious Andersonville prison in Georgia and endured five months of incarceration there, three of them in an outdoor compound. He was released during a prisoner exchange in November 1864 and was sent to an Army hospital in Maryland to recover from exposure, malnutrition and scurvy. By the early spring of 1865, Corbett had returned to his unit and in April was the first man to volunteer for service in the pursuit of President Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth.

John Wilkes Booth

Corbett was among the men who cornered Booth and David Herold at the Port Royal tobacco barn and he was stationed at a point on the building’s perimeter when it was set on fire. Through a gap in the barn’s siding, he saw a lone figure inside. He stated at the conspiracy trial one month later that he had never seen Booth before but the man in the barn had a broken leg and made “desperate replies” to the Federal officers who demanded his surrender. He gave a statement on May 1, 1865 that read:

I saw [Booth] in the act of stooping or springing, and concluded he was going to use his weapons. I immediately took steady aim upon him with my revolver and fired – shooting him through the neck and head. He was then carried out of the barn before the fire reached him; was taken to the Piazza of the house… Lt. Doherty, and the detective officers who were in front of the barn, did not seem to know that I had shot him, but supposed he had shot himself, until I informed Lt. Doherty of the fact – showing him my pistol which bore evidence of the truth of my statement, which also confirmed by the man placed at my right-hand who saw it.

Corbett’s shot was an extraordinary one considering the distance, the weapon, the smoke and fire in the barn and the confusion that was occurring outside of it. The bullet struck the man inside in the back of the head – almost at the same place where Booth’s bullet struck Lincoln – and severed his spinal cord.

The assassin was dragged from the burning barn and placed on a mattress from the nearby Garrett house. He was scarcely recognizable as the handsome actor. The man was filthy, his hair in tangles, and eleven-day growth of beard on his emaciated face. He died a few minutes after being taken from the barn.

After the shooting at the farm, Corbett was placed under arrest by Colonel Conger, Doherty’s superior officer in the search party. The charge against him was a breach of military discipline “in firing without Doherty’s order and in defiance of Gen. Baker’s order” and Corbett was placed under guard along with David Herold and returned to Washington. When they arrived, Corbett was imprisoned, awaiting court martial. However, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, upon hearing the story of the incident, ordered Corbett to be released. He announced theatrically, “The rebel is dead, the patriot lives – the patriot is released!”

Corbett mustered out of the Army on August 17, 1865 and moved to Danbury, Connecticut. There, he found work, again in the hat trade, and supplemented his income with occasional lectures, accompanied by lantern slides, on his exploits as “Lincoln’s Avenger.”

But, was he really? Even those who did not question the idea that the assassin died at the Garrett farm, they did wonder whether or not Corbett actually fired the fatal shot, or whether Booth committed suicide or escaped. Some believed that Colonel Conger fired the shot from the corner of the barn (he received a suspiciously high $15,000 of the combined $75,000 reward offered for Booth and Herold’s capture). Others believed that Lieutenant Doherty had done the shooting and pointed out that he received $5,250 of the reward money and was never questioned during the conspirator’s trial. Corbett’s shot was almost impossible and many believed that he simply could not have done it. In 1903, an early Lincoln assassination researcher, David M. DeWitt, wrote that Corbett was at least thirty feet from the barn when the shot was fired that killed Booth.

In the end, Corbett received $1,653.85 as part of the reward for bringing Booth to justice. His petition for a federal pension for his service in the Army, specifically for his work as a volunteer in the search for Lincoln’s assassin, came through in 1882. He was granted $7.50 a month in appreciation for his “service” to the United States.

Corbett eventually gave up work as a hat-maker and showed up in the late 1860s, in Camden, New Jersey, where he worked as a minister. He later went west and ended up in Kansas in the 1870s, showing signs of a deteriorating mental state. He lived as a reclusive farmer for years, occasionally working as a “fire and brimstone” evangelist. In November 1885, he was arrested after threatening some boys playing baseball on the Sabbath with a pistol. The case was dismissed by the county attorney.

A year after this incident, through the efforts of the Grand Army of the Republic and a state legislator from Cloud County, where Corbett lived, he was hired as an assistant doorkeeper at the Kansas House of Representatives in Topeka. He reported for duty in January 1887, but only lasted a month before his insanity got the better of him.

Corbett, in his madness, believed that the other doorkeepers and the politicians were laughing at him behind his back. This led to him threatening a janitor with a knife and then pointing a revolver at the House sergeant-in-arms. He broke into the House gallery with his weapons, causing the lawmakers, staff and workers to flee for their lives. Corbett was quickly arrested and taken before a judge the next day. A quick verdict was pronounced and he was sent to the Topeka Asylum for the Insane.

He failed on his first attempt to escape but on May 26, 1888, he succeeded. Walking around the grounds of the asylum with other inmates that day, Corbett saw a pony that belonged to the young son of the superintendent tied up in front of the hospital office. He hurried over, stole the horse, and rode away.

A week later, with flyers posted about him around the state, Corbett surfaced in Neodesha in the southeastern part of the state. There, he met a local schoolmaster named Richard Thatcher and Irwin Ford, the son of a soldier who had been imprisoned with Corbett at Andersonville. The two men supplied Corbett with a fresh horse, food and money. They said that Corbett told them that he had been “shamefully treated” and intended to flee to Mexico.

He may have done just that, although we’ll never know for sure. He was in good health when he escaped from the hospital and Mexico was the perfect place for him to do just what he did – disappear.

America's Forgotten Fire

2013-04-23T10:53:00.000-05:00

AMERICA’S FORGOTTEN FIRE

The Rhythm Club Fire of Natchez, Mississippi

Much has been written over the years about the deadly fire at the Coconut Grove Club and other famous nightclubs but there has been little written about another devastating nightspot blaze, the Rhythm Nightclub Fire, which occurred in Natchez, Mississippi, in April 1940. It was a bit of mystery to us as to why no one has taken a closer look at this fire, but based on the time and place – the heavily segregated South – the answer became clear: All of the victims were African Americans.

I have never been of the belief that racism is behind every bad thing in American history, but when looking over the newspaper articles that pertained to the fire, the writing style in them made the situation pretty plain. The Rhythm had been a Negro club, staffed and owned by Negroes, patronized by Negroes (“imitating their white counterparts by dressing in evening clothes,” as one contemporary news report sneered) and the tragedy was not taken as seriously in 1940 as it would have been today. Mississippi was still a segregated state, plagued by the Jim Crow laws, and many white residents had little use for the blacks that lived among them, alive or dead, unless they cleaned their homes, mowed their lawns or proved themselves useful in some other way.

It was a devastating event when 216 African American music lovers lost their lives on the night of April 23, 1940, but far too few people seemed to care about the victims – or their ghosts.

The Rhythm Nightclub after the Fire in April 1940.

The Rhythm Nightclub Fire occurred on St. Catherine Street in Natchez. It was an area referred to as the “Negro section” of town, on the edge of the downtown business district. The wooden, oblong structure was built in 1925 to serve as a church, which later closed. It was used as a garage for a time before being converted into a nightclub in 1938. The building was ramshackle and run down and had only one entrance, located at the back. A stage had been erected at the front, where the altar of the church had been. In an attempt to decorate the place, the club’s proprietor, Ed Frazier, had draped the walls and rafters with Spanish moss. It hung down above the customers, giving the place a moody, bayou-like atmosphere that must have appealed to the late night revelers. Tragically, it would prove to be the club’s undoing.

The Rhythm Club had numerous windows on both sides of the building, dating back to its construction as a church, but thanks to a problem with what the owners referred to as “gatecrashers,” shutters had been nailed over all of the windows to keep non-paying customers out. The shutters would also serve a more sinister purpose – they would keep everyone inside.

The evening of April 23 was an exciting night for the black community in Natchez. One of the biggest names in Negro entertainment, Walter Barnes, was playing at the Rhythm Club with his 15-piece orchestra. It was bound to be one of the big shows of the year and the club attracted the cream of the local African American society. Present that night were black attorneys, physicians, teachers, social workers and scores of other community leaders. They were packed into the place, elbow-to-elbow, with more than 300 other customers, some having come from as far away as Louisiana to hear the Chicago orchestra.

Walter Barnes and the Royal Creolians

Walter Barnes was a native of Vicksburg, Mississippi. He was born in 1905, and had moved to Chicago in 1923, where he began studying reed instruments with classical teacher Franz Schoepp. He took further studies at the Chicago Musical College and the American Conservatory of Music. He took over as the bandleader from the Detroit Shannon outfit in 1924 and re-named the band the Royal Creolians. He traveled across the country and recorded music with the band in 1928-1929 for the Brunswick label. Barnes made a name for himself by taking dance music to small Southern towns, where most other big name entertainers rarely performed. Barnes recruited musicians from several different states for his tours and was always popular in Mississippi.

When he arrived in Natchez in April 1940, he was on the last leg of his current tour. He brought with him a 15-piece band, including a female singer. After Natchez, they only had two more stops on the tour, Vicksburg and New Albany, Mississippi, before returning to Chicago.

The fire broke out around 11:35 p.m. According to Ernest Wright, an elevator operator who came to meet his wife at the club after getting off work, the fire was started by a careless cigarette. He told the police that he saw two girls come out of the women’s room near the front of the hall and heard one of them say: “Now you did it. You set the place on fire.”

Wright said that he didn’t see anything for a minute and then he saw blinding sheets of flame. “In a moment,” he said. “The whole place was on fire.”

Fire officials believed that a cigarette had inadvertently touched one of the streamers of Spanish moss, which were hanging from the rafters. The dry moss had been hanging there for nearly two years, and instantly burst into flames. A cry of “fire!” went up from the crowd. Someone managed to slip outside and contact the fire department, which arrived less than five minutes later. Even then, however, it was too late for scores of people trapped inside.

Once the people jammed into the club realized that the place was on fire, they immediately went into a panic. There were shouts, screams, cries and curses, and in moments, the crowd became a clawing, fighting mass as they tried to get out of the single door. Almost 150 people escaped before the thrashing, terrified victims became jammed into the doorway, unable to break loose and blocking all means of escape for everyone still trapped inside.

The fire department arrived at 11:40 p.m. Frightful screams came from the towering flames that now engulfed the building from wall to wall. A few moments later, the tin roof fell in and the crash sent a shower of sparks and flames soaring into the dark sky. The firemen immediately went to work, dousing the fire with water, and working frantically to try and pull the trapped people from the building.

Meanwhile, inside, it was a hellish scene. People fought, punched, kicked and scratched, struggling to get out of the door. There was simply no place for them to go. Many of those who were pushed away cowered near the stage at the front of the club, hoping that they could somehow avoid being burned to death. Unfortunately, an exhaust fan near the front of the club pulled the smoke and fire in the direction of the bandstand. It was there that Walter Barnes, and some of the members of the orchestra, was trapped. Two members of the band, plus Alton Barnes, the bandleader’s brother and the band’s manager, had escaped from the club. Walter was not so lucky, but in the aftermath of the fire, he was hailed as a hero. When the fire first broke out, he tried to calm the crowd while he and the band continued to play the song “Marie.” His body was later found, among dozens of others, at the front of the building.

The inferno was out within 10 minutes. It had reduced the club to a pile of smoldering ashes. Smoke rolled out from beneath the hot tin roof, which had collapsed onto the grisly scene. White men came running to the scene from the nearby business district and aided the blacks and the police in taking the injured to one of the nearby Negro hospitals. Men and women were found wandering in the street, practically naked and in a daze. Their clothing had been either burned off or torn off in the fight at the door. Officials believed that about 150 people escaped from the club and that between 50 and 100 of them were injured. The hospitals were soon filled to overflowing.

The Rhythm Club turned out to be a fiery deathtrap for scores of people who gathered there. This photo shows the burned-out interior of the club.

The bodies of the dead that could be easily reached were taken to the three Negro undertakers in the district, where police officers began counting them and laying them out for identification. The coroner suggested a plan of embalming the bodies and putting them on display so that friends and relatives could identify them later. The grim task continued for weeks after the fire.

The initial estimates of more than 150 dead were quickly upgraded. By the following day, many of the burned victims had died in the hospital, raising the death toll to 212. More would be added before it was all over. Coroner R.E. Smith visited the scene the next morning and blamed most of the deaths on the fact that the building only had one door, as well as the fact that the windows had been boarded over to keep people from sneaking into the shows. He described the horribly gruesome scene to the newspapers:

The bodies were piled up like cordwood. The skin was peeling from faces, blood oozed from mouths and flesh was broken. From my examination, it appeared that most of the people died from suffocation. A majority of the victims were 15 to 16 years old. There were about as many youths as girl victims.

The bodies were piled up in funeral parlors and no identifications have been made yet. The undertakers told me that they would embalm the bodies and line them up and let relatives file by to identify kinsmen.

Coroner Smith, who was also the managing editor of the Natchez Democrat, said that the paper’s janitor, Julius Hawkins, had been at the show that night, and had been standing near the rear. Hawkins had escaped but didn’t know what had started the blaze. Smith quoted him as saying, “All I thought about was getting away from there.”

V.H. Jeffries, a photographer who reached the scene a short time after the disaster, pointed out that the club had been completely gutted. He also spoke to reporters about what he saw:

Great quantities of dry moss had been hung on the walls for decoration. This caught fire in some way and the intense heat and fumes probably suffocated the victims. Men and women were sprawled grotesquely about on the floor like dead chickens, their clothing burned away and their flesh seared. The fire started near the entrance and it seemed that the crowd fled to the rear, where they could not escape.

By the following afternoon, the rest of the city was feeling the shock of what had occurred. It was estimated that very few of the African-American families in Natchez were unaffected by the fire. At that time, the population of the city was nearly 18,000 people – 60 percent of them were black.

Angry white voices began to be heard in city government, incensed that the club had been allowed to operate with only one exit door. They demanded a city ordinance requiring dance venues to have at least two exits, which would effectively put most Negro clubs in the city out of business. This didn’t seem to bother anyone, especially after news spread that the police had arrested several black men who had been recruited to pull bodies out of the ruins of the club. They were allegedly stealing from the dead, or so sheriff’s deputies claimed.

Instead of bringing the city’s residents together, the fire had served to drive whites and blacks even farther apart. It would be decades before Mississippi ended segregation, and it was just as long before safety measures began to be required in what were referred to as “Negro dance halls.” Not surprisingly, with attention fading quickly about the tragedy, the Rhythm Nightclub Fire was soon forgotten by the press, Natchez officials, and by history.

But the families of the victims didn’t forget, nor did the generations of blues singers who told the story of the fire in their songs, or the group of aging women who make up the Watkins Street Cemetery’s preservation society. They care for the mass grave where the fire victims were buried. When the number of bodies overwhelmed city authorities, they buried them in trenches in the Watkins Street Cemetery. There was no way to identify many of them. A few markers have been placed over the years, but mostly, it’s just a large grave where the bodies have been placed side-by-side. Their names have been forgotten, as have their lives.

But the dead still remember.

In 2010, a small museum was erected in honor of the Rhythm Club Fire, and according to the stories, strange occurrences have been happening there “almost daily” ever since. Voices have been heard, as well as music, and the sounds of doors opening and closing. Photographs that are displayed on the walls sometimes fly off and can be found in odd positions across the room. The museum was set up on the concrete slab that once marked the foundation of the Rhythm Club. The rest of the slab serves as the museum’s parking lot.

To this day, stories persist of strange voices, cries for help and the wailing moans of people still heard around the site of the deadly fire. It continues to be considered one of the most haunted places in Natchez – a very haunted city in its own right.

The story of the Rhythm Nightclub Fire may be only a footnote in American history, but to the people of Natchez and those directly affected by this horrendous event, its legacy lives on. It is a story worth telling – and remembering – and maybe someday the victims of the fire will finally rest in peace.

The story of the Rhythm Nightclub Fire appears in the book, A PALE HORSE WAS DEATH by Troy Taylor and Rene Kruse – along with dozens of other stories about disasters, death and hauntings. Printcopies are available from the main website or in Kindle and Nook editions.

American Sideshows: Tod Browning's "Freaks"

2013-04-11T10:01:00.001-05:00

AMERICAN SIDESHOWS:

TOD BROWNING’S “FREAKS”

In 1932, Universal Studios in Hollywood was in the horror film business. It had just scored two huge hits with “Frankenstein” and “Dracula,” which had been directed by Tod Browning. Other studios wanted in on the act and MGM tasked Browning with putting together another terrifying film that would thrill audiences – but what Browning chose gave the studio a little more than they bargained for. His next film “Freaks,” used real-life sideshow performers from the silver era of the freak show circuit. It became a film that has remained controversial ever since.

Charles Browning, Jr. (who later went by Tod) was born on July 12, 1880 in Louisville, Kentucky and was in the circus before he ever got into film. In 1896, he ran away from home to join the Manhattan Fair & Carnival Company and his first job was as a talker pitching a Wild Man of Borneo. He later moved his on act, a “Living Corpse” show, where he was buried alive. Browning thrived in the sideshow but eventually moved to Ringling Brothers as a clown. He then went on to vaudeville before trying his hand in moving pictures.

Director and former circus performer, Tod Browning

Browning produced several hit movies in the 1920s and early 1930s, including “The Unknown,” “The Unholy Three” and finally landing a director’s gig with “Dracula.” But with an adaption of Tod Robbins’ story “Spurs,” he created the most haunting film of his career. Thanks to our modern political correctness and the decrease in the human oddities of the past, its cast of real sideshow performers will never be matched. Browning assembled Harry, Daisy and Tiny Doll (little people), the Hilton Sisters (conjoined twins), Johnny Eck (half-man), Schlitzie, Jennie Lee and Elvira Snow (pinheads), Lady Olga (bearded lady), Josephine Joseph (half-man / half-woman), Prince Randian (human torso), Pete Robinson (human skeleton), Frances O’Connor (armless girl) and a number of other curiosities. They were complimented by a number of “normal” actors – who largely played the villains in the film. The plot was a simple revenge story: the evil “normal” woman, Cleopatra, decides to marry the diminutive Hans, who she discovers has amassed a large fortune. Along with her lover, the circus strongman, she tries to poison Hans and steal his money. When the freaks catch on to the dastardly plan, they exact their revenge and turn Cleopatra into something more revolting than a naturally-born freak.

The cast of “Freaks”

When MGM released the movie in 1932, it was immediately banned in the United Kingdom and remained that way for the next thirty years. In the U.S., signs were posted in theaters that read: “Children positively not admitted. Adults not in normal health are advised not to see this picture.” Posters also assured audiences that what they saw on film was not the result of any kind of special effects or trick photography. One of the most terrifying scenes is undoubtedly the dark, rain swept sequence where the freaks cross the circus grounds, knives and weapons in hand, hunting for Cleopatra so that they could take their revenge on her. It's one of the most frightening sequences of 1930s' era horror films -- and audiences were appalled.

The once-beautiful Cleopatra – after the freaks turned her into a monster that was worse than anything they could have been. It was meant to reflect that her outside was now as ugly as what she was inside, but audiences were shocked and angered by it. The final scene of her as a “bird woman” was cut from the film for many years.

Although people flocked to sideshows to see freaks in person, they didn’t appreciate seeing them on the big screen. “Freaks” disgusted audiences and critics alike and for Browning, it was the end of his career. He made a film films afterwards, but eventually faded into obscurity. Decades later, on October 6, 1962, he was found dead on the bathroom floor of a friend’s apartment. Ironically, the next year, “Freaks” was brought back to life in theaters and by the 1970s, attained the cult status that it enjoys today.

At the time the movie was released, people didn’t understand what Browning was trying to accomplish with it. He had great respect and affection for the “freaks” that he had worked with in the circus sideshows and attempted to show them as normal, albeit unusual, people. By showing that they lived, loved and experienced heartbreak and anger like so-called “normal” people, he cast them as the sympathetic characters in the film. But perhaps their method of revenge was simply too much for audiences to handle at the time and the film didn’t work in the 1930s in quite the way he planned.

American Sideshows: Johnny Eck

2013-04-10T10:36:00.002-05:00

AMERICAN SIDESHOWS

Today marks the start of a new feature on the page – an introduction for modern readers to some of the great sideshow performers of yesterday. Please remember that each entry is designed with the utmost respect for these performers. They are not presented to gawk or have fun. These performers were good, enterprising often ingenious people who, for the most part, made a great living in the only way that they could during the era in which they lived. To the close community of sideshow performers, it was the rest of us who were the “freaks.”

JOHNNY ECK – THE LIVING HALF-BOY

Johnny Eck

Born John Eckhardt, Jr. on August 27, 1911, in Baltimore, he entered the world without the lower portion of his abdomen, without legs. At the same time, his mother gave birth to his twin, Robert, who was fully formed. Johnny learned to walk on his hands at one-year-old and using special gloves as shoes, he was able to run around and keep up with other children. He eventually reached a full height of about eighteen inches and a weight of fifty-seven pounds.

Johnny’s sideshow career had its beginnings, oddly enough, in a church. Johnny was with a group of other children, watching a magician and the performer turned a large piece of paper into a tablecloth and invited anyone in the audience to come up on the stage and take it. Johnny, probably the most agile in the group, swooped up to claim it. The magician was amazed and immediately saw Johnny’s potential. He was able to talk the Eckhardt family into signing a contract and Johnny went on the road. What was supposed to be a one-year contract turned into ten – the sneaky magician added a “0” behind the “1” after the contract had already been signed.

Johnny with his twin brother, Robert, in the 1930s

Shay at first, Johnny grew to love the stage. By age fourteen, he was performing regularly, often with his twin brother. Together, they carried out a bizarre act. An illusionist, Rajah Raboid, would call for a volunteer from the audience to be cut in half. The volunteer would walk up to the stage and climb inside of the magic box, where he would be sawed in half, much to the audience’s delight. Raboid then put the two halves of the box back together and the volunteer would stand up and go back to his seat. After he was walking however, he would suddenly split in two at the waist, his torso going one direction and his legs going the other. The audience would, of course, scream in terror! Some fainted, some walked out but no on suspected that the “volunteer” had a twin brother like Johnny Eck, which made the stunt possible. Johnny took Robert’s place in the box, to become the head and torso, while the legs were a dwarf with his pants pulled up over his head.

Johnny performed on the stage and also had a role in the 1932 film Freaks by Tod Browning. He also appeared at Ripley’s Believe it Or Not! Odditoriums around the country. Ripley (never one to beat around the bush) called Johnny “The Most Remarkable Man in the World” and those who saw him agreed. By the time he had reached the age of four, he was an accomplished artist, typist and letter writer and went on to achieve more in his lifetime than most people who have legs. Everywhere he went, he was the center of attraction.

Johnny died on January 5, 1991, at the age of seventy-nine, a performer until the end. It would have been easy for him to have cursed his lot in life, but he always made the best of it. As he once explained, “To ask me if I’m sorry that I have no legs is like asking an Eskimo if he’s sorry he never tasted an artichoke.”

The "27 Club"

2013-04-08T09:25:00.000-05:00

THE “27 CLUB” OF ROCK-N-ROLL

Weird Tales of Strange Days

On this date, April 8, 1994, Kurt Cobain, singer and guitarist for the groundbreaking grunge band Nirvana, was found dead in Seattle from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound. Cobain, at the height of his popularity, was 27 years old. For his followers and fan, Cobain’s death was a tragedy, but one that was not totally unexpected. He had battled both depression and drug addiction for years.

Kurt Cobain, who died on April 8, 1994

But was this the only reason why many were not surprised to hear that Kurt Cobain died at 27? Unfortunately, when it comes to rock-n-roll, and the cult of celebrity, there is a “club” that few of them want to join. Entry in this “club” is simple – you only have to die at 27.

In ancient Greek history, it was said that Alexander the Great made a pact with the god Zeus that allowed him to choose between living to old age and never achieving glory or gaining everlasting fame and glory but dying as a young man. Alexander chose a short life and he conquered the entire known world before dying at the age of 33. His body was encased in solid gold and carried through the provinces so that his subjects could pay homage to their fallen leader. The Egyptians worshipped Alexander as a living god in the same manner as they did the ancient pharaohs. He was buried in secret and to this day, his tomb has not been discovered. Did he make the right choice? In the words of James Dean, Alexander planned to “live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse.”

Sadly, throughout literary history a great number of the most creative writers may as well have entered into Alexander’s pact. The English Romantic poets are a prime example: John Keats died at age 25, Percy Bysshe Shelley died at 29, Lord Byron met his death at 36, each dying at the height of his poetic powers.

In the world of rock-n-roll, there have been a number of musical giants who died in the full bloom of youth and have now become legends. They are considered members of a sort of “club,” to which entry is simple – you only have to die at the age of 27.

The founder of this club was bluesman Robert Johnson. He became the catalyst for the mixing of spirituals, country and blues that would someday become rock-n-roll. Legend has it that Johnson made a deal with the devil at a Mississippi crossroads. Like Alexander, he was granted fame and fortune, but his life ended far too soon. Johnson died at the age of only 27, setting the stage for other musicians to come.

Bluesman Robert Johnson – legend has it that he made a pact with the Devil at the crossroads and achieved fame and glory, only to die at 27

The largest number of premature deaths occurred during the two-year period between July 3, 1969 and July 3, 1971, when a total of five major rock icons died tragically. All of them were 27 years old.

Brian Jones from the Rolling Stones

The first to follow in Johnson’s footsteps was Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones. He had recently been replaced in the band, but according to friends was never happier and planned to start a new band. Unfortunately, Jones drowned in the swimming pool at his home after a long night of drinking and drugs. Jones’ death remains mysterious today. Although deemed accidental, rumors have suggested suicide or even murder.

Canned Heat guitarist Al “Blind Owl” Wilson

The next to die was Canned Heat guitarist Al “Blind Owl” Wilson on September 3, 1970. Wilson was said to have suffered severe bouts of depression, and on the night of his death was camping out behind Canned Heat singer Bob Hite’s house. The band was leaving on a European tour the next day. Wilson’s body was found in his sleeping bag the next morning. The official version of his death was an accidental drug overdose, but many of his closest friends believed that his premature death was a suicide.

Jimi Hendrix – one of the great guitarists of all time, also lost at 27

Later that same month, the rock world was stunned to learn that Jimi Hendrix had died in a girlfriend’s apartment in London. Hendrix became known as a legendary guitar player in the late 1960s and some of his friends believed that he may have sensed his impending death. That July, before his death, he told some reporters, “I don’t think I will live to see 28.” The official version of Hendrix’s death states that he was unable to sleep on the night of September 17, 1970 and took nine sleeping pills. His usual dosage was two. While his girlfriend was away from the apartment buying cigarettes, Hendrix vomited in his sleep, inhaled it, and died. Rumors swirled that he may have committed suicide or may have been murdered.

Janis Joplin

Two weeks after the death of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin died from a heroin overdose at the Landmark Hotel in Hollywood. Joplin escaped a lifetime of pain through music, alcohol and drugs and became one of the greatest blues singers of all time. On October 4, her body was discovered in her hotel room after she failed to show up for a recording session. Her friends had often begged her to stop using drugs, but Joplin had a bitter answer for them, “Let’s face it, I’ll never see 30.”

Jim Morrison, lead singer for the Doors, allegedly died at age 27 in a Paris bathtub.

Then, on July 3, 1971, the body of Jim Morrison, lead singer for The Doors, was discovered in a bathtub in his Paris apartment. He had died from a heroin overdose – a drug he supposedly never used – and his death certificate was quickly signed by a French doctor who apparently never existed. A funeral was held five days later and Morrison, like so many other musicians of the day, was inducted into the club of those who died at age 27. Of course, I don’t think he did… but that’s another story for another time.

When Kurt Cobain died in 1994, many believed that the “27 club” was alive and well and still claiming the lives of famous artists. Up and coming singer Amy Winehouse, who perhaps not in the same league as singers like Cobain and Janis Joplin was starting to make a name for herself in the music world, died in 2011 – she was also 27.

Is the curse still going? That remains to be seen, but there certainly will be plenty of opportunities to see as new performers come along every day. How many of them will “live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse?”

If you’re interested in Troy’s theories about the death (or actually FAKED death) of Jim Morrison, you can read about it in his book, INTO THE SHADOWS. Available in print, Kindle and Nook editions!

The Latter-Day Saints

2013-04-06T10:27:00.000-05:00

THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS

The Mormon Battle for the American West

On this date, April 6, 1830, the Mormon Church – which became known as the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints – was founded by prophet Joseph Smith. Over the years, the church has been violently opposed by many people, but embraced by millions of others. There is no denying that the Mormons have a strange history, which is steeped in occult traditions and lore, tainted by violence and bloodshed, tied to its polygamist past and of course, still considered mysterious and unforgiving to outsiders. But there is no denying that the Mormons also have a unique place in our history. They were the first truly American religious faith, they withstood all manner of persecution and hatred, they heroically conquered the American West and carved a “promised land” out of the Utah desert.

Founder of the Mormon Church, Joseph Smith

The founder of the Mormon religious movement was Joseph Smith, who was born in Vermont in 1805, but moved to western New York with his parents and eight siblings when he was 15. His father was a farmer and Smith grew up in an area that was rife with religious zealotry. Things were so bad that it had been given the derogatory nickname of “the Burned-Over District” because so many evangelists, revival meetings and religious renewals had hit the common folks that the religion had been “burnt out of them.” But religion had not been burned out of Joseph Smith…

One day, while praying in his upstairs bedroom, the 17-year-old Smith claimed that he was visited by a figure that was bathed in light that was “as bright as the midday sun.” The figure, an angel named Moroni, told Smith that God had work for him to do. The angel returned to visit Smith several more times in the years that followed and eventually led him to discover the golden tablets upon which were engraved the words that would become the basis of the Mormon Church. Smith was the only person to ever see these tablets (which could only be read with a pair of “magic spectacles”) but by 1832, he had translated what became known as The Book of Mormon, which held that two tribes of Israelites had been guided by God to North America 600 years before the birth of Christ. These people had built a powerful civilization but then had turned away from God and had fallen from grace, regressing into the Native American tribes that the Europeans found living on the continent centuries later. The angel Moroni was the last of God’s true prophets in North America and he had hidden the golden tablets until Smith could reveal the Mormon story to the world.

Joseph Smith and the Angel Moroni, who he claimed guided him to the golden plates that became the Book of Mormon.

Perhaps unsurprisingly in an era of bizarre religious movements, these fantastical tales met a receptive audience and the ranks of the religion that Smith was calling the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints began to swell. Just as unsurprisingly, Smith and his followers began to meet resistance and persecution for their unorthodox beliefs.

Smith and his followers were driven out of western New York by mainstream Christians who felt they were blasphemous. They moved to Kirtland, Ohio, on the southern shores of Lake Erie where they made plans to start a new Mormon community. The Saints believed that it was essential that a new Zion be built in the American wilderness so that they could create a Mormon paradise on Earth that would be duplicated in Heaven.

At first, the 2,000 Mormons were met with open arms by the people of Kirtland, but it wasn’t long before they wore out their welcome. Smith, a handsome, charismatic man, began to spread a philosophy of polygamy (he would eventually take on 49 wives of his own), although he called it “celestial marriage” and justified it by pointing to the great characters of the Bible who all had many wives. Polygamy became a source of conflict both in and out of the Mormon Church, especially in a frontier community where the men greatly outnumbered the women. The general public was horrified and fascinated with the practice and it would plague the church for many decades to come. Even today, fundamentalist Mormons who practice polygamy are seen as radical zealots, even by other Mormons.

But it would be money that would drive the Mormons from Ohio. As the bank panic of 1837 hit the United States, a bank that Smith had opened spread useless paper currency around the area. Facing criminal charges, he fled Kirtland in the middle of the night, first for Missouri and then for Illinois and the remote community of Nauvoo. The story was the same everywhere. As the ranks of the Mormons grew larger and larger, people began to resent them and violence broke out. The lieutenant governor of Missouri stated publicly that “Mormons are the common enemies of mankind and ought to be destroyed.”

There were those who followed his suggestion. A band of vigilantes attacked a Mormon settlement at Haun’s Mill, Missouri, in 1838 and gunned down an entire family, including a 10-year-old boy, in cold blood. “Nits grow lice,” one of the men reportedly said before he put a bullet into the boy’s head.

After real threats like these – as well as many imagined ones – Smith created an armed militia that he called the Army of God. The 2,000 troops were a quarter of the size of the standing U.S. Army at the time. Smith made himself a general and wore a uniform of his own design. He also selected a top-secret group of men to surround him called the Sons of Dan, or the Danites. These men were essentially Smith’s personal assassins. Taking their name from the biblical prophet Daniel, they dealt out vengeance in the form of “blood atonement” to people inside and outside of the church who had crossed Smith in some way.

In 1843, Smith made his policies on plural marriage public and more and more people began to speak out against him and his church. In addition, people were complaining about being cheated by Smith’s shady business dealings and word leaked out about the Danites. Eventually, Smith was arrested and killed by an angry mob while locked up in the Nauvoo jail. Once again, the Latter-day Saints were on the move, this time to Utah under the leadership of their new prophet, Brigham Young.

Brigham Young

Brigham Young was a dynamic speaker and natural leader who had made numerous successful recruiting missions to England on behalf of the church. He began to rule the church with absolute authority and an iron hand. But even as fiery as Young was, he knew the Mormons could not remain in Illinois and prosper. He still needed to create the new Zion that Smith has espoused and he knew it needed to be far to the west in an unpopulated territory. With that decision made, Young led his people on a terrible journey in 1847 and settled them in the arid country around the Great Salt Lake in present-day Utah. It was not the biblical paradise that Smith had envisioned, but Young insisted that they begin irrigating the country on the day they arrived and gradually, Salt Lake City began to grow.

Early Salt Lake City, a gateway to the west coast for emigrant settlers and the Mormon “promised land.”

Two years later, when gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill, Brigham Young controlled land that became a crucial link between California and the rest of the country. The Mormons were in control of every route into and out of Utah – every river, trail and mountain pass. By the early 1850s, he had created his own kingdom, apart from and beyond the control of the federal government. Finally, President Millard Fillmore was forced to surrender to the inevitable and make the Mormon leader Utah’s territorial governor.

But even then, the Mormons acted as if the laws of the U.S. did not apply to them. In 1853, a federal surveying party was attacked and massacred because the Mormons did not want the government measuring their land. Federal judges were murdered. A settler who foolishly courted one of Young’s daughters was butchered. But was it the Mormons who carried out these crimes? Not according to church members. In every case, the murders were carried out by Native Americans – or so it seemed. The victims were scalped and mutilated in what was presumed to be methods perpetrated by Indians and witnesses even stated that they had seen painted warriors fleeing the scenes of the crimes.

The Mormons may have thought they had thrown suspicion off the Danites, but not everyone was fooled. As the bloody incidents increased, outrage grew among the population back East, and the federal government, under President James Buchanan, decided to send soldiers to quell what Buchanan and others believed was a rebellion in the Utah Territory. The relatively peaceful Utah War ensued from 1857 to 1858, in which the most notable instance of violence was the Mountain Meadows massacre, when leaders of a local Mormon militia ordered the killing of a civilian emigrant party that was traveling through Utah during the escalating tensions. (See my book A PALE HORSE WAS DEATH for details). In 1858 Young agreed to step down from his position as governor and was replaced by a non-Mormon, Alfred Cumming. Nevertheless, the Mormon church still wielded significant political power in the Utah Territory.

A scene from the largely bloodless Utah War, which saw American troops sent to the wilds of Utah to put down a Mormon rebellion. It was eventually settled when Brigham Young stepped down as the territorial governor.

After Young's death in 1877, he was followed by other Latter-Day Saints (LDS) Presidents, who resisted efforts by the United States Congress to outlaw Mormon polygamous marriages. In 1878, the Supreme Court ruled in Reynolds v. United States that religious duty was not a suitable defense for practicing polygamy, and many Mormons went into hiding; later, Congress began seizing church assets. In September 1890, church president Wilford Woodruff issued a Manifesto that officially suspended the practice of polygamy. Although this Manifesto did not dissolve existing plural marriages, relations with the United States markedly improved after 1890 and Utah officially became a state. After the Manifesto, some Mormons continued to enter into polygamous marriages, but these eventually stopped in 1904 when church president Joseph F. Smith disavowed polygamy before Congress and issued a "Second Manifesto" calling for all plural marriages in the church to cease. Eventually, the church adopted a policy of excommunicating members found practicing polygamy, and today seeks actively to distance itself from "fundamentalist" groups that continue the practice.

A Utah polygamist of the late 1800s with his wives, children and grandchildren

During the early twentieth century, Mormons began to become part of the American mainstream. In 1929 the Mormon Tabernacle Choir began broadcasting a weekly performance on national radio, becoming an asset for public relations. Mormons emphasized patriotism and industry, rising in economic status from the bottom among American religious denominations to middle-class. In the 1920s and 1930s, Mormons began migrating out of Utah, a trend hurried by the Great Depression, as Mormons looked for work wherever they could find it. As Mormons spread out, church leaders created programs that would help preserve the tight-knit community feel of Mormon culture. During the Great Depression the church started a welfare program to meet the needs of poor members, which has since grown to include a humanitarian branch that provides relief to disaster victims.

The LDS Church grew rapidly after World War II and became a world-wide organization as missionaries were sent across the globe. The church doubled in size every 15–20 years, and by 1996, there were more Mormons outside the United States than inside. As the ranks have grown over the years, so has the Church’s wealth. Today, the LDS church is regarded as the wealthiest on earth, surpassing even the wealth and power of the Catholic Church.

It’s been a long, strange trip from a handful of believers in golden tablets to the size and strength that the Mormon church wields today.

Who Killed Jake Lingle?

2013-04-02T09:51:00.000-05:00

WHO REALLY KILLED JAKE LINGLE?

The Reporter, the Tribune and the Mob

On this date, April 2, 1931, a small-time thug named Leo Brothers was sentenced to spend 14 years in prison for one of the most spectacular murders in Chicago gangland history. In this case, it was not an infamous mobster that was gunned down but an ordinary reporter for the Chicago Tribune named Jack Lingle. But was he really an ordinary reporter? In the wake of his death, most didn’t think so...

For Chicagoans who lived through the turbulent days of the “Beer Wars” in the city, crime, murder and violence became commonplace, but on Monday, June 9, a new and apparently different incident became the talk of the town. It was an outrage that was splashed across the front page of every newspaper in the city. This was the murder of Alfred L. “Jake” Lingle, a crime reporter for the Chicago Tribune, who was shot to death while walking, smoking a cigar, and reading the racing news in the crowded underpass at Randolph Street and Michigan Boulevard during the lunch hour.

$65-a week newsman for the Chicago Tribune Jake Lingle, who owned two homes, kept a fancy hotel suite, had a chauffeur-driven car and maintained a luxurious lifestyle. He was also a close friend of Al Capone.

It would become the most sensational murder of 1930, even though prior to his death, the general public had no idea who Lingle was. In spite of this, his murder created a furor. In those days, newspaper reporters were not well paid, but they had a place in public regard that was generated by glamour, respect and authority. The murder of Lingle immediately assumed the importance of that of a public official – and was publicized by every newspaper in town.

Lingle’s duties on the police beat for the Tribune earned him $65 a week, which was not a princely sum. He had no aptitude for writing and could only transmit the facts. For eighteen years he had been a “leg man” who gathered crime news and phoned it in to the to the city editor’s desk. For writers at the Tribune, he was a great asset. Crime was front page news in the Chicago of the 1920s and every paper relied heavily on its in-house crime expert. In that category, Lingle had no equal. He frequently scooped the competition, for not only did he enjoy easy access to Capone, he was on intimate terms with both Police Commissioner Russell and Deputy Commissioner Stege.

Lingle never had a by-line in the paper and his name was unknown to most readers. To the public, he became much more famous in death than he ever was in life. And soon, he became notorious as details about his lifestyle began to be revealed. The supposedly humble reporter owned a chauffeur-driven Lincoln limousine and had just bought a $16,000 house at Long Beach on Lake Michigan, where his wife and two children were planning to spend the summer months. He also owned a house on the West Side but had recently taken a suite at the Stevens, one of Chicago’s most stylish hotels. He was an avid gambler at the horse and greyhound tracks, but his lavish way of life couldn’t be bought with winnings at the track.

On the day of his death, Lingle was on his way to the races. He had left his wife packing for her departure to the lake house and he planned to spend the afternoon at Washington Park in Homewood. Later that night, he planned to go to the Sheridan Wave Tournament Club, a society gambling parlor on Waveland Avenue, where the champagne, whisky and food were distributed with the management’s compliments during play. It was due to re-open that evening and Lingle wanted to be there.

In retrospect, it seems that Lingle knew he was in trouble. Attorney Louis B. Piquett later volunteered to the police that 24 hours before Lingle’s death, he had met with the reporter in the Loop. They stood on Randolph Street talking about the discovery of a murder victim named Red McLaughlin, whose body had been found in the canal. Lingle was giving Piquett his theory about the crime when a blue sedan with two men in it pulled alongside them and stopped at the curb. Lingle stopped talking in mid-sentence and looked at the men in a startled way. The two men simply stared at him. Lingle never finished what he was saying to Piquett. He simply told the attorney goodbye and walked into a nearby store. Also, on the day of his murder, after lunching at the Sherman Hotel he met Sergeant Thomas Alcock of the detective bureau and told him that he was being tailed.

And apparently, he was. After buying cigars at the Sherman Hotel kiosk, he walked the four blocks to Michigan Avenue to catch the 1:30 p.m. train to the Washington Park racetrack. He descended into the underground walkway that led to the Illinois Central suburban electric railroad in Grant Park. At that time of day, the subway was very crowded, filled with a steady stream of shoppers and office workers.

Oddly, though, even though he knew he was being followed, Lingle acted unconcerned. According to witnesses, he arrived at the entrance to the subway walking between two men. One had blonde hair and wore a straw boater hat and a gray suit. The other was dark-haired and wore a blue suit. At the entrance, Lingle paused and bought a racing edition of the evening newspaper. As he did so, a man in a roadster on the south side of Randolph Street blew his horn to attract Lingle’s attention. There were two men in the automobile and one of them called out, “Play Hy Schneider in the third!” According to a Yellow Cab superintendent who heard the exchange, Lingle grinned, waved at the man and called back, “I’ve got him!”

Lingle walked on into the subway, where he was seen by Dr. Joseph Springer, a former coroner’s physician and a long-time acquaintance. Springer later reported, “Lingle didn’t see me. He was reading the race information. He was holding it before him with both hands and smoking a cigar.”

Lingle had almost reached the end of the subway. He stopped across from the newsstand about 25 feet short of the east exit and the dark man who had been walking next to him moved away as if to buy a paper. As he did, the blonde man stepped behind Lingle, pulled out a snub-nosed .38 colt, and fired a single shot into the back of Lingle’s head. The single bullet drove upward into his brain and exited his forehead. Lingle pitched forward, cigar still clenched in his teeth and newspaper still in his hands.

The blonde killer tossed away the gun and ran forward into the crowds. Then, for some reason, he doubled back past Lingle’s body and ran up the eastern staircase. He jumped a fence, changed his mind again, ran west on Randolph Street, through a passage (where he tossed away a left-hand silk glove, probably used to prevent leaving fingerprints) and, pursued by a policeman, ran onto Wabash Avenue, where he disappeared into the crowd.

Death calls for Jake Lingle

Meanwhile in the subway, a bystander named Patrick Campbell saw the dark-haired man who had been walking with Lingle and the killer hurrying towards the west exit. He moved to try and catch him, but his movement was blocked by a priest, who bumped into him. The priest delayed Campbell just long enough for the accomplice to escape. He told Campbell that he was getting out of the subway because someone had been shot. Later, Lieutenant William Cusack of the detective bureau commented gruffly, “He was no priest. A priest would never do that. He would have gone to the side of the stricken person.”

Slowly, the method of Lingle’s murder became clear. He had walked into a trap that had been formed by perhaps as many as a dozen men. But what was never put forward as a theory, and which seems the most likely explanation, was that during his progress into the subway between the two men, he was eased along at gunpoint, under orders to keep walking naturally and keep reading the paper.

That evening, Colonel Robert R. McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, summoned his news staff together and addressed them about the death of a reporter that he had never met and whose name he had likely never heard before. He spoke for 45 minutes and pledged to solve the murder of the martyred journalist. The next morning, the front page of the paper blared with an eight-inch banner headline that announced the dead of Lingle. The story read: “Alfred L. Lingle, better known in the world of newspaper work as Jake Lingle, and for the last eighteen years a reporter on the Tribune, was shot to death yesterday in the Illinois Central subway at the east side of Michigan Avenue, at Randolph Street.

The Tribune offered $25,000 as a reward for information which will lead to the conviction of the slayer or slayers. An additional reward of $5,000 was announced by the Chicago Evening Post, making a total of $30,000.” The next morning, not to be outdone by the Tribune, Hearst’s Chicago Herald & Examiner also offered up a $25,000 reward, bringing the total up to $55,000.

Colonel McCormick, meanwhile, continued to take Lingle’s death as an affront to him personally and an attack on the press. He regarded it as being much more serious than the other hundreds of cases of violence that plagued Chicago. He announced that Lingle’s murder was committed in reprisal and as an attempt to intimidate the newspapers into suppressing stories about the dealings of the underworld. But, he declared, this was now a war and the Tribune and Chicago’s other newspapers would not rest until Lingle’s killers had been brought to justice.

What was especially shocking was that up to that point, gangsters had taken a “hands-off” policy toward harming reporters. Lingle was hailed as a hero who died in the service of the public and over 25,000 people attended his funeral.

Police Commissioner Russell was forced into making a statement. “I have given orders to the five deputy police commissioners to make this town so quiet that you will be able to hear a consumptive canary cough,” he said colorfully, but then added, as a preliminary explanation for the lack of further action, “Of course, most of the underworld has scuttled off to hiding places. It will be hard to find them, but we will never rest until the criminals are caught and Chicago is free of them forever.”

The next day, a newspaper editorial remarked sadly, “These gangs have run the town for many months and have strewn the streets with the lacerated bodies of their victims. Commissioner Russell and Deputy Commissioner John P. Stege have had their opportunity to break up these criminal gangs, who have made the streets hideous with bleeding corpses. They have failed.”

Russell replied to the charges, “My conscience is clear. All I ask is that the city will sit tight and see what is going to happen.”

All that actually happened was that Russell and Stege, in the words of the newspaper, “staged a mock heroic battle with crime by arresting every dirty-necked ragamuffin on the street corners, but carefully abstained from taking into custody any of the men who matter.”

Meanwhile, some of the blanks that had remained in the accounts of Lingle’s character and lifestyle began to be filled in. It is fair to say that the management at the Tribune was unaware of them, or they likely would not have turned Lingle into the martyr that they did. Some of the facts that had remained so far unmentioned were that he had himself hinted that he was the man who fixed the price of beer in Chicago; that he was a close friend of Al Capone and had stayed with him at his Florida estate; that when he died he was wearing a diamond-studded belt buckle that had been a gift from Capone; that he was on improbably friendly terms, for a newspaper reporter of his lowly status, with millionaire businessmen, judges, and county and city officials, and that he spent golfing holidays and shared stock market tips with the police commissioner – a boyhood chum whom Lingle had helped elevate to his current position in 1928.

By the time a week had passed, certain reservations had started to temper the anger about the newspaperman’s slaying that had been displayed on the front page and in the editorial columns of the Tribune. As more details about Lingle’s extracurricular activities began to emerge, McCormick and his editorial executives began to back-pedal away from their earlier statements and demands. Rumors about Lingle’s background and liaisons were racing around Chicago, supported by muckraking stories in other newspapers, and the Tribune began to take a different stance. They admitted that Lingle was apparently involved in some unsavory activities but they noted that the gangsters who killed him were still out there – and they still needed to be brought to justice.

McCormick’s investigators, as well as the police, had learned a lot about the background of Jake Lingle, a semiprofessional baseball player from the slums who had wormed his way into the lowest levels of Chicago journalism. His first job after leaving a West Jackson Boulevard elementary school was as an office boy at a surgical supply house. He was playing semiprofessional baseball at the time and he met William Russell, at that time a police patrolman, with whom he struck up a friendship. Lingle was hired as a Tribunecopyboy in 1918. He had no aptitude for writing, but it was his long list of contacts (mostly made through Russell) and timely telephone calls to the city desk that made him indispensable to editors and rewrite men. The brash and cocky reporter cultivated acquaintances in the courts, the jails and in the gin mills of the North and South sides. Relying on the word of informants and friendships, he became one of the city’s least-known but cleverest crime reporters. He also became one of the wealthiest but whether this was from his dealings in the stock market, his investments in gambling clubs on the North Side, or from some other source is unknown.

Some believed that Lingle operated as a liaison between the underworld and the city’s political machine. Many out of town newspapers were referring to the slain reporter as the “unofficial Chief of Police,” who, for a sum, was able to “put the fix” in for gamblers, bootleggers, and anyone else who was having a problem involving law enforcement. Among the city hall insiders with whom he maintained a close relationship wias attorney Samuel A. Ettleson, the corporation counsel for Chicago and an operator in city government.

Al Capone confirmed that Lingle was “one of the boys” during an interview in Florida in July 1930. He said that Lingle was a friend and that he didn’t have any sort of disagreement with him that led to his death. Capone also stated, “The Chicago police know who killed him.”

The question of who killed Jake Lingle was temporarily forgotten during exposure of his fascinating financial affairs. In addition to the secret bank account that Lingle kept with the Lake Shore Trust and Savings Bank, he was also known for carrying large sums of cash in his pocket. He had $9,000 dollars on him the day that he was killed. Another interesting branch of his activities that came to light were his “loans” from gamblers, politicians, and businessmen. He had “borrowed” $2,000 from Jimmy Mondi, a Capone gambling operator in Cicero and the Loop, -- a loan that had never been paid back. He had also borrowed $5,000 from Alderman Berthold A. Cronson, nephew of Samuel Ettleson, who later stated that the loan was a “pure friendship proposition.” That loan, too, had never been repaid He also had $5,000 from Ettleson himself, who only said that he had never loaned money to Lingle but often gave him some small remembrance at Christmas. He had a loan of $2,500 from Carlos Ames, president of the Civil Service Commission, that Ames stated was a “purely personal affair.” He had $300 from Police Lieutenant Thomas McFarland, who said that he had given Lingle the money because they had been close friends for many years. It was also alleged that Sam Hare, a roadhouse and gambling parlor operator, had “loaned” Lingle $20,000. Hare denied it.

Investigations also revealed that Lingle had been in an investment partnership with his old friend, William Russell. The account, used for stock market speculation, was opened in November 1928 with a $20,000 deposit. On September 20, 1929 – preceding the market crash in October – their joint paper profits were $23,696. Later, a loss of $58,850 was shown. Lingle showed paper profits at a peak of $85,000 that, after the crash, were converted to a loss of $75,000. Russell’s losses were variously reported as $100,000 and $250,000.

As to the source of the money put up by Lingle and deposited by him into his bank account, investigators noted, “We have thus far been able to come to no conclusion.”

But the press and the public had come to conclusions – and they were painfully obvious ones, which again confirmed that they were the residents of a city that was governed by dishonorable leaders and corrupt officials. The newspapers theorized about why Lingle had been murdered, but the fervor, and righteous anger, had waned. The unofficial verdict was that Lingle had “asked for it,” so to speak, by becoming involved with gangsters and dirty politicians.

Most theories of his death identified Lingle as a favor-seller and most placed the blame on Capone’s opposition, the Moran-Aiello merger. One story that made the rounds in gangland was that Lingle had been given $50,000 to secure protection for a West Side dog track, that he had failed to do so and kept the money.

Another story implicated him in the re-opening of the Sheridan Wave Tournament Club, which had been operated by the Weiss-Moran gang, but which, after the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, had closed. Moran worked for eighteen months to try and find sympathetic officials to help him re-open the club, giving the job to Joe Josephs and Julian “Potatoes” Kaufman. It was said that Kaufman, an old friend of Lingle, had approached the reporter and asked him to use his influence with the police to get the club open again. Allegedly, Lingle agreed to do so – but only if he were cut in on the action. He demanded fifty percent of the profits but Kaufman refused. Lingle then allegedly retorted, “If this joint is opened up, you’ll see more squad cars in front ready to raid it than you ever saw in your life before.” In spite of this, the story said, the club was permitted to re-open anyway. It was widely advertised that it would be opening on June 9 – the day on which Lingle set out for the races for the final time.

An equally plausible story stated that he got too deeply involved in the struggle for money and power in the gambling syndicate. For years, there had been a bitter war between the General News Bureau, a racing news wire service that existed entirely for the purposes of betting, and the independent news services. As an appointed intermediary, Lingle brought the two opposed factions together in January 1930 and a two-year truce was agreed upon. The truce, it was said, may not have extended to Lingle.

Perhaps some of these stories were true, or perhaps all or none of them were. Whatever the reason behind his murder, Lingle likely just got mixed up in the violence and bloodshed of gangland, an arena where even the most experienced can sometimes be torn apart.

The biggest question remained – who pulled the trigger that ended the reporter’s life?

Weeks, then months passed before the police produced a suspect. The serial number on the handgun that the killer had dropped had been filed off, but ballistics expert Colonel Calvin Goddard traced the origin of the gun to a sporting goods store owned by Peter Von Frantzius on Diversey Parkway. Records showed that the gun had been sold to Frankie Foster, a member of the North Side Moran gang. Foster fled to Los Angeles after the Lingle shooting, but was indicted in Chicago as an accessory before the fact to murder. Foster, whose real name was Frank Citro, was eventually extradited to Chicago and was held in the county jail for four months before the evidence against him was deemed inconclusive and the charges against him were dropped.

A short time later, a new suspect was named. Leo Vincent Brothers, a labor union slugger from St. Louis, was arrested in New York and indicted for the Lingle murder. Brothers had started out as a member of Egan’s Rats and soon graduated into labor racketeering and contract murder. Dodging a 1929 murder indictment, Brothers fled to Chicago, where he found work with Al Capone. Brothers was convicted and sentenced to fourteen years in prison for killing Lingle on April 2, 1931.

“I can do that standing on my head!” Brothers quipped after the sentence was handed down. Most observers, then and now, believe that Brothers was handed up to the state by Al Capone as a sacrifice, taking the fall for Jack Zuta, a racketeer who ran a string of whorehouses. Zuta was already dead by the time the trial wrapped up.

It seemed that just about everyone had a motive to kill Jake Lingle, but crime historians are in general agreement that Brothers took the rap and served time for a substantial cash payoff – but we’ll never really know for sure.

After his release in 1940, Brothers returned to St. Louis, beat his original murder case, and became hooked up with the local mob. Three months after an abortive attempt on his life, Leo Brothers died of heart disease in St. Louis on December 23, 1950. He took the secrets of the Lingle murder with him to the grave.

The story of Jake Lingle and all of the Chicago gangster murders, violence and ghosts can be found in Troy Taylor’s book BLOOD, GUNS & VALENTINES, available from the website in a print edition or as a Kindle edition from Amazon.

Heaven's Gate!

2013-03-26T09:45:00.002-05:00

“HEAVEN’S GATE”

Riding the Comet to Insanity

On this date, March 26, 1997, America was stunned with the news that a UFO cult in San Diego had committed mass suicide, convinced by their leader that they were going to join a UFO that was flying in the tail of the Hale-Bopp Comet, which was then crossing the sky. Most who read of the bizarre cult were stunned that anyone could believe such things, but strange cults were nothing new – especially in California. It was in California that the infamous Jim Jones got his start, leading to a mass suicide in the jungles of Guyana. It was also in California that Charles Manson led his bloodthirsty “family” on a murder spree that effectively ended the peace-loving hippie movement of the 1960s – and still haunts us today.

Marshall Applewhite – Insane Heaven’s Gate leader

California – and Southern California area in particular – was filled with sects and churches in the early 1900s, with ministers like “Fighting Bob” Shuler and Aimee Semple McPherson gaining followers and garnering headlines, but they were far from alone. Starting at about the same time that the film industry discovered Hollywood and made its home among the palm trees, scores of “spookeries” and “fairy farms” began showing up, too.

Decades before the hippie movement made “free love” an international phenomenon, love cults flourished all over Southern California. The first word of them spread in the middle 1920s and began making news a few years later, like one “nest of love” on Santee Street where women were forced to “speak in tongues,” perform “devil dances,” and engage in “soul mating” with “spiritual husbands.”

In 1939, the High Priestess Regina Kuhl captured the attention of the authorities when she was caught indoctrinating male students at L.A. City College into her “Temple of Thelma.” The temple was set up in the basement of one of the dorms and there, she would don robes, chant some suggestive passages from an Aleister Crowley book and “embrace the power of the lifted lance” – or more simply put, engage in sex with multiple partners.

In 1946, Henry “King Daddy” Newson was arrested for running his own sex camp called Ten Oaks. According to newspaper reports, he molested sixteen underage girls over the course of two years. In his defense, he claimed that he was teaching them the “beauty” of sexual intercourse. Several of the girls claimed that he controlled their minds through hypnosis.

THE BLACKBURN CULT

The religious group known as the Blackburn Cult, the Divine Order of the Royal Arms of the Great Eleven, or the Great Eleven Club, was started around 1925. The group’s founder, May Otis Blackburn, claimed to receive revelations directly from God and believed that she had been charged by the archangel Gabriel to write books that revealed the mystery of heaven and earth, life and death. Apparently, Gabriel thought the goal of teaching the earth should be accomplished though strange rituals that involved animal sacrifice, copious amounts of sex between followers of the cult, and by stealing thousands of dollars from naïve believers.

The horrible state of Willa Rhoads’ body after it was found beneath her parent’s house in 1929. (LAPD Crime Photo)

The cult began to fall apart in 1929 after police officers made a gruesome discovery at the home of the Rhoads family on Vermont Avenue. Under the floor of one of the bedrooms was a specially built, refrigerated “sleeping chamber” that contained the corpse of their 16-year-old daughter, Willa. The girl’s body was covered in spices and salt and was surrounded by seven dead dogs. The Rhoads later confessed that they had placed the girl in the tomb at the direction of May Otis Blackburn, who convinced them that she would be resurrected when the archangel Gabriel came to earth.

Group leaders were indicted later that year for theft and were also investigated in the disappearance of several members. The indictments made newspaper headlines when the strange rituals of the cult were revealed to the public. May Otis Blackburn was charged with 12 counts of grand theft and the cult collapsed after she was sent to prison for stealing $40,000 from group member Clifford Dabney.

MANKIND UNITED

Eerily foreshadowing the modern cult of Scientology (on which a religion is based on the writings of a science-fiction novelist) was the Mankind United sect, which was created by another science-fiction writer, Arthur Bell. During the height of the Great Depression, Bell penned a book called Mankind United, a turgid, repetitive text that was filled with bold type and large blocks of capitalized text. It told the story of a malevolent conspiracy that ran the world (the "Hidden Rulers" and "Money Changers") who were not only responsible for war, poverty and injustice – they were also aliens living on earth.

Opposing them was another group of aliens, the “Sponsors,” who had arrived on earth in 1875. According to Bell, the benevolent Sponsors were shortly going to announce their presence and would put in place a world-wide utopia, based on universal employment and a financial system based on credits. The workday would be four hours a day, four days a week. Needless to say, all of this sounded pretty good to tired, worn-out people who were struggling to put food on their tables.

In order for the Sponsors to put their plan into place, they had to receive massive support from the people. The plan would be promoted by the “Pacific Coast Division of North America, International Registration Bureau” – which was, of course, run by Arthur Bell. He announced that when 200 million people accepted the Mankind United plan, the Sponsors would overthrow their rival alien groups and, within 30 days, the new utopia would begin.

Of course, there were no Sponsors, no evil aliens, and no “International Bureau.” The whole thing had been concocted by Bell and it never numbered more than a few thousand followers, if that. The only true beneficiary of the group was Bell, who had several luxurious apartments and mansions, including a swanky place on the Sunset Strip that had an indoor pool, a pipe organ, and a cocktail bar. Bell was spotted in all of the most swinging nightclubs and spent cash freely. He received about $50,000 a year in tax-free income, which adjusted for inflation would be the equivalent of nearly $1 million today. His followers, on the other hand, worked in various cult businesses full-time, including hotels and shops. They were paid less than $40 a month, worked up to 16 hours a day, seven days a week – which was quite a bit more than the utopian work week they had been promised in Bell’s book.

The cult gained the attention of the authorities during World War II. Bell incorporated as a church (the Church of the Golden Rule) to obtain tax exemption and began making even more bizarre claims, such as the idea that he could be beamed to several different places at once, that the Sponsors had advanced technology that allowed the dead to be resurrected on other planets, and more. None of these turned out to be quite enough to gain popular support and in 1951, Bell’s group folded and the cult faded away completely. As some would later discover, though, he was simply a man ahead of his time. If he had started his church a few decades later, he might be able to count some of the biggest stars in Hollywood as his members.

FOUNTAIN OF THE WORLD

One of the most famous cults in Southern California was Krishna Venta’s WKFL (for Wisdom, Knowledge, Faith and Love) and it began as a quiet monastery in Canoga Park in 1948.

The Fountain of the World, as the group became known, first got the attention of the press in the 1940s and 1950s for its members’ habit of dressing in robes and going barefoot. Male members were required to grow beards and wear their hair long. The Fountain was marginally controversial because one of the requirements for membership was that one donate all his or her worldly assets to the group prior to joining. For most, this was irrelevant since they had very little to start with.

The group was responsible for a multitude of positives, including fighting wildfires, offering shelter to those in need, and feeding the homeless. The group gained national exposure in 1949 when the newswires picked up the story that Fountain members had been among the first on the scene to offer aid to the victims of Standard Airlines Flight 897R, which had crashed into the Simi Hills, killing 35 of 48 persons onboard. Krishna Venta also taught his followers to set up free food services for the poor, offer free room and board to the homeless, and help emergency relief groups in times of need.

But things at the commune were stranger than most people knew. In addition to promoting charitable works, Venta also claimed that smoking was healthy, that human beings were evolved from aliens, that he was 244,000 years old and would never die (he did), that he arrived on earth in 1932 on Mount Everest, and led a convoy of rockets here from the extinct planet Neophrates. He also claimed that he was none other than Jesus Christ himself. To prove it, he liked to show his detractors that he had been born without a belly button, proof that he was Jesus, an alien, or something.

Krishna Venta had been born Francis Herman Penovic in 1911. He was married in 1937 and divorced seven years later. He was arrested in 1941 after sending a threatening letter to President Roosevelt. Later, using the name Frank Jensen, he committed a series of crimes including burglary, larceny and kidnapping. He also spent a few months in a mental hospital. In 1948, he changed his name and founded his religion. He also got involved in the California legal system again when he was ordered to pay child support from 1945 to 1951. He claimed a religious exemption but the court ruled against him in 1955.

Venta died on December 10, 1958 in a suicide bombing instigated by two disgruntled former followers (Peter Kamenoff and Ralph Muller) who, although never offering any proof to support their claims, charged that Venta had both mishandled cult funds and been intimate with their wives. Krishna Venta is buried in Valhalla Memorial Park in Burbank. His grave is unmarked but near that of Oliver Hardy, of Laurel and Hardy fame. A monument to Venta still exists in the canyon in Canoga Park where the commune once stood.

A branch of the Fountain of the World cult was also established in Homer, Alaska, in the years prior to Venta's death. Cult members were referred to as the “barefooters” by locals. But Fountain membership at both sites declined rapidly following Venta's death, and the cult ceased to exist entirely by the middle 1970s.

HEAVEN’S GATE

Undoubtedly, the strangest of the modern-day “alien” cults in Southern California was Heaven’s Gate, a UFO religion that was based out of San Diego and led by Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles. At some point in the early 1970s, Applewhite became convinced that he was an alien who was transported to earth and reincarnated into the body of a man – named Marshal Applewhite. From that point on, he believed that it was his mission to teach everyone he came into contact with about the creed of transcendence. With the help of his partner, Bonnie Nettles, he gathered a number of followers and convinced them to give up everything that they owned (including their children) and to prepare themselves for the trip to the “Evolutionary Level Above Human.” Applewhite’s preparation included months of extreme psychological mind control experiments, starvation, and celibacy. Some cult members even went as far as to castrate themselves.

Although mostly unknown to the mainstream media, Heaven’s Gate was known in UFO circles and had been the subject of criticism by respected UFO writer Jacques Vallee. In Messengers of Deception, he described an unusual public meeting organized by the group and expressed concerns about many UFO contactee groups' authoritarian political and religious outlooks, including the views of Heaven’s Gate.

The group's end coincided with the appearance of Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997. Applewhite convinced 38 followers to commit suicide, which he claimed would allow their souls to board a spaceship that they believed was hiding behind the comet. The cult believed that the planet Earth was about to be “recycled,” or wiped clean, and that the only chance they had to survive was to leave it immediately.

The Heaven’s Gate crime scene photos

On March 26, 1997, 38 members of the cult, along with Marshall Applewhite, were found dead in a rented mansion in the upscale San Diego community of Rancho Santa Fe. As the Hale-Bopp comet approached the earth, the group members drank citrus juice to ritually cleanse their bodies of impurities. The suicides were then accomplished by ingesting phenobarbital, mixed with vodka, and by tying plastic bags around their heads to induce asphyxiation. The cult members were found lying neatly on their bunk beds, their faces and torsos covered by a square, purple cloth – and plastic bags secured over their heads. Each member carried a five dollar bill and three quarters in their pockets. All 39 were dressed in identical black shirts and sweat pants, brand new black-and-white Nike athletic shoes, and armband patches reading "Heaven's Gate Away Team."

Strange Tales of Southern California cults, weird murders and hauntings can be found in Troy Taylor’s book BLOODY HOLLYWOOD. It’s available in an autographed edition from the website or as a Kindle edition.

The Triangle Fire!

2013-03-25T12:03:00.003-05:00

TRIANGLE!

History, Horror & Hauntings of America’s Worst Factory Fire!

On this date, March 25, 1911, a Manhattan sweatshop, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, caught fire, claiming the lives of 148 people – mostly young women – in a matter of minutes. With doors locked to prevent theft and insufficient fire escapes, many of the workers jumped to their deaths from the upper floors of the building, rather than risk being burned alive. The fire shocked the entire nation, changed safety rules forever – and left a haunting in its wake.

The Asch Building in Manhattan, 1911

The Asch building, on the corner of Greene Street and Washington Place, was a rather nondescript ten-story building. The owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, rented or subcontracted out the lower seven floors of the building to various other similar enterprises. They saved the eighth, ninth and tenth floors for the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory, which they operated to make ladies blouses, then known as shirtwaists.

Employees of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company were not allowed to leave the building by the main doors. At the end of the work day they were required to go to the rear exit door, which was kept locked during the hours of operation for fear of theft. Here, the employees were routinely searched before leaving, lest they try to steal something. Since the young ladies who worked in the sweatshop only knew this one exit to get out in the event of a fire, terrible things occurred on these rear stairs.

March 25, 1911 was a Saturday and a fine day according to all accounts. Most sweatshop workers in the city were released by lunchtime for their Saturday half day-off, including those who worked on the lower seven floors of the Asch Building. However, the owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company kept most of their employees hard at work until 5:00 p.m. Most of the factory employees, nearly five hundred women and one hundred or so men, were at work that day. Most of the women were very young, aged sixteen to 23, and very few of them spoke English. They were largely Italian, German, Russian and Hungarian immigrants and many of them were the primary wage earners for their families. The men employed there worked mostly in the capacity of office workers and management.

Around 4:40 p.m., just ten minutes before the end of the workday, cries of “fire!” rang out on the eighth floor. No one ever learned exactly how the fire started but most speculated that it was caused by a carelessly discarded cigarette or match.

The scorched remains of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory after the deadly fire

Within a few minutes, flames were pouring from windows of the top three floors of the Asch building. Four fire alarms were sounded immediately but the fire was already so intense that the first five women to jump to their deaths did so before even the first fire truck had arrived.

Of the two elevators in the building, only one was in working order. A few minutes after the fire began, the only stairwell was full of flames and smoke, making it impossible to flee using that route. Thomas Gregory, an elevator operator from another building who was on his way home that day, ran into the building and made three more trips with the elevator before it broke down. He described leaving masses of terrified, panic-stricken people trying to fight their way onto the elevator but was only able to take fifteen or so people on each trip.

Even though the elevator was no longer operating, the shaft doors were forced open and several people attempted to escape by sliding down the elevator cables. At least two people were successful in their attempt. A young woman, later pulled from the shaft alive, said she passed out on her way down the cables and had no memory of what happened next but she believed that she survived because she landed on several of the dead bodies of her fellow workers, which cushioned her fall. Another man reported using the same cables to flee. Unfortunately, as he slid down, the body of a young woman falling from above, knocked him from the cables and he fell the final few floors. After the fire, 25 bodies were pulled from the bottom of the elevator shaft, many of whom had simply jumped to their deaths to escape the flames.

Both Harris and Blanck, the building’s owners, were in the building when the fire started, along with Blanck’s children and their nanny. All escaped by making their way to the roof, a means of escape that was not known to most of the factory workers. The doors to the roof were kept locked on all but the top floor.

There was little hope to rescue anyone from outside the building. The fire hoses were inadequate and the ladders would only reach to the sixth floor

About two hundred workers did eventually make their way to the roof, most of them from the tenth floor. The New York University Law School building was located just across a small courtyard but was one story higher. As the fire raged, several law students led by Charles Kremer and Elias Kanter rushed to the aid of the victims. They tied two short ladders together so that the victims could climb to the roof of their building. Kremer climbed down onto the lower roof to help them up the ladder, and in this way they were able to save one hundred and fifty men, women and girls. Kremer then made his way down into the tenth floor to look for more survivors. He saw only one young girl, her hair ablaze. She ran toward him screaming and then fainted in his arms. He put out her burning hair then carried her to safety, believing there to be no one else surviving left behind on that floor. Meanwhile, at the other end of the roof, about fifty people had gathered and were fighting to scale the five feet to the roof of the adjoining building. Several of the law students reported seeing men kicking and biting the women and girls, knocking them out of the way as they escaped to safety.

After the fire department arrived, many attempts were made to save trapped or falling victims. Unfortunately, their ladders only reached a little above the sixth floor. Several people tried to jump to the ladders but none were able to catch hold and all fell to their deaths. Safety nets were also employed but to little or no avail. The great height was just too much and many of the nets split or were shredded as bodies fell through them, crashing to the pavement. In one case, a young girl was caught in a net but three others who jumped just after, landed on her and all four toppled onto the ground, dead. A few bystanders tried to stretch blankets or tarps but the results were nearly all the same. The number of people saved in this manner could be counted on one hand. One woman fell with such force that she ripped through a safety net and crashed through the thick glass vault in the sidewalk, finally coming to rest in the basement of the building.

Several rescue workers were injured when falling bodies struck them. People were falling faster than the firefighters could get into position to try to catch them. The firefighters' rescue efforts were further hindered by the growing number of corpses strewn about the sidewalks, making it difficult for them to move the safety nets. The bodies were left lying where they fell until later that evening, as the firefighters were busy fighting the fire. It was believed none of those who had fallen could still be alive.

Scores of young women jumped to their deaths. The photo above became the “photo that changed factory safety forever” after it was widely circulated in newspapers across the country.

Below – some of the women struck the sidewalks with such force that they broke through to building basements below.

A few hours later, however, a young woman was pulled from a pile of bodies, still breathing. A great cheer arose as she was loaded into an ambulance. Sadly, though, she died a few minutes later.

As the upper floors of the building burned, a crowd of thousands, gathering in the streets below bore witness to the carnage that was unfolding before them. They screamed in horror as they watched, helpless. Many eyewitness reports of the tragic deaths of the people who fell to their deaths from the windows of the Washington Place and Greene Street sides soon followed. Some jumped, some were thrown or pushed and others were forced out by the panic-stricken crowds shoving their way toward the windows. A majority of those who fell did so with burning clothing and hair. Some continued to burn as they lay on the sidewalk until they were extinguished by the water dripping down from the fire hoses, their blackened bodies left lying there until late in the evening.

Five young women on the Greene Street side of the building climbed out onto the windowsill, wrapped their arms around each other and jumped together. They crashed through the sidewalk cover into the basement, their clothes and hair burning as they fell. Another girl leaped very far out but her dress got tangled up in some wires and she was left suspended high above as the crowd watched, unable to help. Eventually, her dress burned through and she fell to her death. A man on the same side was seen from an adjacent building, running from window to window picking up women and throwing them out the windows. Eventually, when no other women were left, he himself climbed onto the ledge, paused a moment then jumped. It was never known if he believed that there would be nets to catch them or if he was trying to shorten their suffering.

A young girl of about thirteen was seen hanging by her fingertips from a ninth-floor windowsill for a few minutes. Then the fire reached her fingers and she fell into a waiting net, only to be crushed by two other women who fell immediately after her, adding all three to the death list.

Some of the girls who jumped from the Washington Place side crashed through the vault light in the sidewalk. As women continued to fall or jump from the same window, their bodies eventually created a hole nearly five feet in diameter. Later in the evening, firefighters pulled several partially nude and burned bodies from this hole.

Another pair of girls climbed out of a window on the ninth floor, overlooking Greene Street. The older of the two seemed calm and composed as she tried to subdue the younger girl as she “shrieked and twisted with fright.” As the crowd called to them not to jump, the older girl wrapped her arms around her and pulled her back toward the building. The younger girl, in her panic, twisted free, took a few steps away and then she jumped. The older girl remained standing on the ledge until the flames came so close that her hair was scorched. She looked skyward, placed her arms to her sides, and jumped straight down, feet first. Her name was Bertha Weintrout and she was the girl who was later found alive, if only for a few minutes, buried amid a pile of corpses on the sidewalk.

Six girls, after getting to a window on the ninth floor made their way out onto an eight-inch-wide ledge that ran the length of the building. Slowly, they edged their way along this ledge, more than one hundred feet above the ground, toward a swinging electric cable. When all had arrived, they grabbed the cable simultaneously in an attempt to swing to the safety of the adjacent building. The cable snapped as they swung out and all six perished below.

A few windows down, on the same floor, a man and a woman appeared on the sill. The man kissed, then hugged the woman, threw her to the street and jumped himself. Both were killed. Just around the corner, from another window, a young girl, a man and a woman, and two other women with their arms wrapped around each other leaped to the ground together. The young girl was found alive after her fall and was rushed to the hospital where she died upon arrival.

A small group of men tried to make a human bridge between the burning building and the window of another building. They were successful in saving a number of women but eventually the weight of the women became too great and the bridge broke, the center man tumbling to the ground with a broken back.

The fire was extinguished within an hour and by 7:00 p.m., less than two hours after it started, firefighters were able to force their way up the stairs and into the burned floors. They reported that, “50 roasted bodies were found on the ninth floor alone.” The charred bodies of nineteen victims were found piled against locked doors and 25 more were found huddled together in a cloakroom. Each body, as it was found, was carefully lifted from the burned surroundings, wrapped in cloth and hoisted to the ground using a pulley system. They were then taken to one of a hundred wooden coffins lining the street. The bodies were then moved to the morgue at Bellevue Hospital or the Charities Pier morgue.

One unnamed reporter wrote in the New York Times that the “...remains of the dead, it is hardly possible to call them bodies, because that would suggest something human, and there was nothing human about most of these, were being taken in a steady stream to the morgue for identification.” Fire Chief Edward F. Croker, one of the first men to reenter the building following the fire left the building in obvious distress, stating that in all his years, he had never seen anything like what he had seen on those upper floors.

The police estimated that as many as 200,000 people; devastated family and friends, as well as the morbidly curious public, entered the makeshift morgue at the pier and filed past the over one hundred wooden coffins containing bodies that had been recovered. They walked past the bodies that were at least partially recognizable in the hope of finding a lost loved one. Tens of thousands were turned away by the police in an attempt to keep more of the general public away. Over forty human forms too badly burned to be recognizable, were covered with a white canvas tarp with the hope that they might be identified through trinkets, jewelry or articles of clothing.

Thousands came to view the bodies and to try and identify the dead. Many became hysterical and even attempted suicide on the spot.

Stories of unbelievable anguish were published in newspapers across the county. A young girl was identified by a family heirloom signet ring found clinging to the charred flesh of a badly burned body. A young woman screamed as she collapsed after identifying her fiancé by his ring, having become engaged only the night before. She asked if a watch had been found with his body. When she was given the watch, she opened it and “gazed upon her own portrait.” A man, having waited in line for over five hours, identified his daughters by their clothing. After collapsing with grief, he attempted to kill himself on the spot. He was restrained by police until he calmed down enough to continue looking for his wife, also lost in the fire. A man with a fresh burn on his cheek, identified his brother. He told the police that he and his brother had fought the fire, standing side by side, with buckets of water. A man who had barely escaped with his own life identified his fiancée by her engagement ring. In her hand, she still clutched her handbag, her weekly wages of $3 remained inside, intact. A sobbing brother stumbled away from the mangled bodies of his two sisters left propped up in their coffins to search for their mother. The fire took his entire family.

As a growing number of people became hysterical or suicidal, a makeshift hospital was set up at the pier to deal with this unexpected problem. Doctors and nurses from Bellevue Hospital worked for days trying to help keep these grieving family members from being added to the list of lives stolen by the fire.

Thirty-one victims remained unidentified after the last of the survivors claimed their family and friends. The Hebrew Free Burial Association paid for the burial of 23 of these victims in a special section of Mount Richmond Cemetery. The remaining eight bodies were interred in the Cemetery of the Evergreens in Brooklyn.

As the blaze began, the only safety measures within the Asch Building available to those still inside were 27 buckets of water and one fire escape that collapsed almost immediately. Most of the exits were locked and those that weren’t, opened inward so they remained closed under the crush of people pushing toward the doors.

It was not the 95 charred bodies found inside the building that so outraged the public, but rather the heaps of bodies along the sidewalk and rows of mostly young girls lying dead in the street. By the end, 53 people had jumped, fallen or were pushed from the upper floors and thousands of people were there to witness each one of them fall and strike the pavement. The average age of those killed in the fire was nineteen. The public outrage was carried like a wave across the country as reports and pictures of the tragedy appeared in newspapers everywhere.

The resulting public pressure proved to be too much to overcome and dramatic changes were in store for the existing fire codes and their enforcement in the workplace. The New York State Legislature formed the “Factory Commission” in 1911, which developed many requirements linked directly back to the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire such as all exit doors must be left unlocked during operating hours and sprinklers were to be installed if a factory employed more than 25 people. The memories of the young women who perished in that terrible fire resulted in a major change in the way many people thought about protecting workers. Prior to the fire, the government left businesses alone regarding the safety of their workers. Afterwards, the government had little choice but to begin instituting sweeping safety laws that changed history for American workers.

In the end, no one was held accountable for the Triangle deaths. In December of 1911, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, the Asch Building owners and Triangle Shirtwaist Company owners were charged and tried for manslaughter. Despite a mob of people outside the courthouse chanting “Murderers! Murderers!” the two were acquitted of all charges by the jury after only two hours of deliberation. Twenty-three individual civil suits for damages against the company were settled for an average of $75 per life lost.

Blanck and Isaac completed their association with the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory by filing an insurance claim in excess of their losses, garnering them a profit from the fire of more than $60,000 -- a hefty sum in 1911. Blanck continued on in the clothing manufacturing business. He opened another factory on Fifth Avenue. In 1913, just two years after the Triangle fire, he was arrested for locking the exit door in his factory during working hours. He was fined $20.

The Asch Building still stands at the corner of Washington Place and Greene Street, but its name has been changed to the Brown Building. No longer are the floors of that building home to sweatshops employing poor and desperate immigrant women and girls, overworked and underpaid. Today, the Brown Building is full of young university science students as it has become a part of the New York University as a science lab -- the same university that was located next door and provided a means of escape to nearly one hundred and fifty people fleeing the fire with the aid of many of the students.

On the corner of the building a plaque has been placed, commemorating the tragic events that took place on that site on March 25, 1911, and the lives lost that day. The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire continues as a turning point in United States history.

There are other reminders of the fire for those who pay close enough attention. Even though the use of the building and the occupants have changed dramatically, bits and pieces of its history still linger, many of these believed to be supernatural. It is not uncommon for the smell of smoke to waft through the halls of the upper floors and more than once fire warnings have passed through the building. On occasion, people have reported a different kind of odor accompanying the smell of smoke. This odor can only be described as that of burning flesh -- then the odors simply disappear as quickly as they began.

Often, doors that are supposed to be locked are found unlocked, sometimes within minutes of being locked! Could it be that the spirit of someone lost in the fire is trying to keep the current occupants from meeting the same tragic fate by being trapped behind a locked door in an emergency?

A few people over the years have described a most peculiar experience. While sitting at a desk or workstation they have seen, out of the corner of their eye, something large flutter downward past their window. Upon going to the window to look down and see what it was, there is nothing there.

The most striking ghostly experience was related by “Susan” (not her real name), a secretary who worked in the building for many years. She explained that she had been working later than usual one evening and by the time she left to go home, most of the other employees and students had already left. As she walked out of the building, she noticed a young woman walk past her with a slight stagger and a dazed look on her face. She was very dirty and her hair and clothes appeared to be singed or burned. Susan called to her to see if she needed help but the young woman didn’t respond; she just kept walking and turned the corner. Susan, thinking that the woman might be injured or in trouble, ran after her but upon turning the corner, she was met by an empty sidewalk. The young woman had simply vanished.

We will never know for sure if these occurrences are directly related to the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire. However, it does appear that the most important thing is that we never forget what happened there, nor the lessons learned. We may even get a little reminder now and then --- just to make sure.

This is an excerpt by Rene Kruse from a story that appears in the book AND HELL FOLLOWED WITH IT by Troy Taylor & Rene Kruse. It’s available as a print edition from the website and it’s also available in Kindle and Nook editions.

Down to the Banana Republics

2013-03-21T10:10:00.002-05:00

DOWN TO THE BANANA REPUBLICS

Occupations by the U.S. Military are Nothing New

On this date, March 21, 1907, the United States Marines invaded the country of Honduras – yes, you read that correctly, Honduras. It was just one of the many countries in which we found ourselves during what came to be called “The Banana Wars,” a series of occupations, police actions, and interventions involving the United States in Central America and the Caribbean. It was during the Honduras occupation that journalist O. Henry dubbed the region the “Banana Republics,” a moniker that stuck.

The Banana Wars began with our invasion of Cuba during the Spanish-American War and lasted until 1934, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt finally pulled us out of Haiti with his “Good Neighbor Policy.” Up until that time, we’d been anything but good neighbors, using military might to enforce America’s business interests in Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.

Of course, the U.S. would never do anything like that today….. Right? So, for anyone who thinks playing policeman to the world is something new, take a look at the history of the early twentieth century.

US Marines with the captured flag of Augusto César Sandino in Nicaragua in 1932

The Banana Wars of the early twentieth century were fought almost entirely because of money, which explained the name that were given to the various conflicts. The military was preserving the American commercial interests in the region. The United Fruit Company, one of the largest companies in the U.S. at the time, had significant financial stakes in production of bananas, tobacco, sugar cane, and various other products throughout the Caribbean, Central America and Northern South America. The U.S. was also advancing its political interests, maintaining a sphere of influence and controlling the Panama Canal which it had recently built, which was critically important to global trade and naval power.

The conflicts that made up the Banana Wars included:

· * The Spanish-American War, which saw our invasions of Cuba and Puerto Rico in 1898.

· * Panama: U.S. intervention in Panama dated back to the Watermelon War of 1856 but in 1903, Panama seceded from the Republic of Colombia, backed by the U.S. government, during what was called the Thousand Days War. The Panama Canal was under construction by then, and the Panama Canal Zone, under United States sovereignty, was then created.

· * Nicaragua: After intermittent landings and naval bombardments in the previous decades, was occupied by the U.S. almost continuously from 1912 through 1933.

· * Haiti: Occupied by the U.S. from 1915 to 1934. This period led to the creation of a new Haitian constitution in 1917. It instituted some interesting changes for the country, including an end to the ban that prohibited land ownership by non-Haitians – which was, of course, important to the fruit companies who wanted to snatch up prime real estate.

· * Dominican Republic: Action began in this country in 1903 and 1904 and resulted in a U.S. occupation from 1916 to 1924.

· * Mexico: In this country, military operations were of a different nature. While some of them were commercial incursions, we conducted the Border War with Mexico from 1910-1919 for additional reasons: to control the flow of immigrants and refugees from revolutionary Mexico, and to counter rebel raids into U.S. territory. The 1914 U.S. occupation of Veracruz, however, was aimed at cutting off the supplies of German munitions to the government of Mexican leader Victoriano Huerta, whom US President Woodrow Wilson refused to recognize. In the years prior to World War I, the U.S. discovered that the Germans were actively arming and advising the Mexicans. Only twice during the Mexican Revolution did the U.S. military occupy Mexico; during the temporary occupation of Veracruz in 1914 and between the years 1916 and 1917, when General John Pershing and his army came to Mexico to lead a nationwide search for Pancho Villa.

While Mexico was a different situation, Honduras was another situation altogether. The first decades of Honduras history were marked by instability in terms of politics and economy. In fact, there were 210 armed conflicts between independence and the rise of a stable government – conflicts all attributed to American involvement in the country.

The conflicts began after the Standard Fruit Company signed an agreement with the Honduran government. The Cuyamel Fruit Company followed their lead, followed by the United Fruit Company, which also owned the two major railroads in the country. This was a standard way of doing business in a “Banana Republic.” It meant grabbing a piece of land in exchange for the operation of the railroads – in other words, extorting them into a business exchange. The goal of a contract was to control the process from production to distribution of the bananas. Therefore, the companies would finance war guerrillas, presidential campaigns and governments. When the American companies got into trouble, the U.S. Marines were called, which made the country’s armed conflicts even worse.

All of the Banana War military interventions were carried out by the United States Marine Corps. The Marines were called in so often that they developed a Small Wars Manual, The Strategy and Tactics of Small Wars in 1921.

Perhaps the single most active military officer in the Banana Wars was U.S. Marine Corps Major General, Smedley Butler, who saw action in Honduras in 1903, served in Nicaragua enforcing American policy from 1909–1912, was awarded the Medal of Honor for his role in Veracruz in 1914, and a second Medal of Honor for bravery in Haiti in 1915. In 1935, Butler wrote in his famous book War Is a Racket:

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927, I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

Frank Nitti's Last Walk

2013-03-19T10:14:00.000-05:00

FRANK NITTI’S LAST WALK

The Death of the Man Dubbed “Capone’s Enforcer”

On the evening of March 19, 1943, a lone figure walked out of his home in Riverside, Illinois, and began strolling along the streets of the quiet neighborhood. It was a cool, early spring night and the man seemed to have not a care in the world as he walked along, his hands tucked into his pockets and a soft whistle on his lips. His casual manner gave no hint to the turmoil he felt inside. Or that he had a loaded handgun weighting down the pocket of his coat.

The man left the street and began walking along the Illinois Central Railroad tracks that ran west of Harlem Avenue and around Cermak Avenue. He carefully picked his way over the railroad ties and walked along until the shadows seemed to envelope him. Darkness was just beginning to fall and this seemed as good a time as any for one last look at the world. The man took the gun from his pocket and raised it to his head. His hand began to tremble as he squeezed the trigger and then a deafening roar filled his ears and echoed in the stillness of the city around him.

When the first shot was fired, railroad workers who were doing routine maintenance a little father up the line, looked up to see the walking man. His hands shook as he held the pistol and a thin ribbon of smoke curled from its barrel. The gun had been aimed at his head but the first shot had somehow missed. One of the railroad men started to call out to the man as he saw him calmly lift the gun again. Before the words could leave the railroader's lips, the man pulled the trigger again. This time, when the gun went off, the bullet did not miss. It blew apart the top of the man's head and he stumbled over the railroad ties and collapsed against the fence that ran next to the tracks. Blood began to seep into the grass, looking black in the fading light.

Frank Nitti, once thought of as one of the most powerful men in Chicago and an enforcer for Al Capone, lay dead on the ground, slain by his own hand.

Frank Nitti

Frank Nitti (or Nitto, which was the preferred family spelling) was a man of mystery. Intensely private and quiet, he is only scarcely remembered today as being part of the legendary Capone gang. If not for the television series based on the exploits of Eliot Ness and his "Untouchables," it's possible that he would only be known to the most dedicated gangster buffs and researchers and not to the general public at all. Nitti was a small man but one with incredible will. He maintained discipline in the ranks and acted as Capone's enforcer and troubleshooter. He was also one of the only gangsters in the organization who never used an assumed name, which got him into trouble when investigators discovered a check he had endorsed. This put him into prison for eighteen months in the early 1930s, an experience that had a lasting effect on him.

Nitti was born on January 27, 1881 in the small town of Angri, in the province of Salerno, Campania, Italy. He was the second child of Luigi and Rosina Nitto. His father died when Frank was very young and a year later his mother married Francesco Dolendo. In July 1890, Dolendo emigrated to American and the rest of the family followed in June 1893 when Nitti was 12. They settled at 113 Navy Street in Brooklyn and Frank worked numerous odd jobs to help support the family. He left school in the seventh grade and worked as a bowling alley pinsetter, a factory worker and a barber. Al Capone’s family lived nearby but the Capone brothers were much too young to be known to Nitti.

Frank left home at age 19, unhappy with his stepfather, and wanting to make it on his own. Starting in 1900, he worked in a number of factories and finally, in 1910, he left Brooklyn. Little is known about his life over the course of the next few years but he probably moved to Chicago around 1913, working as a barber and making the acquaintance of gangsters Alex Louis Greenberg and Dion O'Banion.

He married a woman from Chicago, Rosa Levitt, in Dallas, Texas, on October 18, 1917. The couple's movements after their marriage remain uncertain. He is known to have become a partner in the Galveston crime syndicate run by "Johnny" Jack Nounes and is reported to have stolen a large sum of money from Nounes and mobster Dutch Voight, after which Nitti returned to Chicago. By 1918, he had moved into an apartment at 914 South Halsted Street. He soon renewed his contact with Greenberg and O'Banion, becoming a jewel thief, liquor smuggler, and fence. Through his liquor smuggling activities, Nitti came to the attention of Chicago crime boss John Torrio and, later, to his successor, Al Capone.

Under Capone, Nitti gained a fearsome reputation as an enforcer. Originally working as a bodyguard, Capone began tasking Nitti with the planning and execution of some of the gang’s most notable assassinations, like that of Hymie Weiss in 1926. He also ran Capone's liquor smuggling and distribution operation, importing whisky from Canada and selling it through a network of speakeasies around Chicago. Known as one of Capone’s top captains, he was trusted for his leadership and business skills but he never wanted leadership of the gang.

However, after Capone went to prison, newspaper reporters began looking for a new face for the head of the organization and somehow, Nitti ended up as that man. While an efficient organizer under Capone, it had been his job to make sure that Capone's orders had been carried out, not to give them himself. Nitti was only supposed to be a member of the board of directors of the new Outfit, not the man in charge. When Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky established their national crime syndicate, they dealt with Paul "The Waiter" Ricca as the leader of the Chicago mob and not with Nitti.

However, Ricca and the others used Nitti's high profile with the press to keep the heat off the real inner workings of the Outfit. He became a valuable man to take the heat. Chicago mayor Anton Cermak even dispatched his own police "hit men" to try and take out Nitti so that he could replace him with other gangsters who kept him on the payroll.

On December 19, 1932, a team of Chicago police, headed by Detective Sergeants Harry Lang and Harry Miller, raided Nitti's office in Room 554 of the LaSalle Building. Lang shot Nitti three times in the back and neck. He then shot himself in the finger to make the shooting look like self-defense, claiming that Nitti had shot him first. Nitti was badly wounded during the attempt on his life. He lingered near death for a time, but recovered only to end up standing trial for the shooting of one of the cops during the gun battle. Court testimony claimed that the murder attempt was personally ordered by newly elected Mayor Anton Cermak, who supposedly wanted to eliminate the Outfit in favor of Ted Newberry, who had taken over the remnants of the O’Banion/Moran mob, and redistribute the Capone territories. During the trial, Miller testified that Lang received $15,000 to kill Nitti. Another uniformed officer who was present at the shooting testified that Nitti was shot while unarmed. Nitti’s trial ended with a hung jury. Harry Lang and Harry Miller were both fired from the police force and each fined $100 for assault. This was not the end of story, though. Most believe that Nitti managed to get his revenge on Cermak a few months later.

On February 15, 1932, Cermak was shot in Bayfront Park in Miami. Cermak was on the reviewing stand and, after President-elect Franklin Roosevelt made a short speech from an open car, he waved over Cermak to join him. As Roosevelt's car was about to start, shots rang out and Cermak and four others were hit. They were shot by a man named Giuseppe Zangara, whose intention had been to kill the president.

Cermak was rushed to the hospital, where he died a short time later. As he was taken away by ambulance, Cermak was supposed to have said to the president, "I am glad that it was me instead of you." They became the most famous words that Cermak ever uttered -- or they would have been, if he had really said them. A reporter who was there that day, Ed Gilbreth, stated that the phrase was created by William Randolph Hearst’s Chicago Herald-American to make a good headline and sell papers. Cermak never said anything before he died.

Although some words uttered by another reporter who was standing nearby might have provided more of a clue in the shooting than officials would admit. Just as the shots rang out, a reporter who was nearby allegedly joked to Cermak, "Just like Chicago, eh Mayor?" Rumors have persisted ever since the shooting that Cermak had not been an accidental target that day.

As the IRS began cracking down on the mob, Nitti served prison time for an income tax charge related to a check that was discovered bearing his name. In spite of this, he stayed out of the newspapers until November 1940, when he was indicted for influencing the Chicago Bartenders and Beverage Dispensers’ Local of the AFL. Nitti was accused of putting mob members into positions of power in the union and then forcing the sale of beer from mob-owned breweries. The trial rested on the testimony of one man, George McLane, the president of the union. He allegedly was forced to follow Nitti's orders but the pressure got to him and he went to the authorities and explained what the mob was doing. McLane was all set to testify until two mob soldiers showed up at his door and told him that if he talked in court, his wife would be mailed to him in small pieces. When the day came, McLane pleaded for his right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment and the case was dropped.

The heat was on Nitti again in 1943 during what came to be called the "Hollywood Extortion case." After Bioff and Browne decided to talk, indictments were brought against Nitti, Paul Ricca and several others. A meeting was called at Nitti's home in Riverside and Ricca decided that it was the perfect time to take advantage of Nitti's perceived top position in the mob. He ordered Nitti to plead guilty in the extortion case and to take the rap for everyone. He would be taken care of when he got out, as long as he kept his mouth shut while he was inside.

But there was no "inside" for Nitti. He refused to go back to prison. His earlier jail time had so traumatized the gangster that he now had a terrible fear of small, confined spaces. He urged Ricca to come up with another plan or to allow some of the others to share the responsibility with him. Ricca was enraged and demanded that Nitti be a "stand-up guy." When Nitti still refused, Ricca told him that, "he was asking for it." Nitti took these words to mean his death sentence but he simply couldn't face another stretch in prison. He made a last-ditch effort to try and bribe the prosecutor in the case, M.F. Correa, but his attempt was coldly rebuffed.

Frank Nitti’s last photo – dead along the railroad tracks, slain by his own hand.

So, on March 19, the day after the meeting, Frank Nitti placed a gun in his pocket and went for one last stroll through his neighborhood. When he made it as far as the Illinois Central Railroad tracks, his journey came to an end -- or did it?

Nitti was laid to rest in Mount Carmel Cemetery, not far from the grave of Al Capone. The stone is marked with his family name of “Nitto” and bears a direct and ominous inscription: "There is no life except by death." Many believe that Nitti does not rest there in peace.

For years, it has been a local legend in the North Riverside and Forest Park areas that the ghost of Frank Nitti still walks along the railroad tracks where he committed suicide back in 1943. There are many who claim to have not only sensed his last anguished moments but who also state that they have seen the eerie figure of a man here, as well. The figure often appears along the railroad tracks at Cermak Avenue and begins walking west, plainly visible under the harsh lights of a nearby shopping center.

The lonely tracks, isolated from the nearby toy store, restaurants and shopping centers, remain as mute testament to the place where a once powerful man’s life was finally broken. There is no question that Frank Nitti deserved to be brought to justice for the lives that he ruined and ended before their time – but we also have to wonder what demons could drive a man to take his own life when his religious beliefs would surely condemn him to hell. If such demons could push a man to suicide, then perhaps they might also keep him on this earth, doomed to relive his final moments over and over again.

The story of Frank Nitti – and other Chicago mobsters and ghost stories – can be found in my book BLOOD, GUNS & VALENTINES, which is available in print from the website or as a Kindle edition.

America's Worst School Disaster

2013-03-18T10:17:00.004-05:00

AMERICA’S WORST SCHOOL DISASTER

The New London, Texas School Explosion

On this date, March 18, 1937, the worst disaster to ever occur in a school in American history took place in New London, Texas. The horrific disaster – caused by the cancellation of a $300 a month natural gas bill – claimed the lives of at least 295 students and teachers. It is a catastrophe that the people of Texas will never forget.

New London High School before the disaster

New London was a blue-collar community in the middle 1930s. Even though the country was in the midst of the Great Depression, the local school district was one of the richest in America. Most of the residents of this East Texas town had been drawn there during the late 1920s and early 1930s when jobs dried up in other parts of the country. New London’s oil fields were expanding and offered more jobs than could be filled.

At a time when small, often one-room rural schoolhouses were common, New London had a brand-new school. With the onset of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, community leaders successfully combined state, county and federal funding to build a new, large, one million dollar school complex. The new facilities offered the most up-to-date curriculum for the students, from first grade through high school. It offered the most modern course of studies available, allowing students to choose between vocational and college preparatory courses in the later grades. This kept students in school longer and prepared them for jobs and college when they graduated. The campus became a great source of pride for area parents who had generally only had limited access to education during their own childhoods.

The new school was built on sloping ground and a large dead-air space was located beneath the structure. It would be learned later, during the investigation that followed the disaster, that in spite of the large initial investment in the project, planners had taken many dangerous shortcuts during construction.

The school board had overridden the original architect's plans for a boiler and steam distribution system, instead opting to install 72 gas heaters throughout the building. Early in 1937, the school board canceled their natural gas contract and had plumbers install a tap into the Parade Gasoline Company's residue gas line in order to save money. This practice, while not explicitly authorized by local oil companies, was widespread in the area. The natural gas extracted with the oil was seen as a waste product and was flared off. As there was no value to the natural gas, the oil companies turned a blind eye. This "raw" or "wet" gas varied in quality from day to day, even from hour to hour.

Natural gas in its original state is both odorless and colorless, and because of that any leaks would be undetectable. The odor that most associate with gas today is added as a safety precaution by the commercial companies that sell it. In those days, there was no warning about a leak. Students had been complaining of headaches for some time, but no paid much attention to this. Unknown to everyone, gas had built up inside the crawlspace that ran beneath the entire 253-foot building.

Between 3:05 and 3:20 p.m., on March 18, Lemmie R. Butler, a manual training instructor, turned on an electric sander in one of the school’s vocational workshops. It is believed that the sander's switch caused a spark that ignited the gas-air mixture.

Reports from witnesses stated that the walls of the school actually bulged outwards and the roof lifted off of the building, cartoon-fashion. But this was no cartoon. In seconds, the ceiling came crashing down on the seven hundred children and forty teachers inside. The main wing of the structure collapsed. Flames that were ignited by the explosion quickly died out since the building was fireproof but the strength of the explosion’s concussion and pieces of falling debris instantly killed most of the adults and children inside. The force of the explosion was so great that a two-ton concrete block was thrown clear of the building and crushed a 1936 Chevrolet parked nearby.

Onlookers and volunteers rushed to the site of the deadly explosion

The explosion was its own alarm, heard for miles away. The most immediate response was from a group of mothers who were gathered for a PTA meeting in the cafeteria building, which was about 300 feet from the main building. They helplessly watched as the building collapsed on everyone inside. The women screamed and raced toward the school, digging for hours to reach victims who were alive under the rubble and could be heard screaming for help.

Within minutes, area residents started to arrive and began digging through the rubble, many with their bare hands. Roughnecks from the oil fields were released from their jobs and brought with them cutting torches and heavy equipment needed to clear the concrete and steel. A crowd of nearly 10,000 area residents quickly gathered at the site of the explosion, desperate to help. Their cars and pickup trucks clogged the roads and blocked the highways leading in and out of town.

Assistance poured in from outside the immediate area. Governor James Allred dispatched Texas Rangers, the state highway patrol, and the Texas National Guard. Thirty doctors, 100 nurses, and 25 embalmers arrived from Dallas. Airmen from Barksdale Field, deputy sheriffs, and even Boy Scouts took part in the rescue and recovery.

Most of the dead and injured were children and teachers who had been gathered in the auditorium. Some were rescued and cared for in hospitals as far away as Shreveport, Louisiana. However, hopes of finding more survivors dimmed as the sun began to go down. Illuminated by the powerful lights from the school’s football field, a crowd of grief-stricken parents, relatives, friends and onlookers stood near a lengthening line of bodies covered by white sheets.

Most of the bodies were either burned beyond recognition or blown to pieces. One mother had a heart attack and died when she found out that her 16-year-old daughter’s body had been found. Only part of the girl’s face and some of her bones were still intact. Another boy was identified by the pull string from his favorite toy top, found in his jeans pocket.

Rescue and recovery workers worked through the night.

(Below) The charred landscape where the school once stood.

Rescuers worked through the rainy night until, seventeen hours later, the entire site had been cleared. Buildings in the neighboring communities of Henderson, Overton, Kilgore and as far away as Tyler and Longview were converted into makeshift morgues to house the enormous number of bodies, and everything from family cars to delivery trucks served as hearses and ambulances. Mother Frances Hospital in nearby Tyler was scheduled to open the next day, but the dedication was canceled and the hospital opened immediately.

Reporters arrived to cover the calamity, but found themselves caught up in the rescue effort. Former Dallas Times Heraldexecutive editor Felix McKnight, then a young Associated Press reporter, recalled, "We identified ourselves and were immediately told that helpers were needed far more than reporters." A 22-year-old reporter named Walter Cronkite also found himself in New London, on one of his first assignments for United Press International. Although he went on to become one of America’s most beloved newsmen, covering everything from World War II to the Kennedy Assassination and Vietnam, he was quoted as saying decades later, "I did nothing in my studies nor in my life to prepare me for a story of the magnitude of that New London tragedy, nor has any story since that awful day equaled it.”

The people of New London recovered as best they could. Not all of the buildings on the school campus had been destroyed. One of the surviving structures, the gymnasium, was quickly converted into multiple classrooms. Inside tents and the modified buildings, classes resumed ten days later. A new school was completed on the property in 1939.

Families also received an outpouring of support from nearby communities, from people all over Texas, and from well-wishers across American and the world. Adolf Hitler, who was at the time the German Chancellor, paid his respects in the form of a telegram. It remains on display in the New London museum today.

Almost as the dust was still settling in New London, investigations began seeking a cause for the explosion. Experts from the United States Bureau of Mines concluded that the connection to the residue gas line was faulty. It had allowed gas to leak into the school, and since natural gas is invisible and is odorless, the leak was unnoticed. To reduce the danger of future leaks, the Texas Legislature began mandating that thiol, a strong-smelling sulfur compound, be added to natural gas. The practice soon began to be used all over the country.

A group of parents brought a lawsuit against the school district and the Parade Gasoline Company, but the courts ruled that neither could be held responsible. In the aftermath of the disaster, school superintendent W. C. Shaw was forced to resign amidst threats that a lynch party would be sent after him. Sadly, Shaw himself had lost a son in the explosion.

Over the years, the New London School explosion has received relatively little attention given the magnitude of the event. Explanations for this are speculative, but most center around residents' unwillingness to discuss the tragedy. It was a memory that most simply did not want dredged up. In addition, many of the parents left the area in the years that followed since most were transient oil workers. Another reason for the lack of attention was believed to be the overshadowing effect of the Hindenburg disaster, which happened two months later.

The school disaster remains a haunting memory in New London, even after all of these years. Many questions remain unanswered, even the exact number of those who died in the blast. It may actually be much higher than the nearly 300 that has been estimated over the years. Many of those killed were the children of temporary residents, oilfield workers who moved from one place to another, depending on what work was available. It’s believed that some of these “roughnecks” may have collected the bodies of their children after the disaster and returned them to be buried near their respective homes.

The true magnitude of this disaster may never be known.

The story of the New London school disaster appears (with numerous others) in the book AND HELL FOLLOWED WITH IT by Troy Taylor & Rene Kruse. The book is available in a print edition from the website and also as a Kindle and Nook edition.

The Starved Rock Murders

2013-03-14T08:56:00.003-05:00

THE STARVED ROCK MURDERS

Horror at One of Illinois’ Most Historic Sites

On this date, March 14, 1960, the bodies of three women from the Chicago suburbs were discovered in St. Louis Canyon, one of the many natural wonders at Starved Rock State Park, near Utica, Illinois. The crime shocked northern Illinois and led to a manhunt that snared a confessed killer who has been in prison ever since. It is one of the most shocking stories to ever occur in this otherwise peaceful region.

But no one can say that Starved Rock does not have a violent and bloody past. The park takes its name from a rock fortress on the Illinois River, where a band of Illiniwek Indians were besieged in the seventeenth century. As their numbers decreased from starvation, desperate warriors attempted to escape, only to be slaughtered in the surrounding forests.

In March 1960, the violence of the past returned to Starved Rock with the discovery of the bludgeoned bodies of three women from Riverside, Illinois. The land around high stone fortress had been turned into state park years before and on March 14, the women’s bloody corpses were found in one of the park’s fabulous box canyons.

The three women from the Chicago suburbs, Mildred Lindquist, Lillian Oetting and Frances Murphy, who hiked to their fate in Starved Rock’s St. Louis Canyon.

The three middle-aged women, Mildred Lindquist, Lillian Oetting and Frances Murphy, had driven from their upscale homes in the Chicago suburbs for a four-day holiday at Starved Rock Park. The three friends, who all attended the Riverside Presbyterian Church, had been anxious for an outing together. Oetting, who had spent the entire winter nursing her husband after a heart attack, was especially looking forward to several days of hiking, bird watching, and spending time outdoors. Employees at the park’s lodge would later remember the arrival of the three ladies. Frances Murphy had parked her gray station wagon in the inn’s parking area and she and her friends had unloaded their few pieces of luggage. They registered for two rooms, dropped off their bags and then ate lunch in the dining room. Afterward, they remarked to one of the staff members that it was a beautiful day for a hike and they left carrying a camera and a small pair of binoculars.

The women walked away from the lodge wearing rubber galoshes. The path was covered with a light snow and they trudged and slipped along, pausing occasionally to take photographs of one another. Eventually, they came to the dead end of St. Louis Canyon, where steep rocky walls framed a majestic, frozen waterfall. The three women were only one mile from the lodge. Lillian Oetting struggled with the controls of her friend’s camera and snapped several color slides of the canyon. When she was finished, the group turned to leave --- and they walked into a horror that stunned the entire nation.

The first sign that something was wrong occurred that evening when George Oetting tried to telephone his wife at the lodge. She had promised to call him but when she had not, Oetting placed his own call. He was told by staff on duty at the desk that his wife was not available. It was surmised that the ladies had gone out somewhere and the staff member suggested that she would call in the morning. Unconcerned, Oetting went to bed.

On Tuesday morning, he called the lodge again and once more, asked to speak to his wife. The employee who answered mistakenly told the worried man that the three women had been seen at breakfast and were simply out of the lodge at that time. Reassured, Oetting ended the call.

That night, a late winter storm hit the Illinois Valley. In St. Louis Canyon, several inches of snow covered up footprints, blood stains and other vital pieces of information around three cold and still bodies. The near-blizzard conditions continued all night long, making the roads in the park nearly impassable.

St. Louis Canyon in the warm weather months. In March 1960, the water was frozen and an early spring snow blanketed the region.

George Oetting telephoned the lodge again on Wednesday morning but his wife and her friends could still not be located. At his insistence, employees entered the women’s rooms and found that the beds and bags were untouched. A quick check of the parking lot also showed that the Murphy station wagon had not been moved. Shocked, Oetting realized that his wife and her friends had now been missing for more than forty hours.

As soon as Oetting broke off the call, he telephoned his longtime friend, Virgil W. Peterson, the operating director of the Chicago Crime Commission. When Peterson learned of the news, he contacted the state police and other law enforcement agencies in the area. Within minutes, word of the missing women had reached the LaSalle County Sheriff’s office and Sheriff Ray Eutsey began organizing search parties to look for the women. He accompanied one of the groups that left immediately for the park.

Bill Danley, a local newspaper reporter, was just finishing his last story for the day’s edition when he got a tip about the disappearances. Grabbing a camera, he braved the snow-packed roads and headed for the park. When Danley reached the park’s west entrance, he noticed a boy running across an icy ravine toward the road. He drove to a small parking area and found several other youths, shouting that bodies had been found on one of the trails. Danley recognized the boys as members of the nearby Illinois Youth Commission Forestry Camp, where he had once led an Explorer Post, and he pulled them aside to a nearby storage garage for some questions. When they told him of the bodies, he called the lodge, where law enforcement officials had gathered, and then called the newspaper to report the discovery. In a matter of minutes, the story was flashing across news wires around the country.

Danley was among those who entered St. Louis Canyon and got the first look at the bodies. The three mutilated women were lying side-by-side, partially covered with snow. They were on their backs, under a small ledge, and their lower clothing had been torn away and their legs spread open. Each of them had been beaten viciously about the head and two of the bodies were tied together with heavy white twine. They were covered with blood and their exposed legs were blackened with bruises.

Recovering the bodies from the depths of the canyon was a major undertaking in the snow.

State Police detectives soon arrived and began a search of the immediate area. Except for the floor of the overhang where the bodies were found, the entire canyon was covered in nearly six inches of snow. The fine, white powder had to be carefully removed and as it was, signs of a violent struggle were revealed. Mrs. Murphy’s camera was found about ten feet from the victims. Its leather case was smeared with blood and its strap was broken. They also found the women’s bloody binoculars. A short distance away, LaSalle County’s States Attorney Harland Warren stumbled across a frozen tree limb that was streaked with blood. The snow beneath it was covered with blood and it was realized that this was likely the murder weapon. A trail of gore also led them to speculate that the women had been killed deeper in the canyon and then their bodies had been dragged and positioned under the rock ledge. The bodies remained in place for hours, until pathologists and state crime lab officials could arrive. The vigil lasted long into the night and then, aided by lanterns and flashlights, the victims were removed on cloth stretchers.

The bodies were taken to the Hulse Funeral Home in Ottawa, where they were examined and autopsied. The women had obviously been molested, but the cold, and limitations of medical techniques at the time, failed to find any evidence of rape. The doctors were able to determine the time of death, placing it shortly after they had enjoyed lunch at the lodge. No motive was suggested for the murders but robbery was dismissed, as the women had left their money and jewelry behind in their rooms when they went for their afternoon hike.

The investigation went nowhere, almost from the start. There were few clues to follow and theories began to grow wilder and wilder. Things were further confused by all of those who wanted to maintain jurisdiction in the case. State’s Attorney Warren, a hard-working and respected official, was technically in charge but the state police maintained their authority in the case because the murders were committed on park property. The two law enforcement camps clashed but Warren was in a bind. He was forced to deal with the state authorities because the officials in LaSalle County simply had no experience dealing with crimes of this manner.

As the investigation slowly moved forward, fear was gripping the region. Doors that were never locked before were now firmly secured. Hardware stores experienced a run on new dead bolts and sporting goods stores saw guns vanish from their cases at an alarming rate. The number of overnight guests at the Starved Rock Lodge dropped off to almost nothing and some motorists went miles out of their way to avoid driving near the canyon entrance. Newspapers and radio broadcasters around the state widely reported the slow progress of the investigation and elevated the level of panic in the area.

The continued newspaper scrutiny of the case kept pressure on police officials to make progress, especially at Harland Warren’s county office. He was doing everything in his power to move the investigation forward, but he had a hard time coping with the pressure, especially during an election year. Money was becoming a problem as well, since the investigation budget was soaring. Throughout 1960, he was under ever-increasing pressure to solve the murders. Frustrated, he felt that he had taken enough criticism for the investigation. He was an attorney, not a detective, but he decided to take one last desperate run at the case. He asked himself what the killer had left behind at the scene of the crime and the obvious answer was the twine that he had used to bind two of the victims.

Using his own money, Warren purchased a microscope and began intently conducting a study of the twine. Research revealed that there were two kinds of twine used, a 20-ply cord and a 12-ply one. With this information in hand, he sought out help to follow the lead. Instead of choosing someone from his staff, he handpicked two county detectives who would report to him alone. The two men were deputies Bill Dummett and Wayne Hess. They were both trustworthy and intelligent and would not leak the details of what Warren was doing to the newspapers.

The men chose the most logical place to start the search for the source of the twine, which was Starved Rock Lodge. In September 1960, Warren and his deputies met with the manager of the lodge’s kitchen. Within minutes and without much difficulty, Warren found both kinds of twine used in the murder. They were each used for wrapping food and Dummett and Hess, using lodge purchasing records, soon tracked down the twine’s manufacturer. The twine used to bind the murder victims had been taken, without question, from the supply in the lodge’s kitchen. Just as Warren had always suspected, the killer either worked at, or had access to, the park’s lodge.

Faced with the fact that all of the lodge employees had been given polygraph tests, and had passed, Warren now had to wonder if the tests had been accurate. He boldly decided that it was time to run some of his own tests. Hiring a specialist for a prominent Chicago firm, Warren recalled all of the employees who had worked during the week of the murder. One by one, they came to a small cabin located near the lodge and again submitted to an exam. The first dozen or so were quickly cleared and Warren and the deputies wondered if they might be wasting their time. Then Bill Dummett brought in a former dishwasher named Chester Otto Weger and everything changed.

Chester Weger stepping out of a car.

When Weger’s polygraph test was completed, Warren noticed that the examiner’s face had gone pale. As soon as Weger left the cabin, the technician ended months of endless leads and wasted time. He turned to Warren and the two deputies and quietly stated, “That’s your man.”

Weger, twenty-one, was a slight, small man with a wife and two young children. He had worked at the park until that summer, when he resigned to go into business with his father as a house painter. Dummett remembered the man’s name from an earlier police report, but he had never made much of an impression on the investigators. Warren intensified the investigation of the man and strangely, Weger happily cooperated with him. He surrendered a piece of a buckskin jacket that he owned so that some suspicious “dark stains” on it could be examined. It later turned out to be human blood, but in 1960, it could not be typed and matched to a specific victim. Warren also asked Weger to submit to further polygraph tests and again, Weger agreed. He was given an entire series of tests and he failed all of them.

Once the jacket was determined to be stained with blood, Warren put the former dishwasher under constant surveillance by the state police. Warren, along with Dummett and Weger, began checking into Weger’s past and also into similar crimes in the area, which might have escalated into murder. Dummett came across a reported rape and robbery that took place about a mile from Starved Rock in 1959. With Warren’s approval, he approached the young female victim with a stack of mug shots. As she slowly sorted through them, she began to scream as she came across the face of Chester Weger.

With this positive identification, Warren could have easily have ordered Weger arrested, but he was forced to wait. A new problem had reared its ugly head. With all of time and energy involved in the investigation, Warren had worked very little on his campaign for re-election. If he booked Weger on rape and murder charges before the election, defense attorneys would simply say that he had done so as a stunt to retain his job. He left Weger under surveillance, not wanting to jeopardize the case against him with the election. Confident of his record of cleaning gambling and prostitution out of LaSalle County during his eight years in office, Warren let his past actions speak for themselves. Unfortunately, his opponent let the “bungling” of the Starved Rock murder case speak for him. Out of 60,000 votes case in the election, Warren lost by nearly 3,500.

Disappointed by the election results, Warren still had time in office to pursue the case against Weger. Although his evidence was not as strong as he would have liked, he obtained an arrest warrant against Weger for the 1959 rape and ordered Hess and Dummett to pick him up. He believed that when he saw all of the evidence mounting against him, Weger would confess to the crime – and to the Starved Rock murders.

Warren made careful plans with his two deputies about how to interrogate Weger before confronting him with murder charges. A short time later, Hess and Dummett arrived at the young man’s apartment and explained that they had some more questions for him. They made no mention of the arrest warrants that were waiting at the courthouse. Once they had him in custody, the officers began to question him about the rape and also began to press him about the murders. They kept him in the interrogation room until past midnight and then finally, weary of questions and nearly exhausted, Weger stopped in mid-sentence and asked to see his family. A police car was dispatched to his parents’ home in Oglesby and his mother and father were brought to the courthouse. Dummett and Hess gave them a few minutes alone with their son.

In his official statement, which was taken the next day, Deputy Hess stated, “When Bill stepped out of the back room in the states attorney’s office to show Mr. and Mrs. Weger to the door so they could go home, I could see that something was bothering Chester. I said ‘Chester, why don’t you tell me about it? There are just the two of us here… just tell me about it.’ He said, ‘All right. I did it. I got scared. I tried to grab their pocketbook, they fought and I hit them.’ The pocketbook that Weger claimed that he tried to take was actually Mrs. Murphy’s camera.

Minutes later, the confession was transcribed and signed by Weger. During the confession, when he was asked why he had dragged the bodies under the overhang in St. Louis Canyon, Weger said that he had spotted a small airplane flying low over the park. Weger said that he was afraid that it was a state police plane so he moved the bodies so that they could not be seen from above. A few days later, the flight over the park was confirmed by the pilot’s testimony and log book.

Although Weger later claimed that he had been coerced into confessing, he gave the investigators many details about the crime and even went out to St. Louis Canyon with them to re-enact how he carried out the murders.

Weger confessed several more times to the murders over the next few days and even reenacted the killings for a crowd of policemen and reporters at the canyon. Then suddenly, after his first meeting with his court-appointed attorney, Weger changed his story and stated that he was innocent of all of the charges. Weger claimed that Dummett and Hess had coerced a confession from him by threatening him with a gun. He had lied in his confession, but had been so scared that he signed the papers anyway. Weger also said that Dummett had fed him the information about the airplane. He claimed to be in Oglesby at the time of the killings.

Weger was brought to trial. Jury selection took almost two weeks and the trial began on January 20, 1961. The new state’s attorney, Robert E. Richardson, was in charge of the prosecution and was assisted by Anthony Raccuglia. The trial, which gained national attention, was presided over by Judge Leonard Hoffman and because the two prosecutors had never tried a murder case before, he suggested that Harland Warren be named as a special prosecutor for this case only. Richardson, who had strongly criticized Warren during the election, dismissed the idea. Richardson and Raccuglia decided to file charges against Weger for only one of the three murders. The reason for this was that in the event of a mistrial or an acquittal, they could still file charges against him for the other killings. They sought the death penalty in the case.

On March 4, almost exactly a year after the murders, the jury brought back a guilty verdict for Chester Weger. On the day of his twenty-second birthday, he was sentenced to a term of life imprisonment. After Judge Hoffman dismissed the jurors, reporters asked them if they knew that a life sentence in Illinois meant that Weger would be eligible for parole in a few years. Most of the jurors were shocked -– they had no idea. Some of them even said that if they had known that Weger was not really being sent away for the rest of his life, they would have voted for the electric chair. A lack of knowledge of Illinois law, and the prosecutor’s failure to properly instruct the jury, ended up saving Weger’s life.

Chester Weger was incarcerated at the Statesville Penitentiary in Joliet and remains in prison today at the Illinois River Correctional Center in Canton. Weger has been denied parole two dozen times since 1972 and most feel that he belongs securely behind bars.

However, in the minds of some people, there are questions about the case that remain unanswered. Many feel that the evidence that was used to convict Weger would not stand up in court today. His prosecution largely turned out to be based on his confession, which pre-dated Miranda warnings that are required today. Others question how a small, slight man like Weger could have overpowered the three middle-aged women, and then moved their bodies by himself to leave them hidden under the rock overhang.

Others who believe in Weger’s innocence point to a “deathbed confession” that allegedly occurred in 1982 or 1983. A Chicago police sergeant named Mark Gibson submitted an affidavit in 2006 that recounted the confession. It was being used in court to support a motion for new DNA tests in the Starved Rock murder case. In the affidavit, Gibson stated that he and his partner, now deceased, were called to Rush–St. Luke’s Presbyterian Hospital to see a terminally-ill patient who wanted to “clear her conscience.

The affidavit stated, “The woman was lying in a hospital bed. I went over toward her, and she grabbed hold of my hand. She indicated that when she was younger, she had been with her friends at a state park when something happened.”

The woman then told Gibson that she was at a park in Utica and things “got out of hand,” multiple victims were killed and “they dragged the bodies.”

Gibson said that the woman’s daughters cut the interview short, shouting that their mother was “out of her mind” and ordering the police from the room. In the affidavit, Gibson did not provide the exact date of the interview, or the woman’s name, but said he passed the information along to a detective. The affidavit did not address whether or not there was any follow-up or why the confession was not presented until 2006. The alleged “confession” was not allowed into the court hearings, although new DNA tests were ordered. However, they failed to clear Weger of anything because the samples had been corrupted over the years.

After these attempts for release failed, a clemency petition was sent to Governor Rod Blagojevich, but it was denied in June 2007.

To this day, Chester Weger continues to maintain that he was framed for the murders by Deputies Dummett and Hess. But both of the deputies, until the day each of them died, insisted that Weger had confessed. They firmly believed that he had committed the murders and had been the perpetrator of one of the most heinous acts in the already-bloody history of Starved Rock.

The story of the Starved Rock Murders and other crime and haunting stories around the state can be found in my book BLOODY ILLINOIS, which is available autographed on the website or as a Kindle edition.

Clarence Darrow: Return from the Grave?

2013-03-13T10:03:00.000-05:00

THE DEATH OF CLARENCE DARROW

Did the Famous Attorney Really Plan to Return from the Grave?

On this date, March 13, 1938, famous defense attorney Clarence Darrow died in Chicago. Over a long career that spanned for decades, he represented and became involved in some of the most notorious trials in American history. But the pragmatic, often curmudgeonly, attorney held a close secret – a belief in life after death and a promise that, if possible, he would return to this world from the other side..

Famous American defense attorney Clarence Darrow

In 1924, Clarence Darrow was thrust into the national headlines with his defense of two young Chicago men, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, who, “just for the thrill of it,” murdered a boy named Bobby Franks. Leopold and Loeb were the sons of wealthy Chicago businessmen and while each of them had confessed to the crime, the family hired Darrow to defend them from a certain death sentence. But the Leopold and Loeb trial was certainly not Darrow’s first foray into the national spotlight.

Darrow was often known in the circles of the law, as “the attorney for the damned” because he would take on cases that no one else would touch. He had been born in the farmlands of Ohio in 1857 and his formal education ended after the equivalent of one year in high school. He continued to study law books at night, however, and eventually saved up enough money to attend law school.

He was admitted to the bar in 1878 and later became a well-known corporation lawyer, even though his sympathies always lay with the workingman. In 1894, he rejected the business world to defend notorious labor leader Eugene V. Debs for his connection with the Pullman Strike. He also defended radical labor leader Big Bill Haywood on murder charges in 1906, but in 1910 was forced to accept a guilty plea for labor defendants John and James McNamara for bombing a Los Angeles newspaper office. The decision had a shattering effect on the western labor movement. The unions refused to pay his $50,000 fee and the prosecution, spurred on by corporate interests, charged Darrow with jury tampering. Darrow beat the charges but he never took on another labor-related case.

Darrow continued to plead criminal cases and in 1924, took on his most famous case with the trial of “thrill killers” Leopold and Loeb. In 1894, Darrow had taken on the case of a convicted murderer who was appealing to a higher court. Darrow lost and the man, Robert Prendergast, was executed. He was the first --- and the last --- Darrow client to be sentenced to death. Darrow would go on to represent more than 50 accused murderers, many of whom, like Loeb and Leopold, were undoubtedly guilty but none of them ever received a death sentence.

During the Leopold and Loeb trial, Darrow earned his place in history as one of the greatest geniuses to ever serve as an attorney. He bypassed a jury trial and focused all of his attentions on the judge, who he managed to sway away from what should have been a certain death penalty decision. Before the trial, Loeb’s family disowned him when he confessed to the murder but Leopold’s father turned to Darrow in hopes that he might save his son. He literally got down on his knees and begged Darrow to take the case. For $100,000, he agreed to seek the best possible verdict that he could, which in this case was life in prison. “While the State is trying Loeb and Leopold,” Darrow said. “I will try capital punishment.”

Darrow with his infamous clients, Leopold and Loeb, during their trial

Darrow was fighting an uphill battle but he brought out every trick in the book and used shameless tactics during the trial. He declared the boys to be insane. Leopold, he said, was a dangerous schizophrenic. They weren’t criminals, he railed; they just couldn’t help themselves. After this weighty proclamation, Darrow actually began to weep. He then began to offer a detailed description of what would happen to the boys as they were hanged, providing a graphic image of bodily functions and physical pain. Darrow even turned to the prosecutor and invited him to personally perform the execution.

Darrow‘s horrifying description had a marked effect on the courtroom and especially on the defendants. Loeb was observed to shudder and Leopold got so hysterical that he had to be taken out of the courtroom. Darrow then wept for the defendants, wept for Bobby Franks ----- and then wept for defendants and victims everywhere. The master manipulator won the case. The defendants were given life in prison for Bobby Frank’s murder and an additional 99 years for his kidnapping. The judge stated that neither of them was ever to be paroled and they were to be kept separated for the rest of their lives.

Ironically, after all of that, Darrow only managed to get $40,000 of his fee from Leopold’s father. He got this after a seven-month wait and the threat of a lawsuit.

Nathan Leopold eventually reformed and was paroled in 1958, thanks largely to efforts made by poet Carl Sandburg. As for Loeb, he was murdered in prison. When Clarence Darrow was told of Loeb’s death, he slowly shook his head. “He is better off dead,” the great attorney said, “for him, death is an easier sentence.”

The “Scopes Monkey Trial” riveted the attention of the entire nation with Darrow squarely in the spotlight.

In 1925, Darrow achieved more fame during the so-called “Scopes Monkey Trial”, in which he dueled with former presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan over the theory of evolution. Darrow defended teacher John Scopes in Dayton, Ohio for illegally teaching evolution in a state school. The trial was the first to be covered live on the radio. Scopes was eventually convicted, a decision that was inevitable given the time and place, and fined $100 but Darrow clearly won the case against Bryan in the world of public opinion.

During his days of greatest fame, Darrow was living in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood on the south side of the city. Living close to Jackson Park and the Museum of Science and Industry, both of which had been constructed for the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, Darrow often liked to stroll through the area. One spot in the park that he liked in particular was a bridge that overlooked a winding lagoon behind the museum. He often referred to it as having “the prettiest view on Earth” and it would later be named in his honor.

Darrow loved walking in Jackson Park and described this bridge as “the prettiest place on earth.” It would later be named in his honor.

Darrow was always an agnostic when it came to God, as evidenced by his views during the Scopes Monkey Trial, but he had a strong belief in the afterlife. He told his son that when he died, he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes scattered over the waters of the lagoon in Jackson Park. Legend has it that he also told his son that if there were a way to do so, he would return to the bridge after death and give some sign from the other side.

Many have wondered why Darrow would have made such a pronouncement but, in those days of the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Spiritualist movement was in the waning days of its greatest revival. The movement, which is centered around the idea that the dead can communicate with the living, was often featured in newspapers of the time and had attracted the interest of many authors and celebrities of the day. Famous people, like illusionist Harry Houdini, had very publicly made similar plans of trying to communicate with the living after death and perhaps Darrow was inspired by this.

On March 16, 1938, a few days after his death, Darrow’s final request was carried out. A group of family and friends gathered on the bridge behind the museum and after a brief ceremony, his ashes were scattered out over the waters of the lagoon. The following year, on the anniversary of Darrow’s funeral, most of this same group returned to the bridge and recited speeches and poems in honor of the famous attorney. They waited anxiously for Darrow’s promised “sign from the other side” but nothing happened that year, nor the year after that.

The March 13 gathering became an annual event and as time passed, and the original group died out, new revelers came along to take their place. The event became a celebration of sorts of the life and death of Clarence Darrow. No manifestation of Darrow has ever appeared during these gatherings but could the ghost of the great lawyer be appearing at other times instead?

There are many who believe that the phantom has, and does, appear somewhat regularly on a veranda that spans the back of the Museum of Science and Industry. This wide stone area is at the bottom of the steps leading into the rear entrance of the museum and the apparition that appears here is only visible from the site of the Clarence Darrow Memorial Bridge, just across the lagoon. The ghost is reportedly seen dressed in a suit, hat and overcoat and bears a striking resemblance to the attorney. The figure is reported to stand and stare out across the water before disappearing.

The rear veranda of the Museum of Science and Industry, where the ghost of a man in an overcoat and hat has been reported many times over the years. Is it the ghost of Clarence Darrow, still strolling at one of his favorite spots?

Over the years, it has been sighted by literally dozens of people, although none of them have ever gotten close enough to the specter to see it clearly. Whenever it is approached ---- usually by would-be “ghost busters” who are intent on capturing it somehow --- the figure simply vanishes.

Is this the ghost of Clarence Darrow, finally making his presence known from a world beyond our own? There are no other ghostly manifestations connected to this site and certainly none that look like Darrow did in his last days, as he strolled through the park admiring the “prettiest view on Earth.” If it is Darrow, why does his ghost still walk here? Is it because of a promise to return that he had somehow managed to keep or his ties to business in this world that he never managed to complete? We’ll never know for sure but one thing that we can say is that this Chicago legend will forever remain a part of the city’s long history of crime and punishment.

Mulholland's Fall

2013-03-12T09:21:00.001-05:00

MULHOLLAND’S FALL

THE ST. FRANCIS DAM COLLAPSE

At just three minutes before midnight on this date, March 12, 1928, the St. Francis Dam, which had been designed as a reservoir for the Los Angeles water supply, suddenly failed, releasing eleven billion gallons of water into a narrow valley in northeastern Los Angeles County, destroying everything in its path. Over the course of the next four hours, a roaring wall of water swept through the night, traveling 55 miles from the San Francisquito Valley, through the Santa Clara Valley, and on to the Pacific Ocean.

The dam had been built between 1924 and 1926 under the supervision of William Mulholland, chief engineer and general manager of the Los Angeles Bureau of Water Works and Supply. The concrete gravity-arch dam should have been impregnable, but Mulholland’s arrogance and negligence led to disaster. The devastating flood killed more than six hundred people and its collapse is one of the worst American engineering failures in American history.

The collapse of the dam marked the end of Mulholland’s career and the catastrophe has left an eerie haunting in its wake.

The St. Francis Dam before the disaster

The St. Francis Dam was built by the city of Los Angeles and was the brainchild of William Mulholland, an Irish, self-taught engineer who had fought his way through the ranks of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (then called the Bureau of Water Works and Supply). He had made a name for himself as a man with a penchant for thriftiness, an enormous capacity for innovation and for having the ability to bring in projects on time and under budget. His skills aided him in designing and building the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, which at the time was the longest aqueduct in the world, bringing water 233 miles from the Owens Valley to L.A. The city had been built in the desert and the water was critical to its dreams of growth and glory. The aqueduct brought in fresh water, but the city always demanded more, forcing other, smaller ones to be built.

But the promise of more water was overshadowed by the deceit and corruption involved in taking away the water rights of the Owens Valley farmers and residents who also needed the water. Mulholland's financial backers became rich off of the water bonanza while the people of Owens Valley suffered financial ruin. Some called it "The rape of Owens Valley." At the opening ceremony for the aqueduct, Mulholland uttered his most enduring quote, "There it is. Take it.”

The aqueduct and the series of small reservoirs built in the 1920s proved insufficient to quench the city’s rabid thirst and it was obvious that a larger reservoir was needed. When building and designing the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1911, Mulholland had considered sections of the San Francisquito Canyon – beginning about thirty miles north of L.A. – as a potential dam site. Conveniently, the aqueduct ran along the canyon and two generating stations in the canyon used aqueduct water to provide power for the city. Mulholland quickly saw the potential of the canyon to serve as a reservoir that would provide ample water for L.A. in case of a drought or if the aqueduct was damaged in an earthquake.

In 1924, construction was quietly started on the dam so as to not attract the attention of the farmers who were dependent on the waters from San Francisquito Creek. The Los Angeles Aqueduct had already been the target of frequent sabotage by the angry farmers and landowners in the Owens Valley, who felt the city was stealing their water. Mulholland wanted to avoid costly repairs and delays caused by sabotage at the new dam – and avoid the scandal that surrounded by the building of the aqueduct – so almost no publicity was generated about the new project. The dam was named the “St. Francis,” an anglicized version of the name of the canyon in which it was built.

The official plans for the St. Francis Dam describe a curved, concrete gravity dam. The basic principle of this type of dam was simple – the mass of the structure had to be great enough to hold against the pressure of the water behind it. However, rock at the dam site, both the red conglomerate rock and the sandstone on the western side of the canyon and the mica schist on the eastern wall, were less than ideal for construction. The conglomerate lost strength when it was wet and mica was a porous rock that was unstable under pressure. When water seeped into the rock below and alongside the concrete dam, pressure pushed it upwards, reducing its effectiveness against the water pushing behind it. There are several ways to counter this effect, but Mulholland used only one technique, installing drainage wells to reduce water in the material beneath the dam. In addition, during construction, the width of the dam was decreased and the height increased. Mulholland, the self-taught genius, had ordered these important changes, even though they were never formally studied by trained engineers. It was later determined that the unstable rock along the eastern side of the dam was what caused it to give way.

The St. Francis Dam project was a disaster in the making, although apparently no one ever noticed – or they were afraid to speak up. As the reservoir filled during 1926 and 1927, several cracks appeared in the dam and its supports, likely caused by temperature changes and the contraction of the concrete. The cracks and leaks were inspected by Mulholland and his assistant, Harvey van Norman, but they dismissed them, stating that there were to be expected in a concrete structure the size of the new dam. By March 1928, the reservoir had reached full capacity. The water had risen steadily and uneventfully for almost two years but by the middle of March, motorists traveling along the east shore reported cracks and a sagging roadbed near the dam’s east support. On March 12, the road was reported to have sagged more than one foot.

That same morning, the dam keeper, Tony Harnischfeger, discovered a new leak and immediately alerted Mulholland. He inspected the leak, along with his assistant van Norman, but convinced that it was relatively minor and normal for a concrete dame, Mulholland pronounced the structure absolutely safe.

At three minutes before midnight on March 12, the St. Francis Dam catastrophically failed. No one actually saw the dam collapse, but a motorcyclist named Ace Hopewell was riding about one-half mile upstream from the dam around this time and reported that he felt a rumbling and the sound of “crashing, falling blocks.” He assumed that the sensation was either an earthquake or one of the landslides that were common to the area and didn’t realize at the time that he would be the last person to see the dam intact – and survive.

Dam keeper Tony Harnischfeger and his family were, most likely, the first casualties caught in the wave of water that tore through the dam. The wave was at least 125 feet high when it hit their cottage in San Francisquito Canyon, about one-quarter mile downstream from the dam. Thirty minutes before the collapse a motorist passing by the dam reported seeing lights in the canyon below the dam (the dam itself did not have lights) and many believe that the lights could have been Harnischfeger inspecting the dam immediately before its failure. He may have been nervous about the cracks that had been discovered earlier in the day. The body of Leona Johnson, who lived with the Harnischfegers and was later mistakenly reported to be Harnischfeger's wife, was found fully clothed and wedged between two blocks of concrete near the broken base of the dam. Neither the body of the dam keeper or that of his six-year-old son, Coder, was ever found.

The remains of the dam in two photos taken after the disaster occurred.

As the dam collapsed, eleven billion gallons of water surged down San Francisquito Canyon, demolishing the heavy concrete walls of Power Station No. 2, destroying the Harnischfeger home, wiping out a camp of migrant workers and destroying everything else in its path. The flood surged south through the canyon, flooding parts of present-day Valencia and Newhall. The deluge then followed the Santa Clara River bed to the west, flooding the towns of Castaic Junction, Fillmore and Bardsdale. The water continued west through Santa Paula in Ventura County, emptying the victims and debris that it carried with it into the Pacific Ocean, 55 miles from the reservoir and dam site. When it reached the ocean, the flood was almost two miles wide. Bodies of victims were recovered from the ocean, some as far south as the Mexican border.

Many more were never found at all.

To this day, the exact number of victims remains unknown. The official death toll in 1928 was 385, but the bodies of victims continued to be discovered all of the way until the middle 1950s. Many bodies were swept out to sea when the flood reached the Pacific and were not discovered until they washed ashore. The remains of another victim were found deep underground near Newhall in 1992, and the current death toll is estimated to be more than six hundred victims. This number does not include the itinerant farm workers camped in San Francisquito Canyon, the exact number of which will never be known.

The wall of water wiped out homes, small towns and (below) even shifted an entire railroad line from its course.

Immediately following the disaster, Los Angeles officials wanted to put it behind them as quickly as possible. Because of this, official investigations and hearings were short and cursory. Mulholland publicly announced that he was willing to shoulder all of the blame. He said that he “envied those who were killed” and went on to say, “Don’t blame anyone else, you just fasten it on me. If there was an error in human judgment, I was the human, and I won't try to fasten it on anyone else.” Although he did imply that the dam had been cursed or that it had been sabotaged, a coroner’s inquest ruled that the disaster was caused by the faulty rock on which the dam was built and blamed the governmental organizations that oversaw the dam's construction and the dam's designer and engineer, William Mulholland. However, Mulholland was cleared of any charges, since neither he nor anyone at the time could have known of the instability of the rock formations on which the dam was built.

At the time, Mulholland managed to escape severe criticism and he won accolades for his courage and the responsibility that he took for the disaster. It was not until much later that evidence emerged that his arrogance and negligence were the real causes of the dam’s collapse. Perhaps because of his lack of formal education, Mulholland relied more on experience and guesswork than on scientific study and data. He discounted or ignored contemporary knowledge about the dangers of the uplift in the rock and failed to implement a wide variety of safety measures that were available at the time. Too proud and independent to hire expert consultants, as was the custom on large engineering projects, Mulholland forged ahead and never submitted any of his plans for an independent safety review. His authoritarian management style made sure that none of his subordinates would question his judgment.

The catastrophe haunted Mulholland and it marked the end of his career. He retired several months after the disaster and retreated into a life of self-imposed isolation. With almost no contact with the world, he died in 1935 at the age of 79.

With thousands of homes destroyed and hundreds of people dead, the St. Francis Dam Collapse remains a dark event in American history and was one of the worst disasters to ever take place in California. The calamity left an indelible mark on the landscape of Southern California --- and many believe that it earned a place in the annals of the supernatural, as well.

The exact number of victims in the disaster will never be known.

Over the years, San Francisquito Canyon has remained a sort of blighted spot near San Fernando. The area where the dam keeper’s cottage was once located – and where many migrant workers were camped – has been turned into a public park. But it’s a place where remnants of the past still make themselves known today.

It’s been said that just about anyone who has lived in San Francisquito has a ghost story. In 1986, a local historian was videotaping in a small cemetery and his friend came out of a gulley with a mysterious acid burn on his arm. When the pair got back to town, the historian found his videotape was completely blank, even though frequent inspections during taping showed the video was good. He went back for a second shoot and this time, his camera caught fire in an odd case of spontaneous combustion. The owners of the property weren’t surprised. They mentioned that a half-ton watering trough had been mysteriously moved in the middle of the night -- with no tracks. Another time, a man was painting his barn and he happened to look up and see the wet palm print of a child impressed on the wood. There were no children anywhere nearby at the time.

The large park located in the canyon is said to be one of the most haunted spots in the region. Here, where an unknown number of itinerant workers met their death in the floodwaters, visitors who have braved the place after dark say that many of the flood victims have remained behind. According to reports, strange things occur here at night, especially when it’s foggy. Eerie voices are sometimes heard, people are touched, pushed and caressed by invisible hands and on other occasions, shadowy forms are seen walking in the mist. When approached, they always vanish.

Who are these mysterious apparitions? Are they the doomed workers who perished in the flood? Or could they be the spirits of victims whose bodies have not yet been discovered? That particular mystery remains unsolved.

The story of the St. Francis Dam collapse – along with other stories of American disasters and the hauntings that following in their wake – can be found in the books AND HELL FOLLOW WITH IT and A PALE HORSE WAS DEATH by Troy Taylor & Rene Kruse. Both books are available in print from our website or as Kindle and Nook editions.

The Last Dance of Mary Bregovy

2013-03-09T20:03:00.000-06:00

MARY BREGOVY’S LAST DANCE

The Death of the “Original” Resurrection Mary

In the early morning hours of this date, March 10, 1934, a young woman who died in an automobile accident went on to become the original source for Chicago’s most famous ghost – Resurrection Mary. Her name was Mary Bregovy and she was a young Polish factory worker from the Back of the Yards neighborhood, but her death created a legend that is still being told today. There is no ghost in Chicago history that is as famous as “Resurrection Mary,” the beautiful spirit who hitches rides along Archer Avenue on the Southwest Side, but for many years, her origins remained a mystery.

I believe there are actually two different young women (and perhaps more!) whose combined deaths created the legend that we know of as “Resurrection Mary.” One of them was Mary Bregovy…

The Willowbrook Ballroom in Willow Springs, which started out as the Oh Henry

According to legend, the story of Resurrection Mary began with the death of a young woman who was killed while hitchhiking on Archer Avenue in the middle 1930s. This is the popular version of the story and as all of the elements of Chicago’s greatest haunting --- a beautiful blonde, a lonely highway, a popular big-band ballroom and, of course, a hitchhiking ghost.

Many would dismiss this story as nothing more than an urban legend gone awry, a bedtime story that has taken on a life of its own over the years. Others would argue this and recount the most widely told version of the tale, never wavering from the idea that they believe the story to be true. Unfortunately though, the story of Resurrection Mary is filled with mystery --- and myth --- and nothing about it is simple. It’s a complicated tale of two young women and a single legend that became, without question, American’s greatest ghost story.

The legend of Resurrection Mary began at the Oh Henry Ballroom (now known as the Willowbrook Ballroom), a popular place for swing and big-band dancing during the middle 1930s. The ballroom is still located today on the south stretch of Archer Avenue in Willow Springs. Many years ago, this was a somewhat secluded place, nestled among the trees in a small town with a “wide open” reputation for booze, gambling and prostitution. Young people from all over the south side came to the Oh Henry Ballroom for music and dancing and owner John Verderbar was known for booking the hottest bands in the Chicago area and the biggest acts that traveled around the country.

The story goes that Mary came to the Oh Henry one night with a boyfriend and they spent the evening dancing and drinking. At some point, they got into an argument and Mary stormed out of the place. Even though it was a cold winter’s night, she decided that she would rather face a cold walk home than another minute with her obnoxious boyfriend. She left the ballroom and started walking up Archer Avenue. She had not gotten very far when she was struck and killed by a passing automobile. The driver fled the scene and Mary was left there to die.

The front entrance of Resurrection Cemetery

Her grieving parents buried her in Resurrection Cemetery, wearing her favorite party dress and her dancing shoes. Since that time, her spirit has been seen along Archer Avenue, perhaps trying to return to her grave after one last night among the living. Motorists started picking up a young woman on Archer Avenue, who offered them vague directions to take her home, who would then vanish from the automobile at the gates to Resurrection Cemetery.

But is there any truth to this legend? Did a young woman actually die after leaving the Oh Henry Ballroom and then begin haunting Archer Avenue? Many say that none of this ever happened. They speculate that “Mary” never existed at all. They dismiss the idea of bothering to search for her identity and believe she is nothing more than an “urban legend” and a piece of fascinating folklore. She is, they say, nothing more than Chicago’s own “vanishing hitchhiker”.

While the story of Resurrection Mary does bear some resemblance to the classic bit of American highway lore that we call the “vanishing hitchhiker”, the folklorists have forgotten an important thing about Mary’s story that other versions of the don’t have --- credible eyewitness accounts, places, times and dates. Many of these reports are not just stories that have been passed from person to person and rely on a "friend of a friend" for authenticity. In fact, some of the encounters with Mary have been chillingly up close and personal and remain unexplained to this day.

In addition, the story of Mary includes something that the urban legends leave out --- actually physical evidence of her presence. I’m not referring to the mythical coats and lettermen’s jackets that have been found neatly folded over gravesites but actual physical happenings that have been attributed to her ghost, as well as handprints that have been left behind, scorched into the bars of an iron gate.

And Mary, unlike our highway legends, springs from real-life counterparts for which evidence remains about their lives --- and deaths.

Historically speaking, the first reports of Resurrection Mary came from the late spring of 1934. It was at this time that motorists on Archer Avenue, passing in front of Resurrection Cemetery, began telling of a young woman who would appear on the roadway, as if trying to hitch a ride. On some occasions, she became frantic as cars passed her by and many times, actually desperate. Motorists told of the woman running toward them across the road, trying to climb onto the running boards of their automobiles and sometimes, even trying to climb into the open back windows! They all described her in the same way, wearing a light-colored dress and having curly, light brown hair that reached to her shoulders.

What made matters worse is that many of the people in these automobiles, who were residents of the southwest side, actually recognized this young woman. Her name was Mary Bregovy and some of these motorists were her friends. They laughed with her, drank with her and often danced with her at their favorite spot, the Oh Henry Ballroom. Of course, that had been in the past because when they began seeing Mary trying to flag them down on Archer Avenue --- she had been dead for several weeks!

Mary Bregovy, 1934

Mary Bregovy was 21 years-old in March 1934. She had been born on April 7, 1912 and attended St. Michael’s Grammar School, a short distance from her home. She lived in a small home at 4611 South Damen Avenue, which was in the stockyards neighborhood of Bridgeport. She was of Polish descent and was employed at a local factory, where she worked hard to help support her mother, father and two younger brothers, Steve and Joseph, during the early days of the Great Depression.

Friends would later remember her as an extremely fun-loving girl who loved to go to parties and loved to go out dancing, especially to the Oh Henry Ballroom, which was her favorite place. Her friend LaVern Rutkowski, who grew up with Mary on the southwest side and lived just two houses away from her, recalled in a 1984 interview: “She was personality plus. She always had a smile and you never saw her unhappy.”

Mrs. Rutkowski, or “Vern” as she was commonly known, spent Mary’s final day with her on March 10, 1934. The two of them spent a lot of time together and years later, Vern would vividly recall going out with Mary to dance halls all over the southwest side. Ironically, Mary’s parents had forbidden her to go out on the night of March 10 and Mary might have listened to them if she and Vern had not met a couple of young men earlier that day. These two men, who are believed to have been John Reiker and John Thoel, were in the car that night when Mary was killed.

The former Goldblatt’s store at 47^thand Ashland, where Mary and Vern spent their final day together.

Mary and Vern spent that Saturday afternoon shopping at 47th Street and Ashland Avenue and it was in one of the stores located here that they met the two boys. After getting into their car to go for a ride, Vern took an instant dislike to them. She said: “They looked like wild boys and for some reason I just didn’t like them.” Vern added that they drove recklessly, turning corners on two wheels and speeding down narrow streets. Finally, Vern demanded to be let out of the car a few blocks from home. She asked Mary if she planned to go out with the young men that night and Mary said that she did. Vern urged her to reconsider, not only because she didn’t like the boys but also because Mary’s parents had already told her that she couldn’t. Mary shrugged off her friend’s warnings. She simply replied: “You never like anyone I introduce you to.”

Vern stood watching on the street corner as Mary and the young men roared away in the car. It was the last time that she would ever see her friend alive.

The Bregovy home was located here in this row of modest homes in the Back of the Yards neighborhood.

No one knows how Mary Bregovy spent the rest of the day but a few clues have emerged from family members over the years. The wife of Mary’s younger brother, Steve, reported in 1985 that she had received a letter from a friend of Mary’s years before that stated Mary planned to attend a novena at church before she went out dancing that night. The Bregovy’s were devout Catholics and this would not have been out of the ordinary for Mary to do. She also said that she believed Mary had been going to the Oh Henry Ballroom that night.

But did she ever arrive there? No one knows for sure but tradition holds that Mary and her new friends, which now included a young woman named Virginia Rozanski, did go dancing at the Oh Henry Ballroom that night. After the ballroom closed, it is believed that they drove into the city, where most of the clubs stayed open much later. In the early morning hours, they were leaving downtown, traveling along Wacker Drive, likely headed for Archer Avenue, which would take Mary home to Bridgeport, when the deadly accident occurred. One has to wonder if alcohol, combined with the reckless driving described by Vern Rutkowski, combined to cause the crash.

A short piece in the March 11 edition of the Chicago Tribune described the accident:

Girl Killed in Crash

Miss Marie Bregovy, 21 years old, of 4611 South Damen Avenue, was killed last night when the automobile in which she was riding cracked up at Lake Street and Wacker Drive. John Reiker, 23, of 15 North Knight Street, Park Ridge, suffered a possible skull fracture and is in the county hospital. John Thoel, 25, 5216 Loomis Street, driver of the car, and Miss Virginia Rozanski, 22, of 4849 South Lincoln Street, were shaken up and scratched. The scene of the accident is known to police as a danger spot. Thoel told police he did not see the “L” substructure.

The accident occurred along Wacker Drive, just as it curves to the south and away from the Chicago River. At the point where Wacker crosses Lake Street, there is a large, metal support for the elevated tracks overhead. If a driver was coming along Wacker too quickly, it could be easy to not make a complete turn and collide with the support column, which is almost in a straight line around the curve. This is apparently what happened to John Thoel that night.

When the automobile collided with the metal column, Mary was thrown through the windshield and instantly killed. She was also badly cut up by the glass. Before her funeral, the undertaker had to sew up a gash that extended all of the way across the front of her throat and up to her right ear. Tragically, Mary was not even supposed to be sitting in the front seat when the accident occurred. Her parents would later learn that she had switched places with Virginia Rozanski because she didn’t like John Thoel, who she had been sitting next to in the passenger’s seat. She had asked Mary to sit in front with Thoel and Mary had agreed. Unfortunately, her good-natured personality would turn out to be fatal for her.

Vern Rutkowski accompanied Mary’s mother and her brother, Joseph, to the morgue to identify the body. Mary was taken to the Satala Funeral Home, located just a couple of blocks from the Bregovy home, to be prepared for burial. The owner at the time, John Satala, easily remembered Mary. In 1985, he recalled: “She was a hell of a nice girl. Very pretty. She was buried in an orchid dress. I remember having to sew up the side of her face.”

The Satala Funeral Home, where Mary Bregovy was prepared for burial

Mary was buried in Resurrection Cemetery and this is where some of the confusion about her story comes along. According to records, Mary was buried in Section MM, Site 9819. There was a Mary Bregovy buried here, but it was not the young woman who was killed in March 1934. A search for this gravesite revealed that the Mary Bregovy laid to rest here was a 34 year-old mother who was born in 1888 and died in 1922. This is a different Mary Bregovy altogether! Family members of Mary Bregovy said that Mary was actually buried in a term grave and never moved. After World War II, when space was needed for more burial sites at Resurrection Cemetery, some of the term graves were moved but others, like Mary’s, were simply covered over. For this reason, according to Mrs. Steve Bregovy, the location of Mary’s grave is unknown. Could this be one of the reasons that her spirit is so restless?

The stories of Mary Bregovy’s ghost began a very short time after her death. In April 1934, a caretaker at Resurrection Cemetery telephoned funeral home director John Satala and told him that he had seen the barefooted ghost of a young girl walking around the cemetery. She was a lovely girl with light brown hair and she was wearing a pale, orchid-colored dress. The caretaker was positive that the ghost was the woman that Satala had recently buried. Satala later said that he recognized the description of the girl as Mary Bregovy.

Soon after, other reports began to appear, like the earlier mentioned accounts of a woman matching Mary’s description who was trying to hitch rides in front of the cemetery. These Archer Avenue sightings also included reports from people who actually recognized the ghost as Mary Bregovy.

I’m convinced that these reports were the beginning of the Resurrection Mary legend. These were the first stories of a young woman hitching rides on Archer Avenue and thanks to the destination of many of these motorists, combined with the fact that the Oh Henry Ballroom was Mary’s favorite dance spot, the story began to grow. I believe that many of the reports of a ghostly woman being seen around Resurrection Cemetery can be traced to Mary Bregovy --- the “original Resurrection Mary”.

But Mary Bregovy does not haunt this stretch of Archer Avenue alone…

As you may have noticed from Mary’s description, she doesn’t fit the description of a pretty blond, which is standard in the Resurrection Mary legend. However, the other girl who haunts Archer Avenue does…

The rest of the story of Mary – and the solution to the mystery of the two ghosts – can be found in my book, RESURRECTION MARY, which is available in print from the website or as a Kindle edition.

The Utah Horror

2013-03-08T09:01:00.000-06:00

THE UTAH HORROR

The 1924 Castle Gate Mine Disaster

On the morning of March 8, 1924, 171 men walked into the Castle Gate No. 2 mine in Utah’s Willow Creek Canyon. Mining in those days was still a hard, brutal and dangerous job but for the most part, it paid well and the men were happy to have their jobs. Most of them were smiling when they headed for work that morning, but within hours, their happiness would turn to horror.

What happened on that day in March is still regarded as one of the worst disasters in Utah mining history. Scores of men lost their lives and according to the stories that followed in the wake of the explosions that shook the mine that day, many of their spirits remained behind as a reminder of the lives that were lost.

For well over a century, steam kept this country moving. In a way it still does: Until the 1920s and 1930s, steam ran just about everything -- tractors, trains, ships, industrial machines, and even some cars. Steam provided the power and boiling water provided the steam but it was coal that kept all that water boiling. Coal also kept people warm in their homes and fired the giant steel mills that helped make our country the industrial powerhouse that it was.

Coal was king, and the digging of the stuff made some men rich as kings. Coal provided meager livings for hundreds of thousands of men and boys, and fabulous wealth for a few. With all the money there was to be made in the coal industry, it is not difficult to believe that many business men wanted to become involved with that lucrative prospect. Coal was the original “black gold.”

During the nineteenth century and into the early part of the twentieth, coal mines were opened all over the country. Although ten states provide ninety percent of the coal in the U.S., at least 27 states had (and still have) active coal mines. Early on, it seemed that coal couldn’t be pulled from the ground fast enough, but as we moved through the early decades of the twentieth century, the coal boom was starting to decline. The coal industry had moved into a period of over-expansion and over-production. Too many mines had been opened and mining technology allowed for more coal to be pulled from those mines. It wasn’t just men with picks and horse drawn coal carts anymore. Other forms of energy, such as gasoline and diesel fuels, were being introduced and used. The automobile was firmly established as the newest and most popular mode of transportation.

The result was decreased orders for coal from mines all over the country. Coal certainly wasn’t hearing its death toll, as many billions of tons were still being produced, but some mines were hit harder than others. Some mines shut down temporarily and others reduced their work force. Such was the situation in March of 1924 in east central Utah.

The Castle Gate mines took their name from this unusual rock formation, resembling a castle spire, at the entrance to Price Canyon.

A reduction in orders for coal meant layoffs and closings. Utah Fuel Company’s Castle Gate Mines were no exception. Although Castle Gate had not decided which mines it needed to close, it furloughed many of its miners. To keep as many families in the area fed as possible, they laid off young, single miners and those without dependents and even hired some married family men who had been laid off when area mines had temporarily shut down. The miners knew the Castle Gate Mines were known for being dangerous, but they were happy to have jobs. Two weeks later, disaster struck.

Castle Gate Mine No. 1 opened in 1886 in Willow Creek Canyon, 90 miles southeast of Salt Lake City. It was named for a unique rock formation at the entrance to Price Canyon. Initially, boxcars were used to bring in the first miners, who used them as their homes until the boxcars were needed elsewhere. Then, the company put the men up in tents until suitable housing could be built. After the first few houses were completed, the makeup of the Castle Gate began shifting from single immigrant and American-born men to more families. The town of Castle Gate was incorporated in 1912, the same year the second mine was opened. Castle Gate No. 2 was located on the opposite side of the canyon, one mile apart from the No. 1 mine.

Castle Gate Mine No. 1 had reasonably good coal quality, which was baked into coke for smelting plants to use in the production of steel. But when No. 2 was opened, the coal was of supreme quality, some of the best in the state, or even the region. This coal was destined for use in steam locomotives and steamboats. In 1922, Castle Gate Mine No. 3 opened and coal production went into full swing.

All three Castle Gate mines had been running smoothly with rotating shifts. For two weeks, some new men had been working together after many had been laid off and others hired. It was very unusual for such a high percentage of the miners to be married with children, but the company was trying to do right by the family men. And so, when 171 men walked into Castle Gate Mine No. 2 bright and early on Saturday morning, March 8, 1924, they were happy to be there and grateful to have jobs. It would not be long before their happiness would turn to terror.

A check board was positioned next to the entrance of each mine. On the board were a series of tiny hooks with small brass number plates hanging from them. As every miner walked into the mine to work, he would take in with him the brass plate bearing the number he had been assigned. This system was used to keep track of who was in the mine and who was not. If a man’s number plate was gone from its hook, he was in the mine. It was a simple, commonly used system that had been adopted by many mine companies. As each man passed into the mine on that Saturday, he carried with him his brass number plate.

Inside the mine, the men walked down deep below the surface into rooms where different groups would be removing the coal that the shift before them had knocked loose. The coal mined in Castle Gate No. 2 was very brittle. The new “short wall” mechanical equipment that they had been using to dig out the coal created a large amount of coal dust when it was used with brittle coal. This mine had a sprinkler system to dampen down the dust, but it had not been sufficient to keep the dust down that day. Consequently, when the men went to work that day, the air and floors were heavy with light, fluffy black powder. In some mines, the men had to work hunched over because the room and tunnel ceilings were so low. In No. 2, however, the coal seams were very deep and wide, allowing for the ceilings in some rooms to be as high as 12 to 16 feet.

Two of the men were loading coal in Room 2, about 7,000 feet from the entrance. This room was known to have some of the poorest safety conditions in the mine, and it had with a particularly high ceiling. A few minutes before 8:00 that morning, the fire boss working Room 2 climbed up to investigate a pocket of gas at the ceiling. As he did so, his open carbide head lamp went out. He stopped to relight the lamp with a match, and in doing so, he ignited a deadly combination of explosive gas and coal dust. The force of the explosion that followed was monstrous.

The blast roared up the drift and burst out the entrance of the mine with such tremendous force that it tossed railcars about as if they were toys. One mining car, several telephone poles and some heavy equipment near the entrance were thrown across the valley to the other side of the canyon, nearly a mile away. The steel gates inside the drift near the entrance were twisted and ripped free, tearing the heavy hinges from their concrete foundations. These gates were also blasted across the valley and were found embedded in the rock of the opposite canyon wall. The damage inside the mine was as bad, if not worse. Heavy support timbers were ripped out and the steel rails were twisted like so much string.

A few minutes later, a second explosion burst through the mine. This time, the force of the blast was directed in a different direction, nearly destroying the fan house and leaving the fan itself extensively damaged. It was supposed that the force of the first explosion likely extinguished the carbide headlamps of the miners working in the other rooms. Plunged into utter darkness, it would not have been long before someone tried to re-light his own headlamp with a match, which set off the second explosion. This explosion was the one that likely killed any of the miners who had survived the initial blast. It is quite likely there were survivors, as the energy from the first explosion was directed outward. Even if there had been no second explosion, it does not necessarily follow that these men would have come out of the mine alive. The first explosion would have rapidly burned off most of the oxygen in the mine and “afterdamp” would have been left behind. Afterdamp is made up of hot toxic gasses left behind after the explosive gasses and the coal dust had burned, mixed in with a large amount of carbon dioxide - a lethal combination.

The catastrophe was not yet complete. About 20 minutes after the second explosion, the earth shook one last time as a third, spontaneous explosion detonated. This final explosion did extensive internal damage to the mine. The first and second explosions had blown out many of the timber roof support beams, allowing the third explosion to cause extensive collapses and cave-ins throughout the mine.

Family members and off-duty miners knew exactly what must have happened as the earth below them shook. They ran directly to No. 2, trying to get as close to the entrance as they could. The bosses set their emergency plan into action by calling the area mines to let them know what had happened. Trained rescuers would be arriving within the half hour.

Every mine had its own trained rescue teams and rescue equipment on hand. If ever there was a fire, explosion, or cave-in within any of the area mines, these rescue teams would be immediately alerted and sent to the mine in distress. The men on these teams were all miners themselves and very often when the call for help went out, they would be called out of their own mines. No matter what mine was in trouble or what company owned the mine, help would always be on the way when needed. No matter how bad the situation appeared when the rescuers arrived on the scene, they always went to work believing that there would be living men trapped inside. Unfortunately, when they arrived at the No. 2 Mine, they had no way of knowing how many men were inside at the time of the explosion. The check board containing that information was blasted into splinters and brass tags were blown all over the valley with the first blast.

The first men to enter the mine after the third explosion were 22-year-old Thomas Hilton of Helper, Utah, and two other men. Hilton, who later spent over 55 years working coal mines, had just been certified in mine rescue and first aid and had been laid off from No. 2 two weeks earlier. The men needed to get to the water shut-off valve for the eight-foot water line leading into the mine. There were worries that if the line had burned through, men could possibly drown if they were holed up in a low-lying room. Wearing breathing helmets, the men entered the mine while holding a rope so they could be pulled out in case they were overcome with gas. They were able to get as far as 100 yards but were only about halfway to the water valve. Hilton began feeling dizzy. He jerked his lifeline to signal that he was in trouble and turned toward the exit. After walking a short distance, his legs began to feel unstable and he began to run. In sight of the exit, he collapsed into unconsciousness. Two company managers who were holding the lifelines, covered their mouths with wet handkerchiefs and ran in and dragged Hilton out. The next thing he knew, he was lying in the Castle Gate cemetery, propped up against a tombstone, breathing clean fresh air.

Hilton took some time to recover and then headed back to continue with the rescue effort. The rescue team leaders were careful to keep him away from the area where his father had been working until after his father’s body was removed. Hilton lost his father, an uncle, a cousin and other relatives in the blast.

The afterdamp in the mine was tremendously thick and there was no way to get it cleared; the force of the explosions had collapsed the airshafts and the ventilation fan was all but destroyed. The rescue teams were in possession of the latest emergency equipment in the forms of breathing helmets. These would allow the rescuers to work for fifteen minutes or more in areas saturated with afterdamp. But in this case, the afterdamp was so extreme that even with rescue helmets, the men were being overcome and frequently had to be dragged from the mine.

Of the 171 men who walked into the mine that Saturday morning, there were no survivors. Then the mine took one more life. George Wilson of Standardville, the head of the rescue crew, was in the first group to enter the mine. These men went in on Saturday afternoon, knowing full well that there had been no opportunity to ventilate the mine. They were focused on finding any trapped miners that could still be saved. It was believed that Wilson’s breathing apparatus had somehow malfunctioned or that the device shielding his nose had slipped. Within the first 100 yards, he fell to the mine floor, asphyxiated from the toxic afterdamp. The other five men on his team also collapsed and had to be pulled from the mine. They were all unconscious but all but Wilson were later revived. The afterdamp was too strong even for the rescue breathing helmets.

Repair work had begun on the giant fan but it could not be put back into service before Sunday afternoon. Helmeted teams repeatedly tried to enter the mine but were turned back by the heavy afterdamp. Eventually, efforts to enter the mine were stopped until the fan could be repaired the following day. In the meantime, miners worked at and around the entrance, laboring to remove as much debris as they could, but their efforts were hampered by the massive crowd that had developed on the road leading to the mine. Police and mine officials were tasked with trying to push the crowd back so the others could work more efficiently. On Sunday, Utah National Guardsmen were called in for crowd control, and they were eventually able to move the crowd back down the road. After that, no one was allowed up to the mine unless they were known rescuers, had proper credentials, or were from the press.

A special train arrived at 3:00 p.m. at Castle Gate from Salt Lake City with five doctors and many nurses. With rescue and medical personnel in place, the Red Cross quickly arrived to help care for the families of the miners. They were provided with much-needed supplies and food, and with volunteers to help with such mundane household chores as child care, cooking and cleaning because many of the miners’ wives were too distraught to function normally. Mothers and wives of the entombed miners did little more than stand silently and sadly, looking toward the mine.

Saturday night, a helmeted crew was able to penetrate the mine as far as 500 feet, but no bodies were found. Later that night, another helmeted crew made it as far as 1,000 feet, but found no one, and no evidence of anyone left alive.

Sunday, March 9, started with great expectations. The fan was to be repaired and would begin ventilating the mine, making it easier and safer for the rescue crews to do their work. Those high expectations were dashed that afternoon as a fire broke out in an emergency exit and rescuers were once again evicted from the mine for several hours until the fire could be extinguished. While the fire burned, there were more cave-ins in the main entrance, dropping tons of debris that would have to be cleared out before the operation could get underway once again. A further hindrance was a bitterly cold wind that blew steadily throughout Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Bonfires were built to help keep the teams warm.

Several more rescuers were overcome by the gas and had to be hauled out, but there were no more deaths. As an added precaution against gasses, where the afterdamp was not visibly present, the rescuers took caged canaries in with them. That was an old miner’s trick for detecting many types of hazardous gasses, primarily carbon dioxide. The gasses would affect the birds long before the humans, so when a miner would see that his canary had fallen dead, he knew that it was time to leave quickly.

After the fire was out, the first ten bodies were found and gently carried from the mine. Horribly charred and mutilated, it was instantly evident that these men had been killed instantly. Soon after, two more bodies were found, headless and badly charred, it was impossible to identify them immediately. About 6:00 p.m., twenty more bodies had been located but the recovery team was unable to reach them before much debris was moved. All but the faintest of hopes of finding anyone alive were lost. The afterdamp had penetrated even the farthest reaches of the mine and it continued to hamper the men recovering the bodies. As more of the mine was being ventilated, and they ventured deeper into the mine, the helmeted workers would locate and carry the bodies to an area that had been cleared of the afterdamp, and pass them on to miners without need of breathing helmets. Then, with the aid of horses, the bodies would be carried to the surface.

When the rescuers accepted the fact that none of the miners were coming out alive, rescue shifted to recovery. They needed to find a place to store the remains and to make identifications. The Knights of Pythias Hall was used as a morgue and all the remains were then taken there and placed gently on the floor, with any clothing or belongings that were found near the bodies. Undertakers from area towns flooded in to assist in preparing the bodies for burial. The company had already sent out a mass order for coffins, to be delivered within a few days.

A group of children who lost their fathers in the explosion

It took nine days to recover all 172 bodies. Mass funerals were conducted and burials took place in three cemeteries: Price, Helper and the largest number in the Castle Gate cemetery. One man, who was found headless, had to be dug up so his head could be put in the coffin after it was found several days later. On March 24, the sorrowful sound of “Taps” was heard echoing through the canyon as long funeral processions carried dozens of coffins to their final resting places.

Death benefits were paid by the newly established Utah State Workmen’s Compensation Fund. Each dependent received $5,000 over time, with payments of $16 per week for five years. Several of the very young continued receiving payments well past the five-year cutoff. The company cancelled all of these families’ debts to the company store and gave them ample time to find other lodgings. Governor Charles Mabey used the national press to plead for donations to be sent to help the families. He raised an additional $132,445.13. He then hired a social worker to work with the families to determine how the money would be delegated.

The Castle Gate No. 2 mine was cleaned, rebuilt and reopened. Coal was pulled from No. 2 until it was closed down for good on February 4, 1960, the same day that Castle Gate No. 4 was opened.

The mine and the land around it have changed hands several times, with different parcels sold separately. The land under the town of Castle Gate remained company land until it was sold in 1974.

The town was dismantled and some of the houses were moved to nearby Helper. The remaining 200 Castle Gate residents were relocated to 60 newly built homes in the new Castle Gate subdivision, later absorbed into Helper. The remainder was bulldozed, leaving not the least hint that there ever was a town there.

Castle Gate is officially listed as a Utah “ghost town” but the truth is that there is nothing much left to see there; just level, graded ground. There are still several of the old mining buildings left from No. 2, but they have fallen into disrepair. At some point over the years, the old mine wheelhouse had a sinister local nickname of The Devil’s Playhouse attached to it, but no one around seems to remember how or why it came to be called that. But they do stay away -- just in case.

Hopefully most of the miners who died so suddenly and violently that day have gone on to their rest, but at least a handful of the miners who went back to work in No. 2 after the disaster believed that some of the spirits of the dead remained in the mine. The cleanup and rebuilding was all done by experienced miners who knew how to put a mine back together. As they went about their work, they found little mementos and reminders of their lost colleagues mixed in with the rubble. On a few occasions, they were reminded by their friends themselves! Most of the men believed that their old friends were trying to protect them as they did their work, more than once whispering a warning or giving a slight shove that kept them from being harmed by falling rocks or timbers. Although frightening when it happened, none of the miners regretted the protection.

The story of the Castle Gate Mine (and many others disasters) appears in the book A PALE HORSE WAS DEATH by Troy Taylor and Rene Kruse. It’s available in a print edition from the website or as a Kindle and Nook edition.

"Remember the Alamo!"

2013-03-06T10:07:00.002-06:00

“REMEMBER THE ALAMO!”

History & Hauntings of an American Landmark

On the date, March 6, 1836, the defenders of the Alamo mission in what is now San Antonio, Texas were overrun by Mexican army troops. The battle of the Alamo has become one of the pivotal events in American history, although Texas was not a part of the United States at the time. On February 23, 1836, a Mexican army of thousands of soldiers attacked a makeshift garrison of about 200 Texas settlers – including James Bowie, William Travis and former congressman David Crockett – who were holed up in the abandoned mission on the outskirts of town.

The Alamo in 1854

The events that led to the battle began several months before when the Texans drove all of the Mexican troops out of what was then Mexican-owned Texas. After taking over San Antonio, the Texan forces decided to fortify the Alamo in whatever way they could. The chapel was never meant to be a fortress. It had thick walls, but they were made of simple masonry. Colonel James Neill, assigned to command the Alamo, moved 24 pieces of artillery to the walls, but the fort was still undermanned and low on both ammunition and food. Neill complained to General Sam Houston that his men were underfed and exhausted. He sent a message to the provisional government stating: “Unless we are reinforced and victualed (provided with food and stores), we must become an easy prey to the enemy, in case of an attack.”

Soon after, on January 19, Colonel James Bowie arrived with a small company of men. He was impressed with the work already done and he worked well with Colonel Neill. Complaints again went out stressing the lack of horses. There weren’t even enough horses to send out scouts to watch for signs of the Mexican army. Again, a meager number of reinforcements were sent to the Alamo. Colonel William Travis arrived on February 3 with a small contingent of cavalry. Five days later, David Crockett arrived with a small group of American volunteers. Travis was unhappy to be given this post, but as a career army officer, he followed orders. Sadly, they were still significantly low on supplies and ammunition. The number of soldiers positioned at one of the two forts protecting the whole of the Republic of Texas had risen to only 150 men. Among them was one of my ancestors, an Irish immigrant from County Kerry named Joseph Hawkins.

(Right to Left) David Crockett, William Travis and Jim Bowie

At noon on February 23, 1836, Santa Anna and the forward part of his army reached San Antonio. Sentries positioned south of town came riding in hard with the news. With Neill absent with a family emergency, Travis and Bowie took command. Some men were sent to collect what food stores they could find and others worked to drive their few head of cattle inside the fort. Most of the Mexicans living in town were hostile to the Texans, but there were a few people living outside the walls of the Alamo who were invited inside for protection.

Two hours later, after a brief respite, Santa Anna marched his men into town and sent word to Travis, demanding immediate unconditional surrender. Travis answered with a cannon shot. Santa Anna initiated a bombardment of the fort and gave orders that it continue around the clock. Travis sent off an express message to Colonel Fannin in Goliad, 90 miles to the southeast, where Fannin had a contingent of 300 soldiers. Travis described the situation at the Alamo and requested immediate assistance. The 13-day siege of the Alamo had begun.

On February 26, a light skirmish between the fort’s defenders and Mexican cavalry erupted but amounted to nothing. A storm had blown and the temperature dropped to 39 degrees. Santa Anna brought up more reinforcements and posted more guards around the Alamo. But the Texans were able to sneak out for wood and food and return safely. While they were out, they burned a few more houses. The bombardment of the Alamo continued.

Early in the day on February 28, Colonel Fannin and 200 men with four pieces of artillery left Goliad for the Alamo, leaving 100 men to guard the Presidio La Bahía. After marching only 200 yards, a wagon of supplies broke down. They decided to return to the Precidio La Bahia and Fort Defiance in Goliad. They would not be reinforcing the soldiers at the Alamo.

On March 1, Captain John Smith sneaked into the Alamo bringing 32 Texans with him. That brought the number of men inside the walls to 188; outside Santa Anna’s troops numbered 5,000. The defenders were holding but the walls of the fort were weakening with constant bombardments. The Mexican troops were rested and well fed while the Texans were starving and exhausted.

By the tenth day of the siege, March 3, Santa Anna’s men had erected a forth battery to the north of the fort, within musket range. Travis sent off another desperate request for reinforcements and supplies. This was to be his last appeal to the president. By then, he had ceased expecting any help to come.

The final day came on March 6 when just after midnight, Santa Anna pulled his entire force into town and surrounded the fort. His troops had been supplied with scaling ladders and they waited quietly for the word to attack. At 5:00 a.m., they received the word. The troops moved forward and the ladders were placed against the wall, ready to scale. But the Texans were ready and brought down very heavy fire and the Mexicans were driven back. They made a second attempt with the same results, followed by a third and a fourth. Each time, they were repulsed by the Texans. For Santa Anna, the fifth try met with success.

A painting depicting the final battle of the Alamo

The Mexican troops flooded up and over the wall and into the Alamo. Completely overwhelmed, the Texans had no chance, but they kept fighting. Travis was one of the first to be killed but still, the defenders kept fighting. They fought until nearly all lay dead in the dirt inside the Alamo. Santa Anna had given orders that the wounded were to be killed and many bayonets were bloodied that day. The Mexicans then moved through the fort, looking for anyone who might be hiding. During this search, the men came upon Colonel Bowie, still in his sickbed. Knowing he was one of the commanders of the fort, they butchered him.

After twelve days of bombardment, the Alamo was taken by the Mexican army in just 90 minutes. By 8:00 a.m., every fighting man who had defended the Alamo lay dead.

After the dead Texans had been collected and brought into the center of the courtyard, the bodies were looted for valuables. The bodies were then stripped of their clothing and stacked like cordwood and set on fire. Witnesses related that the piles smoldered for three days.

The Mexican army stood victorious but at a tremendous cost. Records vary, but best estimates put the number of dead at nearly 500 and almost as many wounded. The defenders of the Alamo had been wiped out.

The battle that Santa Anna thought would frighten the rebels into submission became an inspiration to the Texans. Their battle cry for freedom became “Remember the Alamo!” But all too soon would come Goliad, another of Texas’ greatest tragedies.

The Alamo and its mission chapel fell in and out of repair as several different uses for the structure were found -- from a military outpost to a police station and jail. In the early 1900s, the land was purchased by the state of Texas and the Daughters of the Republic of Texas were appointed as permanent caretakers. The site is visited by hundreds of thousands of people each year.

The Alamo was already 93 years old at the time of the famous battle. The first stones for the Spanish mission were laid in 1744. There were several hundred burials in what is now Alamo Plaza. In 1793, the Catholic Church moved the religious artifacts to a nearby mission and turned the property over to the town. It officially became the Alamo, the Spanish word for cottonwood, when it was used as a barracks for Spanish soldiers in 1803. The building was vacant and abandoned between 1825 till 1835, when General Cos of the Mexican Army made it into a military fort. It changed hands between the Mexicans and the Texans three more times, including the Battle of the Alamo in 1836. After that time, a variety of purposes was found for the structure until it was purchased by the state of Texas and opened to the public as a state shrine.

After so many different uses by so many different people, it is not unexpected that the old mission chapel and surrounding property is considered quite haunted. However, the primary reason that the Alamo is so haunted can be linked to the battle that occurred there in 1836, when between 800 and 1,100 people died violent deaths over a period of little more than two hours. Added to that, the bodies of the Texans were stripped, desecrated and burned, with no proper burial. Even the bodies of the Mexican soldiers were mishandled in ways that would have been considered improper in their religion and their culture. They were either burned, thrown into the San Antonio River, or left to rot as carrion for wild animals and vultures.

The land within and surrounding the old mission is essentially a cemetery. After the bodies were burned, their ashes and charred pieces of bone and teeth were raked out and mixed into with the soil. If there were a checklist for events that would most likely to lead to a haunting, the Alamo and Goliad (soon to follow), would certainly tick the top eight or ten.

There is no record of any hauntings or ghost sightings before the battle in 1836, but one of the most prominent paranormal legends stems from just a few weeks afterwards. General Santa Anna and the bulk of his forces stayed on at San Antonio de Béxar for a few weeks before leaving to chase down General Sam Houston and the Republic of Texas Army, leaving a garrison of men at the Alamo under General Andrade’s command.

Shortly before leaving, Santa Anna ordered General Andrade to demolish the Alamo, leaving nothing standing. General Andrade then instructed Colonel Sanchez to get the job done. Colonel Sanchez took his men to the site of the Alamo. After 12 days of constant bombardment, the place was not much more than rubble. The only recognizable structure still standing was the mission chapel. Sanchez ordered the men to begin demolishing of the church and the men complied, although there was some grumbling among the ranks about it possibly being sacrilege to tear down a former Catholic church.

According to legend, as the men began to work, six ghostly forms emerged from the chapel walls. The soldiers immediately stopped what they were doing and backed away, crossing themselves and muttering “diablos” (devils) under their breath. The forms, often described as monks, slowly advanced on the soldiers, waving flaming swords and warning the men in inhuman voices, “Do not touch the walls of the Alamo!” Colonel Sanchez and his men ran screaming from the chapel, back to their encampment.

When Sanchez told General Andrade what they had witnessed, Andrade was furious and chastised Sanchez for his cowardice. Taking matters into his own hands, Andrade collected a detail of men and marched them to the Alamo to get the work done. As added protection, he took along a small canon and instructed the gunner to aim it directly at the front doors of the chapel. But before they could blast the doors, the six ghostly monk forms again took shape and issued their warning. Andrade’s horse took fright and reared, throwing the general to the ground. Before following his men in retreat, he turned to look at the building again and saw giant flames blast up from the ground. The smoke curled and twisted into the shape of a huge man. The figure held balls of fire in each hand and threw them at Andrade.

General Andrade affected a hasty retreat and the phantom protectors of the Alamo won out, but this part of the legend is not borne out by fact. Apparently, Andrade was not frightened away for good, since he must have returned to complete his orders. According to official records and archeological investigations, much of what remained of the mission was demolished, including many of fort’s walls.

In the 1890s, the Alamo chapel and some of the old barracks were used as a police station and local jail. Soon after moving into the old buildings, the prisoners and guards began complaining about a variety of unexplainable experiences. They reported that a ghostly sentry walked from east to west on the roof of the police station, formerly the old barracks. This and other events were described so frequently and fervently that the hauntings became news -- literally.

The San Antonio Express News published two articles, in 1894 and again in 1897, about the ghostly goings-on. These articles described several types of “manifestations” that were witnessed within the walls of the police station and jail. They saw mysterious man-shaped shadows moving about the rooms and corridors, and heard strange moaning sounds that could not be explained. According to the newspaper reports, these were frequent and frightening, so much so that many of the guards refused to patrol the area after dark.

As the stories of the hauntings became more well known, complaints were brought to the San Antonio City Council, where councilmen took the position that making the prisoners sleep in a building with ghosts roaming around and moaning amounted to “cruel and unusual punishment” and that it was unsafe for the public because of the guards refusal to walk their patrols after sunset. Shortly after the second article was published, the city moved the police station from the Alamo to a building that was not haunted.

Many of the same types of incidents that were reported in the 1890s are said to continue to happen today, except that now, the ghosts of the Alamo no longer seem to distinguish between night and day, but prefer to conduct their hauntings around the clock.

For decades, visitors, park rangers and passersby have described seeing a mysterious sentry walking his patrol. There have also been countless reports of unexplained noises: men screaming in pain, battle cries, and voices and whispers seeming to emanate from the walls of the chapel. People walking past the Alamo at night have seen distorted and disheveled human shapes forming right out of the exterior walls themselves.

A commonly seen apparition is that of a man dressed in clothing of the early 1800s, walking across the courtyard. Although visitors have described seeing this man many times over the years, the story was validated for Alamo officials by one of their own park rangers. The ranger noticed a man dressed in period costume walking toward the library. The ranger decided to follow him and see what he was up to. To his surprise, the stranger faded away to nothing as he approached the chapel.

Another commonly witnessed ghost is that of a blond boy who has been seen wandering the buildings and courtyard, but is most often seen in the gift shop. He apparently likes to interact with children and has been known to carry on conversations with them. He has told several children that he was present during the battle and believes he died there. He seems to selectively appear to specific people, with children waving goodbye to him while their parents see no one.

One last identifiable individual said to be haunting the site is none other than David Crockett himself. Crockett fought and died at the Alamo, either killed during the battle or slaughtered afterwards by some of Santa Anna’s officers. His ghost is most often described as wearing a full set of buckskins and his famous coonskin cap. He has been seen all over the compound, but most frequently he is seen guarding the old mission chapel.

The story of the Alamo -- and all of the history and hauntings of the Texas Revolution – is included in the book A PALE HORSE WAS DEATH by Troy Taylor and Rene Kruse. The book is available in a print edition from the website or as a Kindle and Nook edition.

When the Stars Fall From the Sky

2013-03-05T10:43:00.002-06:00

WHEN THE STARS FALL FROM THE SKY

The Life and Death of Legendary Patsy Cline

On this date, March 5, 1963, the world lost a woman with perhaps the greatest voice in the history of recorded music when Patsy Cline died at the height of her career in a private plane crash. As part of the early 1960s Nashville sound, Patsy successfully “crossed over” to pop music, making her one of the most influential, successful and acclaimed female vocalists of the twentieth century. Patsy was known for her rich tone and emotionally expressive voice that “could make grown men weep.” Along with Kitty Wells, she helped pave the way for women as headline performers in the country music world and without a doubt, inspired legions of performers who followed in her wake. Her death was a terrible loss to the entire music industry, but millions of records have sold since her death and she continues to be a best-selling artist, fifty years after she died.

Patsy Cline, one of the greatest musical voices of all time.

Patsy Cline was born Virginia Patterson Hensley in Winchester, Virginia in 1932. Her mother was a 16-year-old seamstress and her father was a 43-year-old blacksmith. The family moved often and Patsy always admitted that she grew up “on the wrong side of the tracks.” Her father deserted the family in 1947, but the children (she had a brother and a sister, Samuel and Sylvia) had a happy life.

Patsy got her start singing in church and had a love for musicians like Kay Starr, Jo Stafford, Hank Williams, Judy Garland and Shirley Temple. She had perfect pitch but was self-taught and couldn’t read music. When she was 13, Patsy was hospitalized with a throat infection and rheumatic fever. Her throat was affected for the better and from that point on, she had a booming voice “like Kate Smith,” she said.

After her father abandoned his family, Patsy dropped out of high school to work. She performed various jobs, from soda jerk to waitress, but spent much of her free time watching performers through the window at the local radio station, WINC-AM. She eventually got up the nerve to ask if she could perform. She first number was such a success that she was asked back and this led to performances at local nightclubs, wearing fringed Western outfits that her mother made from Patsy’s designs. She appeared in variety and talent shows around the region and with more radio shows, she developed a large following. In 1954 Jimmy Dean, a young country star in his own right, learned of her and she became a regular with Dean on Connie B. Gay's Town and Country Jamboree radio show, which aired on weekday afternoons live on WARL-AM in Arlington, Virginia

In September 1953, she married a contractor named Gerald Cline, but they divorced four years later. It was a stormy marriage. Cline wanted her to be a housewife and Patsy wanted to sing. It was destined to fail and it did, producing no children.

Bill Peer, her second manager, gave her the name Patsy, from her middle name and her mother's maiden name, Patterson. In 1955, he got her a contract at Four Star Records, the label with which he was then affiliated. Four Star was under contract to the Coral subsidiary of Decca Records. Patsy signed with Decca at her first opportunity three years later.

Her first contract allowed her to record compositions only by Four Star writers, which Patsy found limiting. Later, she expressed regret over signing with the label, but thinking that nobody else would have her, she took the deal. Her first record for Four Star was "A Church, A Courtroom & Then Good-Bye", which attracted little attention, although it led to appearances on the Grand Ole Opry, where she could sing whatever she wanted.

Between 1955 and 1957, Patsy recorded honky-tonk material, with songs like "Fingerprints", "Pick Me Up On Your Way Down", "Don't Ever Leave Me Again", and "A Stranger In My Arms". She co-wrote the latter two. She also experimented with rockabilly, but nothing she did gained any notable success. According to Decca Records producer Owen Bradley, the Four Star compositions only hinted at Patsy's potential. Bradley thought that her voice was best-suited for pop music, but Patsy only wanted to perform country music. Every time Bradley tried to get her to sing the torch songs that would become her signature, she would panic, missing her familiar banjo and steel guitar. She recorded 51 songs with Four Star.

On July 1, 1955 Cline made her network television debut on the short-lived television version of the Grand Ole Opry on ABC-TV. This was followed by an appearance on the network's Ozark Jubilee later that month. Later that year, while looking for material for her first album, a song called "Walkin' After Midnight" appeared, written by Donn Hecht and Alan Block. Patsy initially did not like the song because it was, according to her, "just a little old pop song." However, the song's writers and record label insisted that she record it.

In the late fall of 1956, she auditioned for Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts in New York City, and was accepted to sing on the CBS-TV show on January 21, 1957. Patsy was initially supposed to sing "A Poor Man's Roses (Or a Rich Man's Gold)", but the show's producers insisted she sing "Walkin' After Midnight" instead. Though heralded as a country song, recorded in Nashville, Godfrey's staff insisted that Cline appear in a cocktail dress rather than in one of her mother's hand-crafted cowgirl outfits. The audience’s enthusiastic reaction (talent was measured on an “applause meter”) won her the competition. After the Godfrey show, listeners began calling their local radio stations to request the song, so she released it as a single. Although Patsy had been performing for almost a decade and had appeared on national TV three times, it took the Godfrey show to make her a star. For a couple of months thereafter, Patsy appeared regularly on Godfrey's radio program. Disagreements over creative control caused her to move on.

"Walkin' After Midnight" reached No. 2 on the country chart and No. 12 on the pop chart, making Patsy one of the first country singers to have a crossover pop hit. The single drove her success for the next year or so. She stayed visible by making personal appearances and performing regularly on Godfrey’s show, as well as performing for several years on Ozark Jubilee (later Jubilee USA). She had no other hits with Four Star.

A month after her recording session, she met Charlie Dick, a good-looking ladies’ man who frequented the local club circuit Patsy played on weekends. His charisma and admiration of Patsy's talents captured her attention, and their relationship resulted in a marriage that lasted until her death. Though their love affair was publicized as controversial, Patsy regarded Dick as "the love of her life". After the birth of their daughter, Julie, in 1958, they moved to Nashville, Tennessee. They also had a second child, a son named Randy.

In 1959, Patsy met Randy Hughes, a session guitarist and promotion man. Hughes became her manager and helped her change labels. When her Four Star contract expired in 1960, she signed with Decca Records-Nashville, directly under the direction of legendary female-singer country music producer Owen Bradley. He was responsible for much of Patsy's success and positively influenced the careers of both Brenda Lee and Loretta Lynn. Even though she was still scared of the lush Nashville Sound arrangements, Bradley considered Patsy's voice best-suited for country pop-crossover songs. Bradley's direction and arrangements helped smooth her voice into the silky, torch song style for which she won fame.

Patsy's first release for Decca was the country pop ballad "I Fall to Pieces" (1961), written by Hank Cochran and Harlan Howard. The song was promoted and won success on both country and pop music stations. On the country charts, the song slowly climbed to the top, garnering her first Number One ranking. In a major feat for country singers at the time, the song hit No. 12 on the pop and No. 6 on the adult contemporary charts, making her a household name and demonstrating that women could achieve as much crossover success as men.

In 1960, Patsy realized a lifelong dream when the Grand Ole Opry accepted her request to join the cast, making her the only person to achieve membership in such a fashion. She became one of the Opry's biggest stars. Even before that time, Patsy, confident of her abilities and appeal, embraced, encouraged and befriended many women starting out in the country music field, including Loretta Lynn, Dottie West, Jan Howard, sixteen-year-old Brenda Lee and a thirteen-year-old steel-guitar player named Barbara Mandrell with whom Patsy once toured, all of whom later cited her as a major influence. According to both Lynn and West, Patsy always gave herself to friends, buying them groceries and furniture and even hiring them as wardrobe assistants. On occasion, she paid their rent, enabling them to stay in Nashville and continue pursuing their dreams. Honky-tonk pianist and Opry star Del Wood said, "Even when she didn't have it, she'd spend it—and not always on herself. She'd give anyone the skirt off her backside if they needed it."

But Patsy wasn’t only accepted by the women. She cultivated a brash and gruff exterior that allowed her to be considered "one of the boys". This allowed her to befriend male artists like Roger Miller, Hank Cochran, Faron Young, Ferlin Husky, Harlan Howard and Carl Perkins all of whom she socialized with at famed Nashville establishment Tootsie's Orchid Lounge, next door to the Opry.

Patsy used the term of endearment "Hoss" to refer to her friends, both male as well as female, and referred to herself as "The Cline". Patsy met Elvis Presley in 1962 at a fundraiser for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and they exchanged phone numbers. Having seen him perform during a rare Grand Ole Opry appearance, she admired his music, called him The Big Hoss, and often recorded with his backup group, The Jordanaires.

By this time, Patsy controlled her own career. In a time when concert promoters often cheated stars by promising to pay them after the show but skipping out with the money before the concert ended, Cline demanded her money before she took the stage by proclaiming: "No dough, no show", a practice that became the rule.

On June 14, 1961 Patsy and her brother Sam were involved in a head-on collision on Old Hickory Boulevard in Nashville, the second and more serious of two crashes during her lifetime. The impact threw Patsy into the windshield, nearly killing her. Upon arriving at the scene, Dottie West picked glass from Patsy's hair, and went with her in the ambulance. When help arrived, Patsy insisted that the other car's driver be treated first, an event which had a long-term detrimental effect on Dottie. When in 1991, West was fatally injured in a car accident, she too insisted that her driver be treated first, possibly causing her own death. Patsy later stated that she saw the female driver of the other car die before her eyes.

Patsy spent a month in the hospital, suffering from a jagged cut across her forehead that required stitches, a broken wrist and a dislocated hip. When she left the hospital, her forehead was visibly scarred. For the remainder of her career, she wore wigs and makeup to hide the scars, along with headbands to relieve the forehead pressure that caused headaches if left unattended. Six weeks later, she returned to the road on crutches.

After the car accident in 1961, Patsy wore wigs with bangs to hide the scars on her forehead.

Unable to capitalize upon the success of "I Fall to Pieces" due to her hospital stay, Patsy sought another recording to re-establish herself. When introduced to "Crazy", a song written by Willie Nelson, Patsy hated it at first and the first recording session was unsuccessful. Patsy claimed that the song was too difficult for her; not only because of the odd style in which Nelson wrote it, but also because her ribs, injured in the crash, made it difficult for her to reach the high notes. It was eventually decided that Patsy would overdub her vocals over the best instrumental recording of the track. This came a week later when the singer's ribs had further healed. Upon returning to the studio, Cline could reach the high notes and recorded her part in a single take. Now considered a classic, "Crazy" ultimately became Patsy's signature song. By late 1961, "Crazy" was a crossover success, straddling the country and pop genres, and reached the Top 10 on the charts. It became Patsy's biggest pop hit.

Patsy’s influence on the music world continued. She was so respected by men in the industry that rather than being introduced to audiences as "Pretty Miss Patsy Cline" as her female contemporaries often were, she was given a more stately introduction such as that given by Johnny Cash on their 1962 tour: "Ladies and Gentlemen, The One and Only – Patsy Cline." As an artist, she held her fan base in extremely high regard, many of whom became friends, staying for hours after concerts to chat and sign autographs.

Patsy was the first woman in country music to perform at New York's Carnegie Hall, sharing the bill with fellow Opry members. She headlined the famous Hollywood Bowl with Cash. Later in 1962, she became the first woman in country music to headline her own show in Las Vegas at the Mint Casino.

This success enabled Patsy to buy her dream home in the Goodlettsville suburb of Nashville, decorating it in her own style. It featured gold dust sprinkled in the bathroom tiles and a music room with the finest sound equipment. Patsy called it "the house that Vegas built" since the money from the Mint covered its cost. After her death in 1963, Cline's home was sold to singer Wilma Burgess who later reported that “strange occurrences” took place while she was living there. She believed that she shared the house with Patsy’s ghost.

With this new demand for Patsy came higher earnings. Reportedly she was paid at least $1,000 for appearances towards the end of her life—a then an unheard-of sum for country music women, whose average fee was less than $200. During her five-and-a-half year career, Patsy received a dozen awards for her achievements, and three more following her death from the Music Reporter, Billboard Awards and Cashbox.

In the fall of 1961, Patsy was back in the studio again to record songs for an upcoming album released in early 1962. One of the first songs was "She's Got You", written by Hank Cochran. Cochran pitched the song over the phone to Patsy and she fell in love with it at first listen. It became one of the few songs that she enjoyed recording. The song was released as a single in January 1962, and soon crossed over, becoming a hit on all of the charts. In late 1962, Patsy appeared on Dick Clark's American Bandstand and released her third album, Sentimentally Yours in August of that year.

A month before her death, Patsy was back in the studio to record her fourth album, originally entitled Faded Love. Recording a mix of country standards and such vintage pop classics as Irving Berlin's "Always" and "Does Your Heart Beat for Me", these sessions proved to be the most contemporary-sounding of her career. Patsy got so involved with the stories in the songs' lyrics, she reportedly cried through most of her final sessions.

At the playback party, according to singer Jan Howard, Patsy held up a copy of her first record and a copy of her newest tracks and stated, "Well, here it is...the first and the last."

Friends Dottie West, June Carter Cash, and Loretta Lynn recalled Cline telling them during 1962–1963 that she felt a sense of impending doom and did not expect to live much longer. Patsy, already known for her generosity, had begun giving away personal items to friends, writing her will on Delta Air Lines stationery and asking close friends to care for her children should anything happen to her. She told Jordanaires back-up singer Ray Walker as she exited the Grand Ole Opry the week before her death: "Honey, I've had two bad ones (accidents). The third one will either be a charm or it'll kill me."

On March 3, 1963 Patsy performed at a benefit at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall, Kansas City, Kansas for the family of disc jockey "Cactus" Jack Call. He had died in an automobile crash a little over a month earlier. Also performing on the show were George Jones, George Riddle and The Jones Boys, Billy Walker, Dottie West, Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper, George McCormick, the Clinch Mountain Boys as well as Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins.

Reports vary as to whether Patsy, ill with the flu, gave two or three performances. Regardless, she was miserable. She had spent the night at the Town House Motor Hotel and was unable to fly out the day after the concert because Fairfax Airport was fogged in. West asked Patsy to ride in the car with her and husband, Bill, back to Nashville (approximately a 16 hour drive), but Patsy refused, feeling too sick to be cooped up in the car for so long.

On March 5, she called her mother from the motel and checked out at 12:30 p.m. to go the short distance to the airport to board the Piper Comanche. The plane stopped once in Missouri to refuel and subsequently landed at Dyersburg Municipal Airport in Dyersburg, Tennessee at 5:00 p.m.

Pilot Randy Hughes was an experienced flyer, but was not trained in instrument flying. Hawkshaw Hawkins had accepted Billy Walker's seat after Walker left on a commercial flight to take care of a stricken family member. Patsy was joined on the flight by a second fellow performer, Cowboy Copas. The Dyersburg, Tennessee airfield manager suggested that they stay the night after advising of high winds and inclement weather, and even offered them free rooms and meals, but Hughes responded that he was confident about the short flight ahead of them. The plane took off at 6:07 p.m.

Approximately 13 minutes later, the plane crashed in inclement weather. Patsy’s recovered wristwatch had stopped at 6:20 p.m. The plane wreckage was located approximately 90 miles from its Nashville destination in a forest outside Camden, Tennessee. Forensic examinations concluded that everyone aboard had been killed instantaneously from their injuries and did not suffer.

The location of the plane was unknown throughout the night. Until the wreckage was discovered the following dawn and reported on the radio, friends and family had not given up hope. The lights at the destination Cornelia Fort Airpark were kept on throughout the night as reports of the missing plane were broadcast on radio and TV.

Early the following morning, Roger Miller and his friend went searching for survivors: "As fast as I could, I ran through the woods screaming their names—through the brush and the trees, and I came up over this little rise, oh, my God, there they were. It was ghastly. The plane had crashed nose down.” Shortly after the bodies were removed, looters scavenged the area. Some of the items which were recovered were eventually donated to The Country Music Hall of Fame. Included in those donations were Patsy's wrist watch, Confederate flag cigarette lighter, studded belt and three pairs of gold slippers.

The remains of the plane crash that took the lives of Patsy and the other music stars.

As per her wishes, Patsy was brought home for her memorial service, which thousands attended. She was buried at Shenandoah Memorial Park in her hometown of Winchester, Virginia. Her grave is marked with a bronze plaque, which reads: "Virginia H (Patsy) Cline 'Death Cannot Kill What Never Dies: Love'". With the help of Lynn and West, a bell tower was erected at the cemetery in her memory, which plays hymns daily at 6:00 p.m., the hour of her death. Another memorial marks the exact place off Fire Tower Road in Fatty Bottom, Tennessee, where the plane crashed in the still-remote forest outside of Camden.

If you ever get the chance to visit either site, shed a tear while you’re there for a life loss too soon and a talent that fell from the heavens. RIP Patsy Cline.