195: A Christmas Massacre. Keweenaw National Historical Park.

National Park After Dark

Audioboom Studios

True Crime, Places & Travel, Wilderness, Society & Culture, Sports

4.8 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 25 December 2023

⏱️ 82 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Copper Mining Strike of 1913 became one of the most violent in United States History. When strikers throw a Christmas Eve Party for their families and children, 73 people end up dead when someone falsely yells, "fire!"

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Take a trip with me in 1913 to call you met Michigan in Copper Country.
0:06.0	I will take you to a place called Italian Hall where the miners are having their big Christmas
0:11.0	ball. I will take you in a door and up a high stairs.
0:15.0	Singing and dancing is heard everywhere. I will let you shake hands with the people you see
0:20.6	and watch the kids dance around the big Christmas tree.
0:24.0	You ask about work and you ask about pay,
0:26.0	they'll tell you they make less than a dollar a day.
0:29.0	Working the copper claims, risking their lives,
0:32.0	so it's fun to spend Christmas with
0:34.3	children and wives. There's talking and laughing and songs in the air and the
0:39.3	spirit of Christmas is there everywhere. Before you know it you're friends with us all and you're
0:44.9	dancing around and around in the hall. Well a little shy girl sits down by the
0:50.3	Christmas tree lights to play the piano so you gotta keep quiet.
0:55.1	To hear all this fun you would not realize that the copper bosses thug men are milling outside.
1:02.0	The copper bosses thugs stuck their heads in the door. One of them yelled and he screamed,
1:07.0	There's a fire. A lady, she hollered, there's no such thing. Keep on with your party. There's no such thing. Keep on with your party. There's no such thing.
1:14.0	A few people rushed and it was only a few.
1:17.0	It's just the Thugs and the Scabs fooling you.
1:20.0	A man grabbed his daughter and carried her down, but the Thugs held the door and he could not get out.
1:26.0	And then others followed a hundred or more, but most everyone remained on the floor.
1:31.0	The gun Thugs they laughed at their murderous joke while the
1:34.4	children were smothered on stairs by the door. Such a terrible sight I never did see.
	...

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