The Calumet Christmas Catastrophe

 Panic at the Italian Hall

This episode comes from the request of a listener in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan who wanted to know more about the panic disaster that took place at the Calumet Italian Hall in 1913. 
We just took nice camping trip to the Keneewah Peninsula, Michigan's upper Upper Peninsula. You'd be hard pressed to find a more beautiful place in the world. The weather was sublime and Lake Superior is one of my favorite bodies of water--crystal clear, unsalted and shark-free. My girlfriend wants to move up there, at least for the summers, and I'm not opposed.
While we were there, we took the time to stop at Calumet and visited the memorial to the the Italian Hall. I'm usually a pretty cynical person, but I was truly moved to tears thinking about how horrible a person it took to instigate this tragedy, especially when most of the victims were little children. I took some pictures of the memorial and that evening, dug Episode 67 out of the vault, made a few edits, enhanced some of the audio, and while listening to it, found myself with the sniffles all over again. 
It’s a sad story, folks, but I think it’s an important one to remember because it’s all about what happens when we lose our civility. 
Theme music by Dave Sams Some incidental music via musopen.org Creative Commons license