CALUMET, Mich. – From the Battle of the Overpass to the $5-a-day salary in the early 1900s, Michigan has always played an important role in American politics and the labor movement.
And, in this case, public safety.
Yelling “fire” in a crowded theater is commonly used as an analogy for speech that intentionally causes panic and might be outside the scope of free speech. It was even used in the title of a 2009 documentary by Liz Garbus about the First Amendment, “Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech.”
Constitutional law scholar Carlton F.W. Larson wrote that the idea is so widespread that someone who shouts “fire” is seen as a stock character representing a villain in popular culture.
In the early 1900s, two tragic and deadly events brought this concept to public consciousness.
The first was the Canonsburg Opera House disaster in 1911, in which a projector malfunction resulted in a spark of bright light, causing a patron to mistakenly shout “fire.” A crowd of panicked theatergoers rushed to the exit, where more than two dozen people were crushed to death. It’s part of the reason why exit doors are now required to swing outward.
The second event took place a little more than a year later in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. This time, however, the false alarm was made maliciously.
The Italian Hall disaster, aka the 1913 Massacre
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Upper Peninsula was the world’s largest producer of copper. The largest copper mining company in the area was the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company.
The Western Federation of Miners claimed to have 9,000 members among the 15,000 people working in the mines. When its membership voted in favor of demanding union recognition and asking for negotiations, management refused the request. What followed was one of the longest and most violent strikes in Copper Country.
The strike began on July 23, 1913. Within a month, two striking mine workers were killed by strikebreakers. Three security guards were found guilty of manslaughter.
After several months of violent confrontations, a large Christmas party was hosted by the Western Federation of Miners’s Ladies Auxilary hoping to increase morale for the strikers and their families. Taking place at Calumet’s Italian Hall, nearly 200 adults and 500 children partied, sang carols and gave speeches.
At one point, an unknown man entered the ballroom and shouted “fire,” causing a panic. Roughly 600 people rushed to the stairwell in an effort to escape. In the stampede, 73 people were killed, including at least 60 children.
The unknown person has never been identified, but it is theorized they were working for the mine owners and aimed to disrupt the party.
Several investigations were opened, however, information was limited since most people interviewed were forced to answer in English, and most of them did not speak English. At least 90% of Calumet residents at the time were born in Europe and were not native English speakers.
The coroner’s report ultimately did not provide a cause of death.
A fictionalized version of the event was memorialized by American folk artist Woody Guthrie, who very firmly puts the blame on the mine owners and strikebreakers.
The mine owners eventually caved to two of the union’s three demands: an eight-hour workday and a $3-a-day wage increase. The strike ended in April 1914.
In 1984, the Italian Hall was demolished. Its archway was relocated to a nearby park, where the tragedy is honored with a Michigan Historic Site plaque and a memorial listing the names of the identified victims. The site is maintained by the Keweenaw National Historical Park unit of the U.S. National Park Sevice.
“The building that stood on this site was called the Italian Hall, and was home to the Societa Mutua Beneficenza Italiana, which aided immigrants and others in need.
Built in 1908, the hall housed a saloon and an Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company store on the first floor. A main hall with a dining room, a barroom, and a stage were on the second floor.
The hall was the site of one of Michigan’s worst tragedies. On Christmas Eve 1913, seventy-three people died due to false alarm of ‘Fire!’
When the building was razed in 1984, the archway from its main entrance was saved. In 1989, the Village of Calumet, with the help of Operating Engineers Local 324 and the Friends of Italian Hall, created this park dedicated to those who died in 1913.”
Michigan Historic Site plaque
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