Gangsters Up North Mobsters, Mafia, and Racketeers in Michigan’s Vacationlands Robert Knapp Cliophile Press ClaRe, MiChiGaN 2020 © 2020 by Robert Knapp. All rights reserved. No part of this docu- ment may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Robert Knapp. Cliophile Press Clare, Michigan [email protected] www.cliophilepress.com To all the fine historians Up North. Contents Preface ix 1: Gangster Presence Up North 1 2: Capone (Almost) Never Slept Here 9 3: Sault Ste. Marie’s Public Enemy #1: John Hamilton 37 4: More Public Enemies Up North 55 5: Purple Crude 71 6: Toledans at the Beach 81 7: Cleveland’s Syndicate Comes North 99 8: Mafiosi Up North 107 9: Gangster-friendly Retreats: Henry Ford’s Harry Bennett 117 10: Gamblers and Gambling 133 11: Gangsters on Vacation Up North 183 12: Moving Up North 205 13: Gangster Pastimes: bootlegging, bank robbery, kidnapping, murder 221 Afterword 243 Appendix 244 Acknowledgments 247 Bibliography 250 Image Credits 255 Notes 259 Index 300 v Gangsters Up North Real & Imagined Locations vii Preface p North” Michigan has a charm all its own. Generations have enjoyed relaxing, fishing, hunting, and a wide range of other “Udelights over the last hundred and forty years. Gangsters just joined the millions of others who came north. Sometimes they, too, simply sought rest and relaxation at a cabin, a gangster-friendly retreat, or a resort hotel. Other times, they saw opportunities for furthering their own in- terests in gambling, bootlegging, and even kidnapping, bank robbery, and murder. In the normal course of events, hoodlums did not adver- tise their presence, preferring to maintain a low profile as they recre- ated or as they invested in enterprises that sprang up in corners of Up North where rich men and their families spent summers. Ferreting out their activities is a challenging and rewarding project. While here and there others have written about what these gangsters were doing, put- ting together the whole picture gives a clear idea of how extensive their presence was Up North. Along the way, colorful stories abound—some true, some not—about these outlaws. At each stage of my investigations, I had to assess the rumors and stories told about gangsters. Why are there so many tales to follow up on, to check out? What is fact, what fiction? What creates the crazy- quilt of gangster accounts Up North? The most obvious origin of such stories lies in a desire to capital- ize on the gangster motif. Businesses often seek a link to some famous person or event in order to attract patrons. For example, a resort near Rose City (Ogemaw County) created an intricate web of fictional mob involvement with the place, even including a report that Al Capone vis- ited. Another venue melded half-true advertising copy with completely ix Gangsters Up North uncorroborated details of a gang us- ing the place as a hideout. A golf course created on land once owned by gangsters constructed from a kernel of truth a whole narrative of unlikely or impossible gangster details. A hotel built interest around supposed gangster patrons of yore, including, once again, Al Capone, and purveyed stories of long tunnels this way and that to provide escape routes for the fictional gangsters in case of a raid. A final ex- ample involves the famous Grace- land Ballroom, which may well have seen a gangster or two in its heyday. Here, a subsequent owner embellished unabashedly, even to putting a gangster manikin with a submachine gun on a balcony. A similar process—exaggerating for effect—happened when a local person decided to add to whatever historical basis existed in order to impress visitors to a place. Harry Bennett’s Lost Lake retreat in Clare County became a Boy Scout camp in its later life. A scout leader at the camp apparently relished making up stories about gangster-like activi- ties and structures—tunnels, machine gun outposts, spikes in a moat— all sorts of imaginary things. These stories then made their way into newspaper articles and became historically true facts for most people. What to make of the local eye-witnesses who told stories? At a most basic level, such stories as they were told and retold within families or communities tended to accrete details. But, how did they start in the first place? In some cases, gangsters were present, and that presence cre- ated an environment for embellishment. Underworld figures certainly lived or vacationed at places like Tawas City, Clare, the Petoskey/Harbor Springs area, and Topinabee on Mullet Lake. Locals aware of this added imaginary details to agree with stereotypical gangster-related x Preface doings and infrastructure. Therefore, almost everywhere supposed eye- witnesses swore to escape tunnels, secret rooms, machine gun nests, se- cluded hideouts, bootlegging adventures, covertly buried dead enemies, bullet-ridden cars at the bottom of lakes, and so on. Newspaper accounts of gangster doings provided another active in- ducement to the imagination. Newsmen often had nothing more to report than whatever rumor came to their attention. People often re- ported a gangster completely removed from where the gangster was at the time. Published photographs encouraged reports of look-alikes, reports that sometimes actually led to the false arrests of innocent dop- pelgangers. The report of John Dillinger in Sault Ste. Marie and Clare and the multiple reports on Fred “Killer” Burke exemplify this wide- spread phenomenon. A false sighting then led to accompanying stories that were repeated to friends and relatives down to the present day. In other cases, a stereotypical appearance led to a false identifi- cation of a person or automobile as “gangster.” Fancy cars, especially black ones—Cadillacs, Buicks, and so on—were enough to start ru- mors. A group of men from outside the local area inspired identifica- tions as gangsters. In a paradigmatic instance, a small businessman from Ohio decided to build a cabin in the backwoods near Harrison (Clare County). In the late 1940s, he bought supplies to build his getaway and brought them north in trucks driven by some of his Ohio employees. Locals quickly identified him and his crew as Mafia—the business- man’s Cadillac and entourage seemed the giveaway. Locals reported an escape tunnel from the house to under a nearby pond. The actual pump house became a prison for enemy gangsters. These tales spread to Har- rison and rumor quickly became fact. To this day, locals tell of an erst- while Mafia hideout near town. Physical remains also inspired stories. In a recent instance, a person breathlessly identified a mysterious chamber in a hillside as a gangster hiding hole. What is patently an ice cellar dug into a hill, something very common on a farm back in the day, has become a gangster artifact. In another instance a wine cellar in a large home was identified as a gangster jail where enemies could be held before execution. In yet an- other, a water tower and a fenced entrance were enough to breed stories xi Gangsters Up North of a machine gun emplacement situated to spray any invaders who tried to enter by the locked gate—all to protect Al Capone, of course. Faulty memories could also add to the confusion of tales. With no dishonest intention at all, recollections could blur, and rumors heard in by-gone days could turn into absolutely statements of truth. Whole stories welled up from fragmentary recollections or vague rumors of gangsters and their activities. To say that a person’s story of a gangster’s presence was a fiction is not to say that the person was lying. A person could firmly believe in an event or experience reconstructed from scat- tered memories. But the reconstruction would still be wrong. A more nefarious origin comes from using false gangster accusa- tions to attack a resident. In Iron River a man named E. C. Bradley, a road contractor who was active in local politics, engineered the removal of the local superintendent of schools. This angered some of his fel- low citizens. In an attempt to intimidate Bradley, a local “person of unbalanced mind” wrote threatening letters and signed them “Harry Fleisher,” a particularly notorious Purple Gangster of the time.1 Such attacks, whether they were successful, would lead to stories about the presence of gangsters. Finally, I believe it is possible that sometimes people from down- state came north and enjoyed a “gangster” self-presentation. The violent reputation of gangsters was a fundamental part of the whole persona. A fellow—it would almost certainly always be a young male—could put on a swagger, insinuate gangster connections, and excite the locals—es- pecially, perhaps, the local young ladies. I believe that many testimonies to gangsters at the Graceland Ballroom near Lupton may have their origin in this scenario. Sorting out the facts from the stories is the intriguing, but daunt- ing, challenge. Gangsters Up North brings together the real activities of mobsters, racketeers, and mafiosi in Michigan’s northlands. At the same time, it lays bare many misunderstandings, exaggerations, and outright fabrications that here, as elsewhere, accompany gangsters’ lives. A co- herent picture of the real and the imagined brings to life little-known aspects of Michigan’s fascinating history. xii •CHAPTER 1• Gangster Presence Up North Al Capone hid out in Sault Ste. Marie! John Dillinger passed through Clare as he fled from the law! Purple Gangsters danced until dawn at the Graceland Ballroom! “Up North” andy beaches, sylvan lakes, meandering streams, quiet forests.