Imagine a crowded Christmas Eve party inside a large social hall at the heart of the Upper Peninsula's Copper Country. Most of the guests are union miners' families, glad for some holiday cheer because they're five months into a labor strike.
Someone falsely yells “Fire!” and hundreds of people on the second floor panic, causing a stampede down a steep stairwell as they all try to get outside. Seventy-three people died on the stairs, 59 of them children. The youngest was just 2. There was never any fire.
It was the largest mining-related disaster to occur in Michigan. The fact that it happened above ground - and that most of its victims were children enjoying a Christmas party - made it even more heartbreaking
Sources:
The Calumet Tragedy. American Heritage. Michael F. Wendland. April/May 1986. Vol. 37 Iss. 3 https://www.americanheritage.com/calumet-tragedy
1913 Massacre film 2013
Amazon Prime
https://www.wiu.edu/cas/history/wihr/pdfs/Seems%20Like%20Yesterday%20HiltunenVOLVI.pdf
Seems Like Yesterday: Community Memory and the Michigan Copper Strike, 1913-2013 - Lindsay Hiltunen -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calumet,_Michigan#
https://www.liquisearch.com/calumet_michigan/history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_Country_strike_of_1913%E2%80%931914
Brandi's True Crime Paradise.com
