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

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