Brave New World of Betty Boop

Classic Betty Boop Sketch

Betty Boop was a music novelty character who was a sex symbol during the Great Depression. She was a caricature of Roaring Twenties flappers--young women who smoked cigarettes, drank alcohol, drove cars, and danced the Charleston in speakeasies. Betty Boop became known as the "Boop-Oop-a-Doop girl." Her personality can best be described as moxie.

Max Fleischer with his creation.

Betty was a creation of Max Fleischer Studios targeted for an adult movie audience during the 1930s. She wore short dresses, high heels, garters, and contoured necklines. Betty's "innocent sexuality" was a mixture of girlish naivete and vampish allure which some people would define as infantilizing women.

In 1932, jazz singer Cab Calloway performed in the famous film short "Minnie the Moocher" singing that evocation song while the video blended into a Betty Boop animation which defined her character and made her a star. This musical short was one of the original music videos and the song became Calloway's signature theme song for subsequent stage appearances.

As Betty's popularity progressed, many of her early cartoons found her fighting off predatory men trying to compromise her virtue, making some modern American women view Betty as a feminist icon against sexual harassment. By 1934, the Hayes Production Code forced animators to tame the Boop character by making her a ambitious career girl trying to make it in the big city. She began wearing appropriate business attire and less jewelry. The newer cartoons lost their edge and their popularity--the last of the original cartoons was made in 1939. The Betty Boop series gained a new audience when her cartoons were released for television making Betty an American cartoon superstar.

Helen Kane

Betty's "baby doll" voice was similar to the voice characterization of actress Helen Kane whose musical comedy stage career had faded by 1931. Kane brought a $250,000 infringement lawsuit in 1934 against Paramount Pictures for "deliberate caricature exploiting her personality and image."

Esther Jones

During the trial, it was discovered that African American cabaret performer Baby Esther (Esther Jones) used a similar vocal style in her Harlem Cotton Club act. Even the scat "Boop-Oop-A-Doop" was created by Jones as a vocal jazz improvisation. An early jazz novelty short film was found featuring Baby Esther performing her "baby doll" style. The New York Supreme Court ruled that the "baby doll" technique did not originate with Kane. 

Six different actresses portrayed the voice of Betty Boop. Two of them--Margie Hines and Mae Quistal were also the voice of Olive Oyl in the Popeye cartoons of the same era. 

Although the series ended in 1939, Betty's character appeared in two television specials in the 1980s, and she made a cameo appearance in the feature movie Who Shot Roger Rabbit? in 1988. Her image is still popular worldwide and has become a merchandising goldmine for King Features Syndicate.

Link to "Minnie the Moocher"

The Long-Awaited Ambassador Bridge Connects Detroit with Windsor

Ambassador Bridge Announcement--Detroit Free Press

When the automobile business took off early in the twentieth century, the need for an international bridge connecting Detroit with Windsor to expand the auto industry and increase international commerce became apparent, but securing government funding for the bridge project was a hard sell fraught with political red tape and delay. The highest-profile person supporting the bridge project was automobile magnate Henry Ford. "The only way to get things done today is by private business," Ford said.

A team of Detroit business leaders incorporated the Detroit Bridge Company and sought out a former Detroiter, successful New York City banker Joseph A. Bower. Bower sold securities to finance the project and was able to raise $23.5 million in privately financed funds, including his own investment.

The project details were presented to the Detroit Common Council and approved unanimously. But one dissenting voice vetoed the project, Mayor John W. Smith. In additional to several ambiguities in the project's prospectus, including revenue for the city of Detroit, Smith was rightly concerned that the bridge deck would only be 135' above the Detroit River.

Mayor Smith, mindful of the future, realized that 135' would limit future navigation of larger freighters. The project engineers went back to the drafting table and re-engineered the bridge to be 152' above the water.

Recognizing the long-term value of the bridge and the threat any further delays might pose to the overall project and his substantial investment, Bower assumed the $50,000 cost of a referendum in a special election supporting bridge construction. The referendum passed by an eight to one margin on June 28, 1927. The next month, McClintic-Marshall engineering firm was awarded the bridge contact which ran from August 16, 1927 until August 16, 1930.

The penalty for late completion would require the firm to pay the interest on the securities until the bridge could generate revenue. If they finished construction early, they would be entitled to half of the bridge's revenue until the official end of the original contract. The newly christened Ambassador Bridge opened six months ahead of schedule despite having to change out the original suspension cables which were found to become brittle in freezing weather. They were quickly replaced with cables spun with stronger cold-roll steel. Still, the bridge cost came in 1% under the original budget allocation.

When finished, the Ambassador Bridge was 1.5 miles long, requiring 21,000 tons of steel. The clearance from the Detroit River was 152' but the bridge's roadway never rises above a gentle 5% grade. The four-lane roadbed (two coming and two going) was 47' wide with an 8' wide pedestrian sidewalk on the west side of the bridge. The bridge was anchored on the American side on West Jefferson and 21st Street. On the Canadian side, the anchorage touched down on London St and Huron Line Road in Sandwich, Ontario.

Opening day ceremonies coincided with Armistice Day (Veteran's Day) Monday, November 11, 1929. An estimated 100,000 from both sides of the Ambassador Bridge were on hand to cheer the ceremonial opening. With much pomp and circumstance, dignitaries from both countries held cermonies on their respective sides of the bridge. At 3:15 pm, Canadian bands played patriotic selections such as "God Save the King" and "Oh Canada," while at the same time, American bands on their side played tunes like "America" and "The National Anthem."

Following the musical programs, speeches were made by dignitaries on both sides of the bridge. Then, bronze "Friendship Tablets" designed by New York sculptor Jonathan M. Swanson were unveiled on the anchorages on both sides of the bridge. The plaques celebrated more than 115 years of friendship between the United States and Canada. The ceremony ended when dignitaries met at the exact international boundry. They shook hands and cut a white, silk ribbon. Then in concord, sirens and fog horns of river craft sounded continuous acclamation while many airplanes soared and circled above the bridge.

The bridge was originally scheduled to open in 1930 which is what the plaques reflect.

In what only can be described as a loosely controlled riot, joyous crowds on both ends of the bridge swarmed the deck. When the roadbed became so crowded that people could not move, some of the braver revellers climbed the construction catwalks on each side of the bridge to the top of the piers. It took well into the night before the bridge was cleared and secured again.

Photo from Windsor Star.

Four days later, the Ambassador Bridge opened for business. The opening was signaled by the passage of two cars filled with dignitaries from each country that left simultaneously from each side of the bridge. They honked in friendship as they passed at the center of the bridge and a signal cannon boomed to officially open the bridge to the toll-paying public. Cheers and applause broke out on both ends of the bridge.

The Ambassador Bridge was now officially open. An estimated 235,000 persons crossed the bridge the first day--35,000 of them were pedestrians. Traffic was backed up almost two miles on each bridge approach with people wanting to claim bragging rights that they had crossed on the first day.

On opening day, American customs officials reported that eleven quarts of whiskey were seized in three separate incidents. Prohibition was still in effect on the American side. At 8 pm, a man carrying four quarts, and at 9:15 pm, a woman carrying six quarts were detained by customs inspectors. Both people used the same excuse, they needed the whiskey to make holiday fruit cake." Just after 11 pm, a single quart was found tucked under the back seat of a car.

It was determined by customs agents that none of the instances was a commercial violation. The smuggled Canadian liquor was confiscated and the offenders were released after paying a $5 fine for each quart.

The Ambassador Bridge had the misfortune of opening just twenty-one days before the Great Depression struck. To compound the misery of the bridge's investors, the new Detroit-Windsor Tunnel opened downtown the following year charging lower automobile tolls. One factor remained in the bridge's favor though, the Detroit Bridge Company held a monopoly as the only Michigan international crossing for the commercial truck business.

When World War II broke out just over a decade later, American gas rationing dramatically cut automobile bridge traffic, but commercial truck traffic increased due to the war effort. In 1944, two years into the United States entry into the war, the Ambassador Bridge became profitable for the first time. Investors were paid 75 cents per share which began an unbroken stream of dividends every year since.

Gordie Howe International Bridge 

The Great Migration North to Detroit

In what was the largest internal migration of any group in American history, the Great Migration saw six million African Americans migrating from the South to the North drawn by improved economic opportunities and hopes of a better life. Black Americans were also escaping segregation and discriminatory "Jim Crow" laws in the South.

Another factor for the diaspora was the release of the movie Birth of a Nation in 1915 which portrayed the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) as a heroic force protecting the purity of white womanhood against sexually aggressive freed slaves after the Civil War. The D.W. Griffith film opened to nationwide protests and demonstrations.

"Birth of a Nation" still. The Black man was played by a white actor in blackface.

 

After a private screening, President Woodrow Wilson released a public statement calling the film "Unfortunate." With the film's general release, the South experienced a resurgence of KKK domestic terrorism driving more black Americans North. Most of the migrants were unskilled laborers and service industry workers--not rural farm workers.

From 1910 through 1929, Detroit experienced the fastest growing African American population in the United States--a 611% increase. During the same period, New York City had a 66% increase and Chicago had a 148% increase. Blacks settled primarily on Detroit's lower east side in minority isolated neighborhood called Black Bottom--originally named by the French for the dark, fertile soil found there. The area adjacent to Black Bottom became Paradise Valley--famous for its jazz clubs.

Black migrants found fierce competition for living space in Detroit's worst neighborhoods which became segregated slums. Living conditions in Paradise Valley and Black Bottom were bleak with the oldest wooden dwellings in the city--many dating back to the 1860s. Fire was a constant hazard. The buildings were owned by white absentee landlords and were poorly maintained. Old hotels and row houses were subdivided into small apartments and boarding houses to increase profits--many without plumbing facilities.

Thinking they had left "Jim Crow" laws enshrining segregation and racism behind, blacks found that in Detroit they were confined to "red lined" neighborhoods backed by real estate covenants preventing them from moving into Detroit's established white neighborhoods or suburbs. Blacks found that racial discrimination and white supremacy were entrenched in the North just as they were in the South.

But there was a significant distinction between the North and the South for blacks in this era. In the South, white people didn't mind living in proximity with blacks. The plantation culture depended upon it. But white people didn't want to work next to blacks. The North was the opposite. White people tolerated working with blacks, but they didn't want black people in their neighborhoods.

The assembly line

Early on, black women overwhelmingly worked in domestic service jobs. Eventually, clerk positions opened up in the retail industry for them. Black men worked in the service industry at hotels, restaurants, passenger trains, and public works. The jobs paid little, offered no fringe benefits, and provided no chance for advancement. Labor shortages during World War One opened up good jobs in shipyards, foundries, steel mills, auto factories, and meat packing. Unskilled black laborers took the most undesirable and dangerous jobs wherever they were employed.

Henry Ford

When Henry Ford announced the Five-Dollar Day in 1914, he also ramped up the hiring of blacks to fill vacancies in the Highland Park Plant. Employee turnover was a problem, and black workers were willing do jobs others would not. This set many black workers on the road to modernity. Beginning in the 1920s, Dodge and Packard began recruiting black workers too.

With improved economic conditions, a black inner city culture developed catering to the needs of African Americans. Churches, markets, bakeries, barber shops, hotels, beauty parlors, clinics, jazz clubs, and adult entertainment developed. But every white and black Detroiter knew where the color lines were and woe to him that crossed them.

The high cost for African Americans penetrating the color line in Detroit is exemplified by the Dr. Ossian Sweet affair in 1925. As a youth in Bartow, Florida, Ossian witnessed the lynching of a black man in 1911. The angry white mob strung up the man while he pleaded for his life. The vigilantes doused him with gasoline and set him on fire. The crowd cheered when the flames enveloped him. Traumatized, the Sweet family moved to Detroit as part of the Great Migration. 

Dr. Ossian Sweet and his wife Gladys

 

Ossian Sweet managed to secure an education and attend medical school at Wilberforce Academy in Ohio. Between semesters he worked in Detroit as a bellhop at several hotels--one summer he was a vendor at Bob-Lo Island Amusement Park. Dr. Sweet and his family were part of a new demographic--upwardly mobile, black Americans. As a young doctor at Dunbar Memorial Hospital, Sweet wanted to escape the confines and squalor of Detroit's minority-isolated inner city. Dr. Sweet bought a home on Detroit's east side in an all-white, working-class neighborhood.

When word spread of the purchase, whites viewed the incursion into their neighborhood as a violation of their "sacred" real estate covenant. The day the Sweet's moved in, a mob of "neighbors" assembled outside their home on September 8th, 1925 and cursed them with racial slurs. On the second day, the crowd grew to several hundred angry whites. Dr. Sweet and his family were joined by Sweet's two brothers and seven other friends--no doubt for a house warming get-together and a show of moral support. The hostile mob surrounded the house and started throwing rocks and bricks through the windows.

The sound of shattering glass terrorized the group and prompted Ossian's brother Henry to fire two shots at the mob--the first above their heads and the second into the crowd. Leon Breiner took a bullet and died. The Detroit police were conspicuous by their absence until the call went out that a white man had been shot by a black man. Everyone in the Sweet home was arrested, taken to jail, and tried for conspiracy to murder.

Clarence Darrow

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) retained the best lawyer in the land--Chicago civil liberties attorney Clarence Darrow. The first trial lasted four weeks and ended in a mistrial. The second trial focused only on Henry Sweet--the shooter. The prosecution pushed for a murder charge, but the defense insisted that a man's home was his castle, and he had every right to defend it. Henry Sweet was acquitted.

The Sweet trials were a referendum on race relations and segregation in Detroit ushering in a new era of political activism. But the graphic incident showed the risk of violating the city's red-lined neighborhoods. When it became clear to whites that black people were breaching their segregated neighborhoods, growing numbers of white Detroiters began to relocate to the expanding suburbs north, south, and west of the city in a demographic shift known as white flight.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The Great Migration slowed during the Depression but picked up again with the coming of World War Two. The Selective Service took many white and black males out of the work force to serve in the military. The war represented a turning point in black employment prospects. In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed executive order #8802 creating the Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) mandating nondiscrimination in defense industries and government jobs. Industrial work began to eclipse service employment for black men. By the end of the war, African Americans held 8% of defense jobs, up from 3% before the war. Despite the gains for black men, black women were still relegated to domestic work and low wages.

The United States Congress debated making the FEPC permanent, but Southern legislators cut off funding and shut down the program in 1946. It took another twenty years before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was established to address many of the same issues.

World War II helped transform Detroit's social geography. Several distinct black communities emerged based on income, occupation, and status within black Detroit. Many African Americans fortunate enough to flee the crowded city center left as soon as they could; the rest were left behind to bear the brunt of being trapped in the city's worst housing. Detroit's shifting racial borderlands became battlegrounds for the future of the city. This racial frontier put blacks on a collision course with their white counterparts.

"Detroit Lost Neighborhoods: Black Bottom and Paradise Valley"
https://fornology.blogspot.com/2016/01/detroits-lost-neighborhoods-black.html

When White Pine was Green Gold in Michigan

"Brag Load" of Logs and Ten Man Crew with a Team of Horses

The Michigan forest landscape was bountiful for early settlers. Rivers and lakes provided plenty of fish and wildlife while the forests and open glades provided game and fowl for hunters. Clearing the land was a slow process with timber cut with axes. The first order of business was throwing up some hasty shelter. Log cabins were built and railings cut for fences to pen livestock. What scrap wood was left became firewood. These small pioneer farms had minimal impact on the environment.

Rapid development of the American East in the first half of the nineteenth century depleted much of the lumber forests east of the Appalachians. By mid-century, New York lumber speculators discovered the vast virgin hardwood forests of Michigan's lower and upper peninsulas--especially the stands of old-growth white and red pine for building materials. Many of these trees were over 200 years old, 200 feet high, and over 5 feet in diameter.

With the invention of the steam-powered circular saw in the 1850s, the lumber business ramped up production. Fortunes were made by enterprising men who had vision and deep pockets. They bought large tracts of private and government land and were quickly dubbed Lumber Barons. They owned the saw mills and set up the system of lumber camps that made more than a few men rich. The "shanty boys" as the owners called the lumberjacks did the heavy lifting. After a harsh winter, they could walk out of the forest with several hundreds of dollars--big money in those days--only to be targets of robbery or worse. The lumber business attracted a tough crowd in and out of the forest like any boom town industry would.

The first great lumber area in the state was Saginaw Bay which fed into Lake Huron. What made this location ideal for the lumber business were the six rivers that converged to form the Saginaw River: the Chippewa, Tittabawassee, Cass, Bad, Shiawassee, and Flint. From 1860 until 1890, most of the trees from the heart of the state were felled and floated down these rivers on their way to the saw mills.

Logging was a cold weather job. The logs were too big and heavy to drag through the woods. The loggers cleared timber roads first. When the roads iced over in winter, huge sleds were loaded with timber and dragged by horses or oxen to the river's edge where they were stacked awaiting the spring thaw; then, the logs were pushed into the swollen rivers and floated down to the lumber mills. Once at the saw mill, the logs were cut into boards, kiln-dried to reduce weight and warping, and loaded onto ships.

Lumber camps were rustic, quickly built, and meant to be temporary. When the land was exhausted of timber, the operation moved on. The camps consisted of a bunk house, a cook shanty with dining room and kitchen, a camp store, a blacksmith's shop, and a barn for the horses. Each camp had about seventy men and two foremen, twenty teams of horses, and seven yoke of oxen. A ten man crew could produce about 100 logs a day with a two-handled, cross-cut saw and double-edged axes.

Lumberjacks worked from sunrise until sunset, six days a week out in the wilderness with little to occupy them. Their pastimes were telling tall tales and playing cards on Sundays, as well as any mischief they could get away with in town if they were near one.

Lumber camps competed with each other to see which outfit could stack the highest load--called a brag load--and pull it twenty feet over the ice with a team of horses. My guess is the winning camp won a wager and a keg of beer along with bragging rights. I hope the horses got a little something extra for their efforts.

Stump Prairie

When the logging industry was finished raping the land, lumber camps were abandoned because owners didn't want to pay taxes on the land they owned, so they simply defaulted and the land went to the state. In all, over nineteen million acres were clear cut with no reforestation strategy, leaving behind barren "stump prairies" contributing to soil erosion, river and lake pollution, more atmospheric carbon dioxide, and degraded wildlife habitat.

One of the few forest animals that benefited from the clear cutting was the whitetail deer. With new open ground for grazing and more abundant and accessible plant food, populations grew. Little good it did them though. By 1876, professional hunters were killing 70,000 deer each year to supply the booming lumber camps and ship the surplus to Chicago and Detroit--two cities that had a taste for venison.

In a report on Michigan Forest History compiled by the Michigan Department of Resources, researchers found that: "Land clearing for agriculture, logging, and settlement altered local stream flow patterns and volumes, eliminated some waters, and introduced pollutants into others. Huge quantities of sediment from log drives and sawdust from sawmills were dumped into rivers. In one instance, the mouth of the Manistee River accumulated sawdust to the extent that it formed a delta of several square miles. At sawmill locations throughout the state, wherever sawdust was dispensed into the river, toxic and oxygen-deprived conditions were created for fish. These detriments, combined with land clearing efforts, exacerbated soil erosion into rivers, significantly reducing the quality of fish habitat in rivers."

The Hartwick Pines State Park near Grayling has the only remaining stand of Michigan old growth forest. The park consists of fifteen square miles featuring forty-nine acres of old growth white pine saved from the teeth of the loggers' saw. The land was gifted to Michigan's Department of Natural Resources in 1927 by Karen Michelson Hartwick as a memorial to the logging industry in the name of her husband Edward E. Hartwick--a lumberman killed in World War I.

During the Great Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built a logging museum adjacent to the old growth forest in the park to educate visitors about the logging industry. The CCC also hired unemployed men to plant millions of seedlings to reforest Michigan's barren areas, but even after one hundred years, some of the "stump prairies" still exist. On a brighter note, over half of the state is covered by new growth forests.


Michigan Logging History (5 minute video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShqFL9vWXmY

"Richard Streicher Jr. Murder" Book Reveal

During the depths of the Great Depression in Ypsilanti, Michigan, a seven-year-old boy is found frozen to death under the Frog Island Footbridge in Depot Town after being reported missing the night before by his parents.

Upon closer examination, the Washtenaw County Coroner discovered the child was the victim of foul play. Local gossips and some police were convinced they knew who the guilty party was, but proving it in a court of law was a different matter.

At the behest of the Ypsilanti Historical Society and through the research efforts of docents George Ridenour and Lyle McDermott, I bring you the true story of this notorious Ypsilanti murder mostly forgotten for over eighty years.

The paperback is available online through Amazon and B&N, and all five digital ebook formats. Link to Amazon site: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Richard+Streicher+Jr+Murder

Ypsilanti Village Growing Pains

Ypsilanti's Water Tower with cuppola before it was removed for safety reasons.

Once the Village of Ypsilanti was chartered by the Michigan Legislature in 1832, growth was steady. But the cholera epidemic of 1836 in Detroit forced Ypsilanti residents to take drastic measures prohibiting travelers from entering their town. Local militiamen were stationed at Bowen’s Tavern three miles east of the village on Chicago Road.

When a stagecoach from Detroit was stopped and barred from entering the village, the teamster attempted to run the blockade when a militiaman shot the lead horse in the head. The horse fell but was only stunned. The lead ball glanced off his skull. The horse was helped to its feet and the angry driver stubbornly pressed forward. The news of the stagecoach incident traveled quickly filling passengers with apprehension. A detour around the village was quickly established and mail service was interrupted. Ypsilanti remained cholera-free, but outsiders were left with the lasting impression that the village was unfriendly and dangerous.

Michigan Central Depot

Michigan Central train service was inaugurated on February 2, 1838. Ypsilanti was connected to the rest of the state and became the economic hub for the area’s growing agricultural concerns. The coming of the railroad divided Ypsilanti into two distinct commercial districts. The West Side of the river was  dominated by downtown merchants on the Chicago road. The East Side had the train station and developed Depot Town catering to train passengers and light manufacturing.

The State Legislature chartered Michigan State Normal College in 1849 to be the first teacher training institution west of the Alleghenies. Its mission was to “normalize” public school instruction and set educational standards throughout the state. The college was constructed on Ypsilanti’s high ground on the West Side and eventually became Eastern Michigan University.

Ypsi-Ann Trolley

Electricity began powering the city in 1887, and a new water-pumping station made possible Ypsilanti’s most prominent feature, the Water Tower, built across from the Normal College. In 1890, the popular Ypsi-Ann steam-driven trolley made travel between the two college towns possible. The Normal College was attended mainly by young women, and the University of Michigan was attended mainly by young men. It was said that the weekends brought a rough parity between the genders. Because the steam-driven trolley cars were loud and scared the horses, the trolley line was soon electrified. In 1898, the Ypsi-Ann connected to Detroit’s Interurban to the east and Saline and Jackson to the west.

Meanwhile, the East Side developed dams and river races along the Huron to power a wool carding factory, a flour mill, grist mills, an underwear factory, a cabinetry shop, and a carriage manufacturer. With the discovery of mineral springs on the East Side in 1882, several sanitariums were established said to cure cancer, rheumatism, skin ailments, and even "women's trouble." Ypsilanti shipped mineral soap, distilled salts, and carbonated mineral water nationwide.

Specializing in long underwear with a flap in the back.

The First National Bank of Ypsilanti was founded in 1864 by Daniel L. Quirk, Cornelius Cornwell, and Asa Dow. These were boom times for Ypsilanti. Many of the city’s most successful entrepreneurs built their mansions along the western bluff of the Huron River looking down at what was once Godfroy’s on the Pottawatomie and a gathering place for Native Americans. The Daniel L. Quirk mansion would eventually become the Ypsilanti City Hall; the Asa Dow mansion would become the Ypsilanti Historical Society, and the John and Mary Ann Starkweather mansion would become the Ladies Library Association.

Higland Cemetery Memorial

When the winds of war stirred, the young men of Washtenaw County answered their country’s call. Troops assembled on the Depot Town train platform before shipping out to the Civil War, the Spanish American War, and World War I. After World War I, a period of economic optimism spread throughout much of America, but by the end of the decade, the bottom fell out of the economy and Ypsilanti with the rest of the country was thrust into the Great Depression.

The Ypsilanti community knew hardship and uncertainty before. Their first major disaster happened on March 28, 1851, a great fire destroyed much of downtown. The wooden buildings were soon rebuilt in brick. Ypsilanti’s second disaster occurred April 12, 1893, when a cyclone tore through town. Power lines went down, trees were uprooted, and homes were carried away with their belongings. The community came together and rebuilt once again. Ypsilanti was always able to rally and rise above its afflictions.

Heavy security during Torch Murder trial.

But train stations during the Depression were magnets for the displaced and the shiftless. The decade of the 1930s were lean and desperate times for many. In 1931, three unemployed vagrants were out drinking one night searching for someone to rob. They came upon four Ypsilanti teens "parking" south of Ford Lake near Tuttle Hill. The teens were terrorized before being shot to death; then, their bodies were placed in the car, moved to another location, and doused with gasoline. When the bodies were found, they were unrecognizable.  The three murderers were quickly captured, convicted, and sent to Jackson prison under heavy guard to prevent a lynching.

As disturbing as the Torch Murders were, the isolated murder of a seven-year-old boy found frozen under the Frog Island footbridge in 1935 gripped the conscience of Ypsilanti residents like nothing had before. Every parent warned their children to avoid Depot Town, especially since the murderer of Richard Streicher, Jr. was still at large.

Harry Bennet's Role in the Torch Murders: https://fornology.blogspot.com/2013/12/harry-bennetts-role-in-ypsilanti-torch.html

Bonnie and Clyde's Letter to Henry Ford

Bonnie and Clyde

The era of the Public Enemy in America was from 1931 through 1935 during the depths of the Great Depression. Names like John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Machine Gun Kelly, and Baby Face Nelson blazed across the headlines, but none of these criminals captured the imagination of the American public more than Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, whose daring exploits were romanticized by Midwesterners down on their luck. The press glamorized them in newspapers, news reels, and pulp mystery magazines. Their hardscrabble life on the road was anything but glamorous.

When Clyde teamed up with his brother Buck and various other gang members, the press referred to them as the Barrow Gang. Originally, they were cast as underdogs fighting a corrupt banking system and developed the urban myth of robbing the rich and giving to the poor.

Bonnie Parker with cigar.

On March 22, 1933, the gang narrowly escaped capture and left a cache of stolen weapons, a handwritten poem by Bonnie entitled the "Story of Suicide Sal", and a camera with three rolls of undeveloped film. The staged photos led to Bonnie's glamorization. Some showed Bonnie pointing guns at Clyde and one had her smoking a cigar. W.D. Jones, surviving gang member, testified that Bonnie never smoked cigars or shot at any policeman. She did chain smoke Camel cigarettes.

Clyde's favorite weapon was the .30 caliber Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) stolen from an armory. The gang also favored "whippet" guns (sawed-off shotguns) they could conceal under overcoats, and a variety of hand guns. The gang is credited with twelve bank robberies, but they preferred to rob small stores and rural gas stations. They killed nine police officers and a number of civilians who were unfortunate enough to get in their way. Their cold-bloodedness eventually soured the public's perception of the outlaws.

The Texas Department of Corrections contacted retired legendary Texas Ranger Frank A. Hamer. It could be argued that Hamer was more lethal than his quarry Clyde Barrow. Hamer was credited with fifty-three kills and surviving seventeen gunshot wounds. Law enforcement investigators studied the gang's movements and determined to set an ambush for them. The gang swung in a circle of five Midwestern states exploiting the "state line" law that prevented police from pursuing fugitives from one jurisdiction into another. 

On March 23, 1934 at 9:15 am, a posse of four Texas Rangers and two Louisiana officers hid behind roadside bushes waiting for Bonnie and Clyde to drive by. The posse heard Barrow's stolen Ford V8 speeding down the country road. The car slowed down when Clyde recognized a truck broken down on the side of the dirt road as belonging to a gang member's father whose farm they were hiding out at. When Clyde stopped the car offering to help, the posse opened up on the couple. First they emptied their BARs into the Ford, then they let go with a shotgun barrage, and finally they emptied their handguns. Though legend holds that each body was riddled with as many as fifty rounds apiece, coroner Dr. J.L. Wade's autopsy report documents seventeen bullet wounds on Clyde's body and twenty-six on Bonnie's body. Their remains were buried separately in Texas cemeteries.

A mere month before their deaths, automobile magnate Henry Ford received a letter proported to be from Clyde himself praising Mr. Ford's new V8 models. This letter is on display at the (Henry) Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

Handwriting experts dispute the authenticity of the Barrow letter. The cursive does not compare favorably with a letter Clyde wrote to his mother two years earlier, but the letter compares more favorably with Bonnie's handwriting. You be the judge! Compare the writing samples in the link listed below that includes a letter reputed to be sent to Henry Ford by John Dillinger.

Ford letter handwriting samples: http://texashideout.tripod.com/comparison.html

Clinton LeForge Runs Amuck In Ypsilanti

Ypsilanti Daily Press--August 26, 1935.

To the reader: The documentation for this post was collected by the late George Ridenour and Lyle McDermott of the Ypsilanti Historical Society.

Clinton LeForge was known as a collector of Native American artifacts and fancied himself a self-taught expert in archeology. He spoke about his collection wearing an Indian headdress and a ceremonial robe and claimed Indian blood coursed through his veins.

"Whatever the Indian has done has been in defense of his wigwam and hunting grounds," LeForge said in an Ypsilanti Daily Press interview. "The Indian killed only in defense of his family. Trespassing on Indian land meant death in the native code." 

LeForge believed peace-loving Algonquins and the warlike Iroquois used the Ypsilanti area as a neutral burial ground. He gathered over 3,000 artifacts such as arrow heads, spear heads, tomahawks, and grinding stones from his property and searching along the Huron River, Ann Arbor Trail, and the Sauk Trail--all known Indian pathways.

Local farmers familiar with Clinton's interest in Indian artifacts would give him relics they found while plowing their fields. During the excavation of the Detroit Urban Railway in 1901, many Indian remains and artifacts were removed by souvenir hunters who damaged many of them. Clinton got his share, you can be sure of that.

Even a casual investigation of the LeFurge/LeForge family records reveals Clinton had nary a drop of Indian blood in his background. For that matter, he also claimed he was a veteran of the Spanish-American War, but there is no record of his enlistment. His 1930 Federal Census report indicates he had no military service. It is clear that Clinton LeForge was a raconteur and not above stretching the truth, nor creating it out of whole cloth when the purpose suited him.

When LeForge died in 1949, his estate included his Indian artifact collection valued at $2,488.50 and some Mayan pottery valued at $285. How this material was appraised is undocumented. What is known is his widow Grace LeForge did not share her husband's enthusiasm for Indian artifacts and sold the collection to a private collector for an unknown amount of money.

Ann Arbor News, March 15, 1935.

In 1931, tired of scratching a living off the land, LeForge tried his hand at selling insurance and practicing law. But in March of 1935, LeForge was named as a suspect in the murder of seven-year-old Richard Streicher, Jr, an Ypsilanti child found stabbed and frozen under the Frog Island Bridge in Depot Town.

Prior to the boy's killing, LeForge represented Mrs. Lucia Streicher in a divorce action which was dropped immediately upon Richard's death. The buzz around town was that Lucia and Clinton were having an affair. The day after the boy's body was found, LeForge went to the Streicher apartment at Lucia's request and removed Richard's toys from his bedroom, an act that raised eyebrows in the community and set idle tongues wagging.

Ypsilanti Daily Press, March 8, 1935.

Then, for some reason known only to her, Lucia Streicher turned on Clinton and implicated him as a possible suspect in her son's murder--a charge he vehemently denied. LeForge wanted to clear himself of malicious rumors circulating around town, leading him to take a battery of polygraph tests on two separate occasions hoping to clear his name--one polygraph given locally at the Ypsilanti State Police Post and the other in Lansing at Michigan State Police Headquarters. Lieutenant Van A. Loomis, state police polygraph examiner, wrote in his analysis of the data that he was convinced LeForge was innocent and knew nothing that would help solve the Streicher case.

Further damage to LeForge's reputation came eight months later when he was arrested on November 28, 1935, for the embezzlement of $3,685 from the estate of Darwin Z. Curtis. That was a huge sum of money during the Great Depression. LeForge pleaded guilty to the charge and made restitution to the Curtis Estate, paid $50 in court costs, and resigned from the Michigan Bar Association. The judge sentenced him to five years probation--a virtual slap on the hand. After LeForge's disbarment on September 8, 1936, nothing more is known publicly about his activities until his accidental death on August 30, 1946.

LeForge was operating a saw mill on his property at 7120 Ford Road. He was milling a 2" x 8" length of timber when the saw blade kicked the board back hitting him squarely in the chest crushing his ribcage. When Grace went outside to check on her husband, she found him dead on the ground. The Washtenaw County Coroner came to the farm and pronounced him dead at 6:00 pm. Clinton I. LeForge was sixty-four years old. He was buried in a family plot in Highland Cemetery on September 2, 1946, leaving a two-mile length of county road as his legacy.

The Richard Streicher, Jr. Murder: http://fornology.blogspot.com/2016/11/little-richard-streicher-ypsilantis.html