Keweenaw’s Notorious Helltown!

During the Copper Boom of the 1840s and 50s in the Keweenaw Peninsula, mining companies sprang up all over buying up not just mining properties but the surrounding lands as well. Small communities were developed entirely owned by the mining company. This was common practice for many places and businesses. Ford had dozens of these towns. They were known as “company” towns, and everything was owned by the company you worked for. The store, your house, your paycheck was all under the control of the mining companies. Small towns of the Keweenaw like Ahmeek, Phoenix, Central Mine and Delaware were all company towns. The companies also dictated what kinds of businesses would be established in their communities.

Consequently, saloons, pool halls, and bordellos weren’t allowed. It wasn’t temperance that led to the ban, it was the realization of the mining companies that drunk and hung over miners make unproductive employees. Drinking caused brawls and sometimes worse. Battered and broken employees weren’t of much use either. The newly built Keweenaw villages were all dry.

In the early years of the copper rush, all of the fortune seekers were arriving at Fort Wilkins. Copper Harbor was receiving immigrants on passenger ships daily to settle the Lake Superior frontier. Though a few permanent buildings were being constructed, Copper Harbor was a tent city. From there miners would take jobs or seek out their stakes in the rich hills in Keweenaw’s tip. Nowhere was there any liquor. It stayed that way until 1859.

Birth of Helltown

The Northwest Copper Mining Association was operating a mine near the village of Delaware. The location had been dubbed Wyoming. The Association decided to sell a few lots along the Montreal River making them private and not company property. They had no jurisdiction over what could be developed there. Immediately two saloons were in operation. Drinking, gambling, and prostitution was suddenly available in a place starving for it. Helltown was born. There was even a Devil Street.

Miners came from all around to leave their pay in the hands of the bartenders and shady ladies of Wyoming. The vice peddlers of Helltown were getting rich faster than the mine owners. Weekends were loud with frequent brawls.

This piece from the Sault News illustrates: “In an altercation over a linen collar in a Finnish boarding house at Helltown at the Wyoming location, yesterday morning a Finnish miner drew a revolver. The weapon was knocked aside and the bullet struck a Finlander, who was lying on a bed, in the right side of the abdomen. The bullet has not been located but the victim may recover. The names of the participants in the quarrel are not known.”

Saturday Nights are Alright for Fighting

This description is from the Mining journal in 1897. It reads, “A Hot Time in Helltown! Payday enlivens things there.”

“Saturday was payday with residents of Helltown, and during that evening and the next day things took on a lively appearance and reminded pioneers of the year 1861, when that place was named in accordance of its reputation for “raising Hades.”

“Saturday evening Serin Menardi, who keeps a saloon at this place, did a good business, but the profit to a great extent was lost in a shuffle that broke out in the barroom and which resulted in the arrest of Pat Harrington, Tim Brown, and two Mike Sullivans. Minardi claims the men smashed the bar furniture and after going outside, sent a few stones through the windows doing considerable damage.

“Sunday the good work was kept up until it got so bad as to arouse the passions of those who objected to the town being changed to resemble the Helltown of old with the result that both saloon keepers, Minardi and Joe Columbo, have been arrested on complaint of Antoine Wieder for selling liquor on the sabbath day. Mr. Wieder lives adjoining the Columbo Saloon, where he says the noise Sunday was enough to terrorize people and he would sooner move out than put up with it.”

Fights were common and stabbings not unusual. Flashing around too much pay would lead to robbery or even murder. If you were in Helltown chances were good that you would be beaten or stabbed. The name of Wyoming was soon lost and replaced by its nickname Helltown.

No Rest for the Wicked

The saloons operated 24/7 and Wyoming was patrolled by Sheriff Bawden from Delaware. A newspaper article sums up a night in Helltown. “Sheriff Bawden of Keweenaw County has arrested a gang who jumped several saloons at Helltown in his county on Sunday night. It is said that the men wrecked the saloons and terrorized the location.”

Goings on in Helltown were largely ignored and was allowed to run its course. “As is natural in a new country, the sheriff occasionally has something to do. Delaware has a suburb which the miners call Helltown. Here are two saloons and a store and a barber shop or two. Last Saturday was payday and last Saturday night was a wild night in Helltown. Sheriff Bawden made his visit to see if anything requiring adjustment by the law had taken place. But for all the celebration, there were no serious results.”

Even when the Wyoming Mine closed down in the 1860s, Helltown thrived on the vices of the miners in the surrounding communities. Eventually a call went out for law enforcement and deputies were appointed to help control Helltown’s violence and vice. Local communities had had enough and it was time to do some clean up.

Cleaning Up the Mess

An attempt was made to enforce the law against any and all infractions. This article about busting up a card game reflects the efforts.

“Arrested for Gambling! Helltown Quartet Pays Fine to Justice Rouleau. Deputy sheriff Dee found bigger game while on a still (liquor) hunt Saturday evening than he expected. The result was that a quartet indulging in a quiet and friendly game of draw poker were taken before Judge Rouleau in Hancock yesterday. They were charged with gaming and entered pleas of guilty. Fines were imposed and paid.

“The deputy sheriff went to Helltown on another mission. He thought he might obtain information as to the whereabouts of the man wanted by visiting a boarding house in which a number of Russians lived. The officer entered the room without the formality of knocking at the door.

“Harry Bokoway, Martin Glabak, Walter Zinner, and Emil Ottomaki, were seated at a table playing cards. Their money was on the table and after watching the men for a short time the officer told them they were under arrest for gaming. One of the quartet leaped over the table and passed through a rear door.

“Fearing the other three would disappear if he gave chase the deputy called to two young men in the room to capture the fleeing individual. After a run of three blocks the fugitive was overtaken and brought back.”

Miners still came from near and far. Even as mines came and went, Helltown’s saloons and loose women were thriving through the changes.

This article from 1919 shows that the craziness of Helltown simply wasn’t going away willingly. “Many Arrests At Helltown – Liquor Supply is Source of Much Trouble.”
“During the last few days a few of the residents of Helltown have been trying to bring back the good old times when there was a fight every night and law was not known in the location. The sheriff’s force has taken seven persons on various charges from Helltown in the last three days and there is a possibility that there will be a number more if things do not settle down.

“Those arrested and the charges are as follows: Charles Beckman, charged with driving a car while intoxicated; Elmer Beckman, drunk; Antii Routsala, drunk; Toivo Maki, drunk and assault and battery; John Linje, drunk; Joseph Swalley, statutory; Mary Mattson, Larceny. Charles Beckman was tried and found guilty and paid a fine of $50 and costs. Elmer Beckman paid a fine and costs.

“The situation recently became so serious that the people of Helltown were forced to petition their supervisor to take some action to stop the lawlessness. Supervisor Rourke has requested that the sheriff’s office station a man there to look out for any violators and put them where they belong before they can do any damage. One of the deputy sheriffs is now on the job and things have quieted down considerably.

“Many of the old residents in this part of the county remember when Helltown was a personification of the wild west and it was not an uncommon occurrence to read of several men being badly beaten each night.”

End of Helltown

Eventually things would quiet down and slowly fade away and now all that is left is an empty field where a town of wild nights once stood. Like so many of the long gone places in the Keweenaw, it is remembered only with a name on a sign. A logger’s obituary reads like an epitaph to not only the wild logging days of the Keweenaw, but of Helltown itself.

“Last of Old Time U. P. Lumbermen Claimed by Death Alex Horton Supervised Cutting of Huge Keweenaw Pines 45 Year Ago. Special to The Free Press. Calumet, Mich., Oct. 3rd, 1926

“With the recent death of Alex Horton In Aberdeen, Wash., it is believed the last of the Upper Peninsula’s old time lumbermen is gone. Horton conducted logging operations in the Keweenaw Peninsula pine forests 45 years ago and supervised the cutting away of nearly all of that district’s famous white pine. Born In New Brunswick, Horton came to the Lake Superior district as a young man and was engaged as woods foreman for the late James P. Ormbsy along the Traverse River, where the timber was unusually large. Later he had charge of all the Hebbard-Thurber Company’s operations in the Keweenaw woods. The company operated the largest mill in the district at Pequaming, where a Ford mill now stands. Horton had charge of the company’s camps on the Montreal, Tobacco, Gratiot, and Traverse Rivers and employed several hundred timber jacks in cutting, decking and moating the logs down to Lake Superior and rafting them across Keweenaw Bay to the mill. Only the strongest and most agile were able to hold down jobs with the Horton outfit. A few of the old “Jacks” who worked for the well-known Alex Horton remained here to relate the tales of his lumber operations. Horton supervised the last big drive on the Montreal River in the Keweenaw and through a series of dams, drove the river of pine logs down to the mouth of the Montreal on the east coast of the peninsula where rafters corralled the logs and towed them across to the mill saws where they were converted into pine planking. One of the most powerful men in the lumber camps. Horton was a master of his men and had with him as assistants his brothers, Charles who now resides In Portland, Ore. and the late Joseph Horton. In stature they were giants and often found their strength useful in breaking up payday night brawls among these lumber Jacks. True to the character of the woodsmen Horton was generous and kind. Many a Jack getting a grubstake from the “boss” when he lost his roll at cards or on a Jamboree at “Helltown” or some of the other early lumbering towns. Many dams still stand. A few of the old dam sites on Keweenaw’s rivers still remain as monuments to the early lumberman and anglers enjoying an afternoon’s fishing in the dams wonder at the genius of the early riverman and his courage in carrying away the forest monarchs. Second growth timber now covers the lands where the Horton camps once operated and here and there through the wood lands dilapidated log cabins, overgrown with young trees, mark the end of the early lumberman’s haunts.”

Authors Note:

Helltown has been mostly ignored by history. Much of the information about it has been lost to time and the desire to forget the story of a town with its reputation has obliterated most of its past. Even pictures rarely turn up. We were lucky to find the couple that we have above. It was a place that catered to the things that make up man’s darkest nature. Its story now erodes in the winds of the past.

For more stories like this check out my book True Tales, the Forgotten History of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Back to the Features Page

Back to the Homepage