Gangsters Up North

Was Capone in Leelanau County? Did Dillinger hide out on Bois Blanc Island? Did the Purple Gang dance until dawn at the Graceland Ballroom in Lupton? Using interviews, local newspaper accounts, land records and internet resources, Michigan author Robert Knapp carefully sorts truth from myth in “Gangsters Up North: Mobsters, Mafia, and Racketeers in Michigan’s Vacationlands.” The following are excerpts from Knapp’s historical non-fiction book.

- ROBERT KNAPP

Sandy beaches, sylvan lakes, meandering streams, quiet forests. Year after year, millions come by car, boat, and airplane to enjoy what Michigan’s northland has to offer. They have been coming for 150 years. The rich settle into their splendid “cottages” all along the Great Lakes. The not-so-rich enjoy more modest getaways that pepper the shores of virtually every lake and river, great, large, or small. Sun lovers crowd the beaches; hunters roam the woods; hikers and bikers trace the trails; vacationers fill the resorts, bars, and restaurants. Magnificent sunsets, cool, soft mornings, lively nights—all offer a siren’s call.

At first, it was the steamships. Coming up from Chicago and Detroit, [vacationers] arrived on boats making stops all along the coasts of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. By the 1880s, railroads had pushed north along the same shores. Their tentacles reaching out to St. Louis, Indianapolis, even Cincinnati, they brought resorters within a long day’s travel of a northern paradise. Churchmen saw the wilderness as ideal for calm retreats and set up extensive, well-appointed camps. Wealthy magnates bought up large swaths of land for their own private hunting preserves. Entrepreneurs built luxurious lodges and hotels and plastered newspapers for hundreds of miles around with advertisements of their amenities. Real estate speculators platted the shores of lakes and offered lots that even common laborers could afford.