The Snake Goddess of Belle Isle

Belle Isle is an island in the Detroit River, northeast of downtown Detroit. It's a nice place, with wide ranging park space, a zoo, a pretty impressive botanical garden, and plenty of other attractions. The island was known as Wah-na-be-zee(Swan Island) to the Chippewa and Ottawa Native American tribes that resided in the area before colonization by the French. Legend has it that picnickers on the island often encounter a beautiful white doe. Picnickers report the doe shyly observes them from behind trees and brush, but when approached bounds off. It's said that just as the doe disappears from sight, she transforms into a beautiful Native American maiden.
Unbeknownst to most of the eyewitnesses, they have just encountered the Snake Goddess of Belle Isle, originally the beautiful daughter of Chief (and demi-god) Sleeping Bear of the Ottawa. The Chief kept her hidden from suitors by hiding her near the Detroit River in a covered canoe. The winds, covetous of her beauty, blew the covers off the boat and the craft floated down the river. A keeper of the water gates, enamored by her charms, kidnapped the fair maiden and brought her to his wigwam. The winds, angry over his selfish actions, fell upon him, beating him until he died. The winds, sorry for uncovering her beauty, sent her back to her father, Chief Sleeping Bear. The chief, fearful other suitors would follow, placed the princess on an island in the Detroit River and sought the aid of the Great Spirits to protect his beloved daughter by surrounding the island with snakes. The Great Spirit made her immortal to reign over the island for eternity.
The Detroit News described the Goddess in an article which discusses a number of other legends that get hauled out by the local papers around Halloween.
The Goddess has some definite potential use for roleplaying purposes. Obviously, she would work very well in a ghost hunting campaign. However, don't forget that she is the daughter of a Native American demigod; she can serve as an entré into the Mythic realms where her father's pantheon dwells. Also, the Goddess has been around for a looong time, and could serve as a contact should she feel it appropriate.

The Nain Rouge - Detroit's Harbinger of Doom

Nain Rouge is French for "Red Dwarf", and that's a pretty good description. Witnesses of this goblin-like creature describe it as no more than two and half feet tall, covered in dark red to black skin or fur with blazing red eyes. By itself, it's simply a garden-variety cryptid (admittedly an oxymoron). The interesting part is that the Nain Rouge has a reputation as a bearer of bad tidings.

• In 1701 Cadillac, the founder of Detroit, is rumored to have encountered and even attacked the Red Dwarf. Within days Cadillac lost both his fame and fortune.
• On July 30th of 1763, the day before the battle of Bloody Run, the Red Dwarf was seen stalking Capt. James Dalyell on the banks of the Detroit River. The following day, the British captain and 58 of his soldiers were ambushed by Chief Pontiac at the Battle of Bloody Run. The small tributary of the Detroit River, which still flows through what is now Elmwood Cemetery, turned red with the blood of the soldiers for days after the battle.
• Multiple sightings of the Imp occurred just before the majority of Detroit was consumed in a massive fire in 1805.
• A blundering Gen William Hull claimed to have seen it in the fog just before his surrender of Detroit to the British without firing a shot in the War of 1812.
• Several citizens of Metro Detroit sighted the Nain Rouge the day before the 1967 riots which marked the start of Detroit's modern decline.
• In 1976, two employees of Detroit Edison saw a small "child" climbing a utility pole on March 1st. Fearing the "child" might fall the two men called out to "him" and much to their surprise the "child" leaped from the top of the twenty-foot pole and scurried away. The Red Dwarf had reared it's face again and the next day Detroit was buried in one of the worst ice/snowstorms in it's history.

I have to admit, I find the Nain Rouge fascinating. I haven't encountered any "origin story" for where it came from, but it was reportedly known as the Demon of the Strait even before its encounter with Cadillac. Given that, the Ottawa people in the area were presumably acquainted with the being. The link between the city's fate and the Nain Rouge is both hard to explain and difficult to interpret. Is the Nain Rouge attempting to warn people? Or does it cause the disasters its appearance fortells? Strangely, Cadillac's encounter with the creature was itself foretold by a fortune teller, and apparently his failure to heed her warning to avoid offending the Nain Rouge is what led to Cadillac's downfall. Perhaps an appropriate show of respect could forestall some dire fate facing Detroit in the future.

The early legends of the Nain Rouge are described in two books on-line. The first is Charles M. Skinner's Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, a lengthy book converted to plain text by the Gutenberg Project, and The Legends of Le Detroit, a 19th century book by M.C.W. Hamlin which has been scanned in by Ohio State. Both are worth a look if you are interested in material for historical campaigns. The Great Lakes Ghost Hunter's Society has put together a summary that describes the Nain Rouge's more recent activites, and around the end of 2005 the folks at Model D Media posted a collection of speculations on his current fate.

The Patriot's War - Detroiters Get Greedy

Most people think of the United States as having been more or less done with fighting the British by the 1830s. For the Great Lakes region, though, there was still one major war left to fight, an effort to drive the British from North America once and for all, which is known as the Patriot's War. The partisans were organized through secret societies known as "Hunters Lodges", and labelled themselves as "Patriots".
In 1837, Patriots living in Michigan and Canada made an attempt to seize the Canadian penninsula containing Windsor and add it to the territory of the United States. In December they used a small steamboat to cross the Detroit River, leading to the "Battle of Windsor", which ended with the Patriots retreating back to the United States. Then in January of 1838, Patriots seized a number of ships from Detroit and attacked the city of Amherstburg. In February, Patriots marched across the ice to Fighting Island, south of Detroit, with the intention of attacking Sandwich, but were driven back to the mainland by British and Canadian forces alerted by American general Hugh Brady. In addition, Detroit-area Patriots attempted to seize Fort Gratiot and the United States Arsenal at Dearborn, and were fended off by Michigan Militia troops.
While the Patriot movement apparently had extensive support all along the US/Canadian border, the War was essentially over by 1838, though the Hunters Lodges remained in existence until President Tyler called upon the public to break ties with the organization in 1841. While brief, the war had significant consequences in the Detroit area. Among other things, it was a major factor in the decision to build Fort Wayne, a major historical landmark currently in great danger of being lost to neglect. On the British side, they built three fortifications on Bois Blanc(known today as Boblo Island) for the same reasons.
More generally, the diplomatic actions necessary to quiet down the Patriot movement finally established a political balance between the United States and England, and undoubtedly contributed to Canada gaining home rule a generation later.
The most obvious gaming potential for the Patriot's War is a "what-if" scenario where the Patriots succeeded in seizing some or all of Canada from England, which would undoubtedly have weakened the British Empire, dramatically altered the political dynamics leading to the Civil War, and given "Manifest Destiny" a whole new direction. Alternately, if the war had grown to a full-scale international conflict all bets are off: how about a Russian western Canada (after all, they originally owned Alaska), and a French-dominated Great Lakes? Even disregarding changes in the outcome of the War, there is still plenty to work with. First, the "Hunters Lodge" secret societies could have survived into the modern day, or perhaps they had other secrets such as buried war booty, or backing from foreign powers (or the Bavarian Illuminati, or even time-travelling Nazis).
The State of Michigan's Department of Military and Veteran's Affairs has a brief overview of the war, and the History Cooperative provide an exploration of treatment of the conflict by historians. Finally, the province of Ontario has a variety of Historical Plaques commemorating the war, known there as "the Rebellion of 1837".

The Detroit Gunpowder Plot - George De Baptiste, Frederick Douglass, and John Brown's Raid

George De Baptiste was an influential leader of Detroit's black community before the Civil War. Born to free black parents, De Baptiste was trained as a barber, and he distinguished himself sufficiently that General and future President William Henry Harrison hired him in 1840. De Baptiste accompanied Harrison to the White House, serving until Harrison's death (he reputedly supported Harrison's head in his arms as he died). He then spent several years in Indiana, where he served as a "conductor" on the Underground Railroad, and once bet a Kentucky farmer a new hat that he could steal one of his slaves within a month; he claimed the hat within days. He moved to Detroit in 1846, where he continued his work with the Railroad, including aiding the escape of runaway slave Robert Cromwell from Detroit when his master came to reclaim him, an incident which directly led to the passage of the Fugitive Slave law of 1850. De Baptiste helped organize Michigan's black regiment during the Civil War, and after the war he became the president of the Detroit Urban League, where he helped with the integration of the city's school system. Also of note is De Baptiste's long history as a Freemason.
Aside from his other personal accomplishments, De Baptiste's main claim to fame was his participation in a meeting of abolitionists at the home of William Webb on March 12, 1859, a pivotal event in the lead-up to the Civil War. At the meeting John Brown, the famous radical white abolitionist, laid out his plans for a military uprising in the south, which would eventually be played out in his raid on Harper's Ferry in November. As it happened, ex-slave and orator Frederick Douglass was in Detroit at the time on a lecture tour, and attended the meeting. He spoke out in opposition to the plan, judging it to be poorly planned and too risky, and far too accepting of white casualties. After the heated exchange between Brown and Douglass, De Baptiste spoke up. He proposed an alternate plan to blow up over a dozen southern churches with gunpowder on a single day. Brown reportedly opposed De Baptiste's proposal on the grounds of the number of deaths it would entail, which is somewhat surprising in that Brown's plan entailed raids on hundreds of plantations, with the intention of raising a force of hundreds of men with which to attack cities across the south.
The state of Michigan has placed a historical marker at the intersection of Jefferson and Beaubien where De Baptiste lived in the 1850s and 60s, and the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan Universitys has a reprint of De Baptiste's 1875 obituaries . The state also has another historical marker commemorating the 1859 meeting, at the intersection of Congress and St. Antoine, and the Douglass branch of the Detroit Public Library has a 10 by 12 foot mural depicting the meeting.

Hazen Pingree: Mayor, Governor, Potato Tycoon

Hazen Pingree was the mayor of Detroit from 1890 through 1897, and a poll of historians during the late 1990s judged him one of the top 10 mayors in American history. Pingree fought in the Civil War, spending time as a POW at the infamous Andersonville prison camp, and made his fortune in Detroit's shoe business. He was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, as well as a Freemason. He ran against the dominant political machine of the time, and is considered to have been a forerunner of twentieth century Progressive politics; he established a Public Lighting Commission to break a streetlighting monopoly, and had the entire Board of Education arrested for corruption. Pingree left the Mayor's office in 1897, after winning a race for Governor; the state Supreme Court ruled that he couldn't simultaneously serve in both posts, so he had to say goodbye to Detroit. In an exchange reminiscent of Abraham Lincoln's decision to grow a beard after receiving a letter from a young supporter, Pingree sent a violin to a young girl who called him on a promise he made during his gubernatorial campaign. Pingree passed away in 1901 in London, attended by the physicians of King Edward VII, though many current reports claim he died while on safari in Africa with Teddy Roosevelt.
In view of Pingree's impressive history, it is somewhat amusing that the initiative for which he is best known was his "Potato Patches". The Panic of 1893 had resulted in a severe decline in the national economy, and by 1894 roughly a third of the male workforce was unemployed. Pingree, having established his political success through the support of the working class of the city, attempted to relieve the suffering and starvation afflicting the citizens by establishing a program of public gardens. Placing a call to the public for vacant lots, he auctioned his prize brood mare "Josie Wilkes" to raise money to buy land, organized a fundraising circus on the grounds of the Detroit Athletic Club, and converted the lawn of his own home to cultivation. Public employees managed the plowing and harrowing of the land purchased for the program, but the thousands of families which participated in the program then provided the labor to actually plant and cultivate a wide variety of vegetables, using seeds and plantings provided by the city. Impressively enough, Pingree himself helped with cultivation throughout the life of the program. The end results were very impressive: in the first year alone, $4000 in initial public expenditures resulted in the families raising approximately $14,000 worth of produce (and that's in 1894 dollars), including 40,000 bushels of potatoes. Over the next several years, the number of families continued to climb, and didn't decline until the national economy had largely recovered. The program continued until 1901, the year that Pingree himself passed away.
The Detroit Free Press has brief profile of Pingree, and the Detroit News has a picture of the Pingree monument in downtown Detroit, as well as a much more detailed history of Pingree. The story of the Potato Patches came from Pingree's Potato Patches: A Study of Self-help during the Depression of the 1890's in Volume 4, Number 2 of Detroit in Perspective.

Noah's Ark in Motown - The Soper Artifacts

During the early 20th century, the parks of Detroit became a veritable treasure trove of astounding antiquities. Beginning in 1907, a former Michigan Secretary of State named Daniel E. Soper peddled a succession of artifacts, including the diary of Noah and the original Ten Commandments, all supposedly dug up from inside the city of Detroit, such as Palmer Park and Highland Park. Soper was originally fired from his post after demanding a kickback from the salary of a political appointee. The stalwart archaeologist who uncovered this stream of discoveries was James Scotford, a sleight-of-hand artist and sign painter with a talent for coincidentally digging up amazing things in front of reputable witnesses. The sheer number of artifacts "discovered" by Scotford was staggering, running into the thousands. Among this multitude were a vast array of engraved slate tablets, photographs of which can be found at the Ancient Treasure Hunter.
It was pretty clear even at the time that the artifacts were fakes; extensive Old Testament pictures were mixed in with depictions of the crucifiction, and Mary "Granny" Robson, who resided in the room next to Scotford reported to the Detroit News that "Hammering went on day and night" in what Scotford told her was "Detroit's ancient relic factory. " More modern analyses indicate that the tablets and other items must have been manufactured around the time of their discovery, generally from stone quarried in New York and possibly recycled from discarded materials in the Detroit area. Nevertheless, people from across the country believed that the artifacts proved that southeastern Michigan was truly a land of biblical significance. Father James Savage of Detroit's Most Holy Trinity Church purchased several dozen of the relics (though not being certain of their authenticity), which has led to the entire body of objects being dubbed the "Soper Savage Collections". Soper and Scotford's machinations have had long-term significance: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons) has only recently accepted that the artifacts are not evidence supporting their belief that North America was settled by the lost tribes of Israel; the Church has since donated their collection of nearly 800 artifacts to the Michigan Historical Museum, as described in a recent article by the Grand Rapids Press. Many Creation Science organizations still believe in the authenticity of the artifacts, as evidenced by articles such as Christ in North America?. As always, the Detroit News has an article describing the history of the hoax, and oddly enough the State of Michigan has a set of educational materials on the subject; look for Fakes and a Fraud.
Obviously one could use the Soper artifacts as the basis for an entire campaign simply by assuming they are authentic, whether or not they are actually of biblical significance: Moses on the Detroit River, Atlantean artificers on 8 Mile, or high-tech Native Americans, take your pick of strangeness. Alternately, a period campaign could use the ongoing discoveries themselves, as either background fluff, the incidental setting for an event, or the target of the PCs' attentions. Perhaps Soper was using the proceeds of the hoax to fund authentic archeological investigations of a more disturbing Lovecraftian nature?

Etta Wriedt - "Direct Voice" Medium

It's a measure of how little word gets around about Detroit's legends that, as an enthusiastic Fortean, I'd never heard of Etta Wriedt before. She was born in Detroit around 1860, and practiced as a medium for most of her fifties. Her specific claim to fame was she practiced as a "direct voice" medium, remaining conscious the entire time and speaking in the voices of the channeled spirits simultaneously with her own voice (sadly there is no record of her singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"). She was successful enough that she made many trips to England, and managed to impress some of the leading lights of Spiritualism. Given the phenomena they reported, regardless of their authenticity, it's not surprising she made an impression. For example, Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the following of his personal experience with Wriedt in his History of Spiritualism:

A hymn was sung, and before the first verse was ended a fifth voice of excellent quality joined in and continued to the end. All three observers were ready to depose that Mrs. Wriedt herself was singing all the time. At the evening sitting a succession of friends came through with every possible, sign of their identity. One sitter was approached by her father, recently dead, who began by the hard, dry cough which had appeared in his last illness. He discussed the question of some legacy in a perfectly rational manner. A friend of the author's, a rather irritable Anglo-Indian, manifested, so far as a voice could do so, reproducing exactly the fashion of speech, giving the name, and alluding to facts of his lifetime. Another sitter had a visit from one who claimed to be his grand-aunt. The relationship was denied, but on inquiry at home it was found that he had actually had an aunt of that name who died in his childhood. Telepathy has to be strained very far to cover such cases.

Even if she was pulling a con, that's pretty impressive! Wriedt was credited with the ability to channel multiple, differently voiced, spirits simultaneously, and the ability to carry on channeled conversations in French, Dutch and even Arabic, even though she was supposedly not acquainted with any language other than English. Of course, all of this was accompanied by typical mediumistic effects, such as materializations or ghostly lights.
The gaming uses for Wriedt are countless. Any gamer worth their salt should be able to find uses for a character who can talk to the dead, but beyond that, Wriedt could serve as the deliverer of a post-mortem warning or secret from a deceased NPC, or for that matter one of her spirit contacts could tell her the PCs' secrets. Of course, one could always assume that Wriedt was actually just a con artist, as were many of her fellows, and have the PCs try to debunk her abilities. Hell, make them match wits with Doyle when he shows up to defend her reputation!
For those looking for more information, the folks at thamarahua.com provide an overview of Wriedt's career, and the Spiritualist National Union provides an ebook version of Vice Admiral W. Usborne Moore's "Voices", a 250 page book on Wriedt's mediumship.

The "Polar Bears" - Detroit's 339th Infantry Invades Russia

Most people are unaware that in the waning days of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson sent American troops to invade the Russian port of Archangel. There are two different explanation, not necessarily incompatible:

1. The Allies wanted to secure resources provided by Russia for the war before the Russian Revolution in 1917 overthrew the czar and withdrew from the war; and
2. The Allies wanted to aid "White" Russian forces in their attempts to overthrow the year-old Bolshevik government.

Into this mess was sent the 339th Infantry, known as "Detroit's Own" because it was filled largely with recruits from Detroit. Sent first to England for training, the men were unaware of their assignment until their weapons were taken during drills and replaced with Russian rifles. They finally arrived in Russia in September of 1918, working under British control, and were split up and sent all over northern Russia to guard railroads and other important resources; they saw a large amount of combat, and suffered hundreds of casualties. They adopted their nickname of the "Polar Bears" during their time there.
While the situation obviously wore on the 339th, they managed some spectacular victories, and at one battle convinced the Bolshevik forces that Allied reinforcements had arrived by blowing up a captured cache of ammunition. That battle saw nearly 20 Soviet casualties for every American, and led Soviet enlisted men to threaten to shoot their superiors if another seige was ordered. The 339th remained in Russia for months after the Armistice ended the war in Europe, which damaged morale enough that there was an alleged muntiny by the troops in March of 1919.
After nearly a year in the Russian wilderness, the survivors of the 339th finally returned to Detroit. When they arrived, they were greeted by Mayor Couzens and over a thousand well-wishers, and were given a party on Belle Isle. The final casualties of the 339th didn't return to Detroit until 1929, when an expedition of five members returned to Russia to recover the bodies of 86 men killed in action. To this day, the work of the "Polar Bears" is memorialized by the 85th Division (of which the 339th Infantry was a part) through a rainbow colored battle streamer on the Division's flag. The Detroit News has an article about the 339th and their place in Detroit history. About.com has an extensive article on the activities of the 339th around Armistice Day. Finally, the Bentley Historical Library of the University of Michigan has an extensive collection of personal papers of members of the 339th.
There are a variety of ways the 339th could see use in a campaign. First, for those inclined towards war-time settings, one could always fictionalize the 339th itself, and play through the battles against Bolshevik forces, or perhaps more sinister opponents (Allies against Baba Yaga, anyone?). Moving away from the war itself, the operations at Archangel would be a perfect background for the archetypal shadowy figure with a sketchy past in the military. Finally, historian Ilya Somin argues in his book Stillborn Crusade that the Allies had many opportunities to overthrow the Bolshevik revolution, which provides a whole host of opportunities for alternate histories, running from World War II (how about a fascist Russia fully on the side of the Nazis?) through the modern day (no War on Terror without the Cold War conflict in Afghanistan).

Aleister Crowley Does Detroit

Aleister Crowley, for those who aren't familiar with him, was either an occult-clothed conman, a deeply evil black magician, or godfather of New Age enlightenment. Or perhaps all three. In any case, he arguably casts an even longer shadow than Richard Shaver, so I'll refrain from summarizing his more general personal history.

"The Detroit Working" - Crowley and the Detroit Freemasons

Crowley spent much of the first two decades of the 20th century pursuing occult knowledge by making links with Masonic organizations around the world. He was inducted into lodges in continental Europe and Mexico, as well as joining the masonically-derived Order of the Golden Dawn just before it came apart at the seams in 1900. However, Crowley wound up hitching his cart to "fringe" branches of the Masonic tree (at least from the perspective of some sources; after all, the heretics are always the other guys). Regardless of whether he was buying off-brand or not, Crowley did manage to acquire a large number of titles, and managed to achieve de facto leadership of the Ordo Templi Orientis, which he then attempted to use as a springboard for taking control of the entire world of Freemasonry. Crowley came to Detroit in 1919 with an eye towards conquest. He made connections with Detroit Masons, and convened a "Supreme Grand Council" to negotiate a trade of Masonic degrees (in the various fringe branches over which he had control) for positions on the Supreme Council of the regional jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite Masons. According to a newspaper story written in 1948, during Crowley's time in Detroit, he

announced plans to build a headquarters patterned after the sun temples of the ancient Chaldeans, with exotic furnishings, fountains spraying jets of perfumed water amid burning jars of incense, silken divans for the faithful to "worship and recline on."

Apparently, discussions went poorly, and the Supreme Grand Council fell apart by the end of the year. Crowley left town, and more or less gave up on the project of absorbig the Masonic world into the O.T.O.

So, Crowley came to Detroit for a year, didn't gain any traction, and left. So what? Well, first, any campaign set in Detroit during or immediately WWI might reasonably feature Crowley making waves in the occult/fraternal community. Second, one could reasonably imagine a world where Crowley had succeeded in absorbing the Valley of Detroit branch of the Scottish Rite into his sphere of influence. This could lead to Detroit becoming the Paris of the occult underground.

Other Activities

Beyond his involvement in Masonic maneuvering, Crowley appears to have had a few other things to occupy his time.

• While the Supreme Grand Council was underway, Crowley was apparently able to convince Albert W. Ryerson, a 32nd degree Mason and manager of the Universal Book Company, to publish an issue of Equinox, Crowley's irregularly produced journal of occult speculation. This issue in particular is notable for including The Manifesto of the O.T.O. Based on Crowley's own recollections in The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, this apparently didn't go too smoothly. The 1948 newspaper article cited above claims that Crowley eventually filed suit against Ryerson. Crowley may not have had much to complain about; Equinox got published and Universal's shareholders accused Ryerson of spending $35,000 of the firm's money in connection with Crowley.
• In 1918, again according to his Confessions, Crowley apparently consulted with Parke, Davis in Detroit in their development of a concentrated mescaline preparation

One of the innumerable branches of Crowley's O.T.O. has provided a brief biographical sketch for your edification. The good folks at Mastermason.com have provided a terrific summary of Crowley's interactions with Freemasonry around the world, and his Detroit efforts in particular, can be found in Forbidden. Finally, Hermetic.com presents a complete copy of The Confessions of Aleister Crowley; Chapter 72 covers Crowley's views on Freemasonry.

The Purple Gang - More Than Just a Rhythm Section

Around the same time that Crowley was attempting to get his mojo on in Detroit, things were heating up in the world of organized crime. Prohibition opened the doors to whole new areas of profit; according to the Detroit News, in 1929 illegal liquor was the second biggest business in Detroit at $215 million a year (just behind automobiles), and there were as many as 25,000 blind pigs operating in the area, including one across the street from police headquarters.
Thanks to a statewide ban on alcohol in 1918, two years before national Prohibition, the Purple Gang got an early start. They also started rather far up the food chain, attacking bootleggers who were attempting to bring smuggled liquor ashore. In later years, they hired on with corrupt union officials as goons in the "Cleaners and Dyers War" (what a great name, huh?), and survived the subsequent trial to become the dominant gang in Detroit. They actually became powerful enough that they managed to keep Al Capone from branching out into Detroit on the basis of threats alone.
As often happens, this reign of terror came to an end because somebody got greedy. A small group of men attempted to strike out on their own, and the gang's response became known as the "Collingwood Manor Massacre". The survival of a single witness to the killings resulted in the rapid decline and eventual end of the gang. Only their reputation survives, and for most people that begins and ends with their knowledge of the lyrics to Jailhouse Rock.
The Detroit News has a detailed summary of the gang's career. I'd link to some other sites, but (ironically) there are some definite signs of plagiarism on the different sites, with uncited sections of identical material popping up on different websites.

Benjamino Evangelista, aka Benny Evangelist

In 1904, nineteen-year old Benjamino Evangelista emigrated to the United States in search of a better life. He changed his name to Benny Evangelist and began to make a name for himself in real estate and contracting.

And then he found God.

Beginning in 1906 he began receiving a series of daily religious visions which lasted until the end of his life. He saw God and all his acts as creator, and wrote it all up as a handy book, entitled "The Oldest History of the World Discovered by Occult Science in Detroit, Mich." The title is intended literally, Evangelist believing his visions had provided him with the true History of the World. His intended four volume work covered all of history through the resurrection of Jesus, including the birth of God himself; the first volume ended many years before the story of Noah.
According to a press account from 1929, Evangelist

...is said to have received as much as $10 for private "readings," during which he called upon the powers of his own cult to heal various ills, either spiritual or physical, with which his "patients" were afflicted.
This cult, evidence indicated, was known as the "Union Federation of America," and apparently was founded by Evangelist himself more than 20 years ago in Philadelphia. The founder, according to a preface in the cult's "bible," which Evangelist had written, was supposed to be, "with the power of God." In a dingy, but electrically lighted room of the basement, the "prophet" had set up one of the weirdest "altars" ever uncovered in Detroit.
Eight or ten wax figures, each hideous and grotesque to the extreme, and each presumably representing one of the "celestial planets," were suspended on the altar in a circle by wires from the ceiling. Among them was a huge eye, electrically lighted from the inside, which Evangelist referred to in his bible as "the sun."
The walls and ceiling of this "religious sanctum" were lined with light green cloth, which bulged out in places like the walls of a padded cell. In a window of the basement, which was on a line with and visible from St. Aubin avenue, a large card bore the words: "Great Celestial Planet Exhibition."

Clearly, a very happening group. Sadly, Evangelist was murderded by decapitation on July 3, 1929, along with his wife and children. The case went unsolved, but one can imagine the range of possible executioners, from disgruntled members of his personal cult, to representatives of the Vatican Secret Service, or perhaps even the Deros (see below), who didn't want the truth of human history getting out. The visionaries at Kobek.com have seen fit to republish The Oldest History of the World, if you're inclined to take a look.

The Voodoo Murders...Well, Just One...And Voodoo Had Nothing To Do With It...

An obscure, but strange and surprisingly important murder took place at 1429 Dubois on Sunday, November 20, 1932. Robert Harris stabbed James J. Smith to death...through the heart, with a silver dagger, after tying him to a makeshift altar. Upon his arrest, Harris stated that the murder had been a sacrificial rite.
Not too surprisingly, the first thing the police did was to check his fingerprints against those found at the scene of the Benny Evangelist murders, but they didn't find a match. After being taken into custody, Harris declared he was the "King of Islam", and claimed he was planning to murder several other people, including Mayor Murphy.
One of the stranger aspects of this case emerges when comparing the coverage by two major papers at the time, the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press (the only daily papers remaining in Detroit today). It is almost as if the two papers were covering different cases, disagreeing in specific details (e.g. were Harris' children present for the sacrifice?), and more importantly in tone. The News covered the case as an admittedly odd murder case, while the Free Press went into full sensationalist mode, slapping the "voodooist" label onto the cult, and frequently used terms like "bizarre" and "jungle fanaticism" to describe the crime and the cult. In essence, the News treated the murder as the act of a single unhinged individual, and ignored many of the details as a result, while the Free Press made it out to be the opening outrage in a potential outpouring of violence from the cult, and played up (or perhaps even made up) details which supported that idea.
As an example, Harris' first visit to the court was more like something out of a Marx Brothers movie than CSI. According to the Detroit News, after pleading guilty, Harris had the following exchange with Judge Boyne:

"Take off your cap," Judge Boyne ordered.
Harris made no move to comply.
"I am king here," he said.
"Oh, no, you are not," said Judge Boyne, "I'm the king here."
"No, sir, I'm the king here and everywhere," said the prisoner.
The discussion was interrupted when a court officer removed the cap.
"Did you kill James J. Smith?" Judge Boyne asked.
"Yes, I did," said Harris, replacing the cap on his head.
The cap was removed again by the court officer.
"I did kill this man at 1429 Dubois street," Harris said.
"Why did you kill him?" Judge Boyne asked.
"It was crucifixion time," said Harris. "That's why I killed him."
"What did you kill him with?" asked the court.
"With the crucifixion," Harris said. "I said 'aliker alump,' and he fell dead. He died because it's a dumb civilization. But I gave my children a break, because I'm a lover of children. Well, I've got to go now."

at which point he started to leave, and when he was stopped by officers, began stuffing his pockets with rubber bands from the clerk's desk. This incident was barely mentioned by the Free Press; hard to rev up panic with a low-rent version of Chico and Groucho's "Tootsy Fruitsy" bit.
Still, the Free Press' response wasn't entirely unreasonable. At various points they drew quotes from the "bible of Islam", a document found in the main temple, and the quotes directly advocated murder and violence toward unbelievers. In addition, the membership roster indicated that there were approximately 8000 members; it had been established that a few members of the cult was mentally unstable, and given the understanding of mental illness at the time led people to think of it as communicable, concerns about an army of Harris clones might not have been out of line.
Now, the final joker in this hand is that Harris managed to drag a few other people under the police spotlight with him, including the founder of the church, one Wallace Farad, or as he is known today, W.D. Fard, founder of the Nation of Islam, of which Harris was a barely-tolerated member. According to accounts in both papers, Fard had been charging members to replace their given names with "Turkish" names, and even requiring that they get membership cards from a printing company for which he worked as a salesman. I suspect that this may be a relatively uncharitable interpretation of a typical religious "offerings" arrangement, but the Catholic Church has run bigger scams in the last two millenia, so who's to say?
In any case, Fard wound up spending time in the "psychopathic ward" of Receiving Hospital for observation, and while he was apparently judged not insane, this was clearly a contributing factor to his departure from Detroit for Chicago, where he completely disappeared in 1934. So, Harris' act of lunacy, which does not appear to have been entirely without basis in the cult's theology, led more or less directly to the schism which still characterizes the Black Muslim movement today. Lesson learned: keep nutjobs away from your emerging religion.
From a gaming perspective, this story could be used many ways, with the simplest being as a backdrop element in a period story which would put both the "Negro community" and the police on edge. It could be used in greater detail as the subject of a murder investigation, whatever spin is put on the facts. Of course, one could assume that the Free Press' worst case interpretation was right, and give the story the full H.P. Lovecraft treatment, casting Fard as either a madman or a dupe whose flock got away from him. And of course, there's the old chestnut that Smith's murder was induced by time-travellers attempting to cripple the Nation of Islam, which by their 21st century had become a theocratic hegemon in North America.

Alfred Lawson - Direct Credits, Pressure and Suction

Alfred Lawson's life is reminiscent of Buckminster Fuller as interpreted by Tex Avery. Lawson was raised in Detroit, and first made his mark in the world in 1888 as a baseball pitcher, and worked on and off in baseball until 1907, when he managed the team which won the Atlantic League Championship. It was around this time that he began studying aviation, and he managed to play a significant role in the history of the field:

• he founded and worked on a number of early aeronautical publications, and actually trademarked the word "aircraft" in 1910.
• he designed a variety of commercial aircraft (most of which crashed during development)
• he lobbied the US government to begin investment in military aircraft prior to WWI
• he obtained the first air mail contract in the US in 1920.

His future career path became a little clearer with his 1921 book The Airliner, written under the pseudonym "Cy Q. Faunce." This was a wise choice, as the book was about himself, with the apparent goal of boosting his reputation in the industry.
This was followed by his first real step off the beaten path, his 1922 "physics" book The Key to Perpetual Movement where he laid out the "Lawson Law of Movement", aka "Penetrability" (snazzy, huh?). He wrote a few other pamphlets, but his real breakthrough came after the 1931 publication of Direct Credits for Everybody, a book on monetary/economic reform that focused on dropping gold-backed currency and establishing various guaranteed-income programs. Broadly speaking it fell into the "new economics" school of many early 20th century reformers (whom Lawson never mentioned in his writings). Basically, the book advocated reforming capitalism by taking banking out of the hands of "international financiers" (refreshingly enough not identified as the Jews), and placing it in the hands of democratic government, whereby interest would be abolished.
While Lawson's Direct Credits proposals were not an immediate success, within a few years they became the basis of a nation-wide organization called the Direct Credits Society, based in Detroit. The Society fielded enough members to hold large parades, both in Detroit and elsewhere; appearances by Lawson drew some pretty hefty crowds. At its peak in 1936, the DCS claimed over 150,000 "officers" nationally. As this memoir of a participant in the Society shows, the organization was focused on building a well-documented base of support for Lawson's policies. In addition, the DCS gathered endorsements from a number of major political figures, including congressmen and the Vice-President of the United States (it isn't clear which one). 10The organization's strategy might have borne fruit if the economy hadn't begun grown alongside the hostilities in Europe.
However, the decline of the Society didn't discourage Lawson. Instead, he founded a philosophical/religious organization named, humbly enough, Lawsonomy. Lawsonomy got solidly underway when Lawson purchased the campus of Des Moines University and renamed it the Des Moines University of Lawsonomy. It encompassed a wide range of topics: his earlier economic work, relatively impenetrable writings of philosophy, and his slightly surreal physics (admittedly no more so than quantum mechanics), defined by Pressure and Suction. To give you a flavor of Lawson's cosmology, Lawsonomy declares that atoms are living things, eating and excreting. He also discussed pseudo-Orgone concepts and telepathy, and predicted the evolution of a new enlightened species of humanity, the "Sagemen". Not surprisingly, Lawson fills in as the Messiah. A more detailed description is provided by Donna Kossy.
Lawson passed away in 1954. His organizations were left somewhat adrift, as he had structured his organizations so that no one person could ascend to leadership of the entire empire. Even worse, the plans he had written up for governance of the organizations was misplaced for two years following his death. Lawson's ashes are displayed in an urn at the University of Lawonomy in Sturtevant, Wisconsin.
Lawson's publishing firm, the Humanity Benefactor Foundation, remained in Detroit for his entire life. The Direct Credits Society was still a legally established as a Michingan corporation in 1990, and reportedly there is still a branch of the church in operation in Detroit. The church also maintains a website at Lawsonomy.org. Mr. Jerry Kuntz has a detailed accounting of Lawson's life at the Ramapo Catskill Library System website. Finally, a number of graduate dissertations have reportedly been written on the Lawson universe; some of the material from this section was drawn from the MA thesis of Garret Kenneth Jones at Wayne State University.
From a gaming perspective, it would be far too easy to use Lawson as some sort of deranged supervillain, attempting to take over the government through his economic policies, or convert the masses to the wonders of Pressure and Suction. However, Lawson was very clearly both a polymath and a humanitarian, at least in his earlier years, and would serve as a mysterious contact or even a patron. He could potentially provide a group of PCs with aeronautical support, weird science equipment, and potentially even influence over government officials through the lobbying of the Direct Credits Society. For that matter, the establishment of a Direct Credits economy in Depression-era America could be the basis of an interesting alternate history (particularly if his physics actually worked!)

The Amusement Parks of Detroit

Few people are aware that Detroit was home to one or more amusement parks for 75 years. According to DefunctParks.com, many different amusement parks operated in Detroit at various points during the 20th century. The first one was Electric Park, which opened in 1906 next to the bridge to Belle Isle. In addition to attractions such as "the Great Chick", a comedian and "tramp cyclist", the acrobat Mlle. Patrice, and a scale model of the 1889 flood of Johnstown, PA, Electric Park featured dance halls, and rollercoasters with names like The Big Dipper. Continued opposition to the park as an "eyesore" resulted in it finally being demolished in 1928.
Thankfully, just a year before Electric Park met its demise, Edgewater Park opened at the intersection of Seven Mile and Grand River. A major attraction well into the 1960s, Edgewater featured an enormous ferris wheel and an exceptionally raucous rollercoaster named (at various points) the "Wild Beast" and the "Soul Train". Sadly, Edgewater Park is also infamous for its contribution to the 1943 race riots in Detroit: the initial brawl on Belle Isle which tripped off the riots was reportedly triggered by two young black men looking for revenge after being either kicked out of, or attacked by white youths at, Edgewater.
Other parks in the area included Eastwood Park, where Duke Ellington played in 1936, and the Ingersoll Amusement Center, which featured a rollercoaster by John A. Miller, a great in the history of amusement parks; he also built the Big Dipper at Electric Park.
The Detroit News has an article about the amusement parks of Detroit, and WaterWinterWonderland.com has some great pictures, signage, and reminiscences about several of the parks: Electric Park, Edgewater Park, and Eastwood Park. So, need I mention how cool an amusement park is as a location for a fight scene? Aside from that, though, how about setting a Cold War intelligence exchange at the top of a ferris wheel? Send your pulp campaign's PCs to a gala ball at Belle Isle, and give them a chance to go slumming at the Electric Park. Or perhaps you could send your time travelers back to prevent the 1943 race riots by intervening in the altercation at Edgewater Park. Just remember, everything's better with a corn dog!

Detroit's "Nazi Underground Railroad": The Max Stephan Case

Oberleutnant Hans Peter Krug was a German POW held by the British at Camp 30 in Bowmanville, Canada, where he was taken after being shot down during a bombing run over England. Through the combined efforts of the prisoners at the camp, Krug escaped with fellow soldier Erich Boehle on April 17, 1942, dressed as a Canadian workmen and carrying forged papers smuggled into the camp by the Abwehr. Stealing a boat in Windsor, he paddled to Belle Isle and then walked to Detroit.
The Abwehr had reportedly provided Krug with a list of safehouse contacts, including one Mrs. Bertelmann (who is alternately described as a pen-pal of Krug). Bertelmann introduced him to "ethnic leader" and restaurant owner Max Stephan, who gave Krug a tour of the city, beer, and a trip to a brothel. He then put Krug on a bus to Chicago, from where he traveled to San Antonio, where he was arrested by the FBI after being turned in by a hotel clerk.
Stephan got the worst of the resulting legal action. While Krug was returned to a more secure camp in Gravenhurst, from which he attempted to escape twice, and Bertelmann was interned as an enemy alien for the rest of the war, Stephan was convicted of "harbouring an alien" (at the time, there were no laws on the books for aiding an escaped POW); he was sentenced to death by hanging, the first American convicted for treason since the Whiskey Rebellion. President Franklin Roosevelt commuted Stephan's sentence to life in prison, where he died in 1952. In 1992, decades after Krug returned to life in Germany, he was quoted as saying Detroit was exciting, but that Stephan was pretty foolish.
Regardless of whether or not he was foolish, it appears that Stephan may have been more than the bumbling fool he has often been depicted as. At his sentencing, Stephan is reported to have said "Victory will be sure. Germany will not let me hang." In addition, a lawsuit challenging the citizenship granted to August Baeker indicates that German-American Bund meetings took place at Stephan's restaurant, and that Baeker obtained a map of POW camps in Canada at Stephan's restaurant in 1941 (see items 25 and 27 in the proceedings). Given that Krug was originally brought to Stephan by Abwerh contact Bertelmann (who doesn't seem to have left many footprints), it is at least possible that Krug's escape exposed an authentic fifth column in Detroit.
Most of the information above came from Lynn Hodgson's detailed history of the case, including a great description of the actual escape plan. And once again, the Detroit Free Press has an article on the topic. Wayne State University's Virtual Motor City Collection has a number of photos of Stephan and Krug.
I'd like to thank my friends Larry Zimmerman and Stuart Itzkowitz, who first brought this incident to my attention, and to Larry's mother Tillie, a Detroit resident at the time, who filled in enough information for me to track down the story. I'm afraid it isn't quite as "sexy" a tale as it was originally remembered, but it's still pretty good.

"The Shaver Mystery" - Richard Shaver and the Deros

Richard Shaver is known as either a crackpot or a visionary (mainly a crackpot). Shaver first showed signs of his future ways as a teenager, when he was continually getting in trouble, stealing a skull from a graveyard and breaking up his local scout troop. His family moved to Detroit, and in 1929 he enrolled in the Wicker School of Art, where first he took up nude modeling, and then moved up the ladder hiring out other nude models. In he also spent some time as a communist agitator, after he joined the John Reed Club, and he was photographed by the Detroit News exhorting the crowd at the 1930 May Day parade.
Shaver's chief legacy is the "Shaver Mystery", the main thread of which was published beginning in 1945 in the legendary science-fiction pulp magazine Amazing Stories by Raymond Palmer. The Mystery began in 1932 while he was working at the Briggs Body plant in Highland Park, manning a massive welding gun. In the manic and exhausting conditions of the plant, Shaver claimed to have begun hearing the sounds of a secret torture session held in a cavern deep in the earth, broadcast through his welding gun. In a nutshell, Shaver claimed to be in psychic contact with an underground world, where a race of evil devolved dwarves called Dero plotted to kidnap, rape and eat humans.
Oddly enough, given how the Mystery started, Detroit itself does not play much of a role in the mystique surrounding it. So what was Shaver hiding? Was he trying to avoid drawing attention to the fact that the salt mines under Detroit are Deros' closest point of contact with the surface world? Perhaps he stumbled across a top-secret wartime program to study the Deros that was using the auto plant as a cover?
Shaver's mythology extends far beyond what can be described here, but a good summary of it can be found FarShores.com, while the Hollow Earth Insider has a nice detailed biography of Shaver.

The Spirit Made Flesh ... er, Bronze: Marshall M. Fredericks and the Spirit of Detroit

The Spirit of Detroit is a statue which sits in the core of downtown Detroit, in front of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, a brief walk from the Renaissance Center and Hart Plaza, and the basepoint for street addresses through the entire Detroit metro area. The statue is a sixteen foot tall bronze of a seated man with his arms outstretched, holding a bronze sphere (symbolizing God) in his right hand, and figures of a small family in his left. Backing the already enormous sculpture is a 36 foot tall marble wall engraved with the city and county seals, as well as the biblical quote which inspired the sculpture: " Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." The Spirit took three years to create, from 1955 to 1958, and reportedly was the largest cast statue made anywhere since the Renaissance.
The statue is the work of sculptor Marshall M. Fredericks, who spent many years as the artist-in-residence at the Cranbrook institute in southeastern Michigan before World War II. His work appears in many places throughout the city, with several of his sculptures gracing Belle Isle. As with Albert Kahn, he can take some credit for giving the city its visual style, particularly given that he donated his time for many of his public works, including the Spirit. Fredericks has noted that he never actually named the sculpture, and that the citizens of the city gave it the identity of the Spirit of Detroit. Aside from periodically being dressed in a Red Wings jersey in recent years, one of the strangest things to occur involving the Spirit was just before St. Patrick's Day in 1982, when large green footprints were discovered leading from the Spirit, across Woodward Avenue, to a large sculpture of a nude woman washing her hair (Hubba-hubba).
As always, the Detroit News has some good information on Fredericks, and they also have a round-up of other statuary in downtown Detroit. The Marshall Fredericks Sculpture Museum has photos of many more of Frederick's often massive works. The Snowsuit Effort, a photographic project covering the city, has nice zoom shots of the left and right hands of the statue.

The Detroit Artists' Workshop

The Detroit Artist's Workshop is not that well known, but it was one of the central artistic phenomena in the city during the final third of the 20th century. The Workshop was founded by Wayne State art students and Cass Corridor artists and musicians in November 1964, on the basis of a Manifesto written by John Sinclair (later the Chairman of the White Panther Party and manager of MC-5, among other things; expect a section on him sometime soon). In Sinclair's words,

what we want is a place for artists - musicians, painters, poets, writers, film-makers - who are committed to their art and to the concept of community involvement to meet and work with one another in an open, warm, loving, supportive environment (- what they don't get in the "real" world) - a place for people to come together as equals in a community venture the success of which depends solely upon those involved with it. To this end we have acquired a "studio" workshop which will be maintained (rent, electricity, heat) by the artists themselves...

As to the motivations of the founders, Sinclair put it bluntly: "Detroit has really been nowhere, as the saying goes; one half-way decent theater, one museum, a decaying jazz scene, no community of poets, painters, writers, anything." The Workshop provided the artistic community in the area with exhibit space, and enabled the the artists to give "self-education" courses on jazz, film and poetry, and eventually developed a publishing operation for printing books from the writings of Workshop participants, along with pamphlets and newspapers.
The original Workshop was started in a storefront on the northeast corner of Warren and the Lodge Service Drive. Surprisingly enough for what was basically an anarchist arts commune, the Workshop outlived the burning down of the original building, and survived in various forms until the end of the decade. In it's initial form, the Workshop drew poets, artists and musicians from around the country. By 1967, though, the Workshop had transmogrified into the Trans-Love Tribe of Detroit (which produced concerts, light shows and books as a means to inspire revolutionary spirits in the young), and by 1970 it had become the core of the White Panther Party.
Robin Eichele and John Sinclair provided an overview of the activities of the Workshop in a 1965 issue of New University Thought, a Wayne State publication helmed by the Workshop's main University backer, the late legend Otto Feinstein. Tribes of the Cass Corridor has a lengthy list of participants in the Workshop. A reunion was held in November 2004 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Workshop, and the Metro Times published a lengthy article which included interviews with many of the central players in the Workshop. Finally, Cary Loren has an extensive retrospective of the Workshop in the November 2004 issue of The Detroiter.

The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit

Detroit is home to an enormous body of decaying structures, including once-fashionable residential neighborhoods, massive industrial sites, and skyscrapers. This is an area which has actually started getting some national press in recent years (including the website and book from which I "borrowed" this section's name), so I'll just touch on a few highlights and point you to additional sources.

Michigan Central Station

This building, located on Michigan Avenue between Mexican Town and Corktown, is eighteen stories of decaying glory. Originally the main train station for the city of Detroit, it was closed in 1988, 75 years after it first opened, and 50 years after the end of Detroit's trolley service left the station with few links to the rest of the city. A product of the same architects who designed Grand Central Station, it was built like an ancient Greek monument (as documented by pictures at KittyEmpire.com), but unfortunately has not held up well in the face of minimal security and colonization by pigeons. It would work extremely well as the setting for a Greek mystery cult, but it's really much more powerful as a concrete symbol of what Detroit has lost over the years, as well as a link to the city's extremely vibrant past. It's very nearly a gate through time as it stands; making it a real on in a roleplaying campaign would take little work. In the real world, the Station is reportedly going to become the new base of operations for the Detroit Police Department, which if nothing else should make the cops feel a bit more stately while at work.

The Heidelberg Project

The Cass Corridor is Detroit neighborhood that contains a lot of abandoned houses. Many of them are obvious, if blighted, evidence of the wealth and splendor that graced the city in the early 20th century. Tyree Guyton, an artist who lived in the area, felt the need to respond to the decay, and in the 1980s began transforming Heidelberg Street, creating what became known as The Heidelberg Project. Polka dots covered the streets and houses, and swallowed automobiles and a city bus whole. Dismembered dolls adorned houses like pink plastic gargoyles, and enormous piles of discarded furniture stretched to the skies. If this sounds odd, you're right, the sheer scale of this realm of misrule was pretty stunning. The Detroit Free Press has a photo gallery of the project, as do the folks at DetroitYes.com; there are many more available on the web.

Of course, the Control Freaks can't live with this kind of rampant creativity. The city council finally got tired of having an internationally-acclaimed work of art and a major tourist attraction in the city, and in 1999 demolished a significant swath of the project, apparently on questionable legal grounds. Reportedly there's still signs of it around; needless to say, the neighborhood as a whole still hasn't really been addressed by the city, which owns most of the property. For gaming purposes, it could probably go without saying that the Heidelberg Project cries out to be recast as either an emergent portal to the fairy lands of Arcadia, or the physical manifestation of the influence of Nyarlathotep or another entity of the Cthulhu Mythos with ties to chaos and the creative impulse run amok. In either case, one could question whether merely demolishing the physical manifestation of the project would be enough to undo the warped reality underlying it.

Motor City Metahumans

While they aren't a part of daily life in the city, a surprising number of superheroes have operated out of Detroit in comic books of recent years. There have been a number of minor characters in small press comics (for which very little information is available), but a number have made substantial names for themselves.

Green Lantern

Detroiter John Stewart was originally a secondary character, selected by the Guardians of Oa to serve as a backup to Hal Jordan, the Silver Age Green Lantern. During the various upheavals of the Green Lantern Corps in the 1980s, Stewart took on the role full time when Hal Jordan resigned his post. Over the following years, he gained and lost a wife (fellow Corps member Katma Tui), played an important role in the Crisis on Infinite Earths, accidentally destroyed an alien world, lost his position as Green Lantern (and nearly lost his mind), returned as leader of the post-Corps Blackstar force, and became paralyzed defending another world. Hal Jordan healed his paralysis before giving his life to save the sun, and John Stewart has now taken over again as Earth's Green Lantern
Interestingly enough, John Stewart is now the only Green Lantern appearing in the Cartoon Network's interpretation of the Justice League, a decision based largely on the writers' liking the character best out of the different comic book versions. The Green Lantern Corps Guide has a full write-up of John Stewart's history through the Crisis.

Amazing Man

Detroit native Will Everett first emerged onto the public stage when, at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, he and his teammate Jesse Owens stuck it to Hitler by bringing home numerous gold medals. Returning home, though, he was unable to find work except as a janitor in a laboratory. After serving as an unwilling guinea pig in experiments by the Ultrahumanite, he gained the ability to absorb the characteristics of whatever material he touched. He eventually helped defeat the Ultrahumanite, and became a character in DC's classic retro-Golden Age series the All-Star Squadron, where he periodically served as the writers' window into racial issues, such as the race riots that arose in Detroit during World War II. In 1942 his powers were transformed by yet another accident, this time providing him with magnetic powers (though oddly enough his original powers were inherited by his children).

JLA Detroit

In the mid-1980s, the Justice League of America went through a very rough patch. An alien invasion (initially Martians, but a different crowd after the Crisis on Infinite Earths) resulted in the destruction of their orbital base, and the team broke up in the aftermath of the loss. In an attempt to keep the torch alive, Aquaman brought together a group of novice superheroes to form the JLA Detroit. The team included Steel, Vibe, Vixen, Gypsy, and a number of veteran heroes including the Martian Manhunter and Batman. The team's headquarters were in an underground bunker in Detroit proviced by WWII hero Commander Steel (a teammate of Amazing Man, interestingly enough), who offered it to the team in exchange for them accepting his grandson Steel into the JLA. Eventually the JLA were evicted by Commander Steel (who was eventually revealed as a supervillain), and moved to New York. As part of the Legends miniseries, and the late-eighties revival of the JLA franchise, the JLA was disbanded under presidential order, and almost all of the new members of the team were killed by second-string supervillain Professor Ivo. Michael Kooiman includes a reasonably complete history of the JLA Detroit, beginning in the section labelled "6 Years Ago".

WitchDoctor

Witch Doctor was originally Dr. Jovan Carrington, a respected psychiatrist and the son of an anthropologist. Plagued by nightmares of his childhood, when he accompanied his father on his research in Haiti, Carrington eventually discovered that the visions were his ancestors attempting to contact him. With their guidance, he travelled back to Haiti and became an initiate of Voodoo, and used his knowledge to protect the public from the forces of evil. While WitchDoctor is not himself a native of Detroit, he is the creation of Detroit comics artist Kenjji. They were profiled together in an 2002 article in the Metro Times; notably, this was one of the articles plagiarized by the New York Times' infamous Jayson Blair.

The Black Superhero Museum has brief descriptions of many other lesser-known Detroit superheroes.

The Biblical Plague Hits Detroit: Fishflies

Picture, if you will, a pleasant evening in Detroit in early June. Crowds are picnicking on Belle Isle, watching a Tigers game at Comerica Park, and walking through Greektown. Suddenly, swarms of inch-long, wriggly insects emerge from their birthplace in the depths of the Detroit river and descend upon the city. They cover every surface, coating the streets and filling the air with a noxious, fishy odor. At their worst, they gum up machinery and coat the roads in an accident-inducing slick of bug carcasses.

As you might suspect given I'm describing it here, this is not a plot from a bad movie, but instead the miracle of the fishfly, whose breeding season spawns an annual plague covering Detroit and the eastern coast of the state (e.g. the thumb of Michigan's mitten). While the swarms vary in intensity from year to year (in part based on the oxygen levels in the Detroit River), at times they pile up so deep that homeowners and shopkeepers have to resort to shovels to clear them off of the sidewalks. The oddest part is that outside of the immediate vicinity, almost nobody in Michigan has the foggiest idea that this happens every spring.

That ignorance would, of course, extend to characters in a roleplaying campaign, which is where the fun comes in. The descent of a cloud of fishflies is a perfect tool for freaking out the PCs, complicating an otherwise mundane outdoor action sequence, or foreshadowing a major outbreak of the unnatural ("What the hell! Fishflies in December?"). For that matter, the fishflies can themselves serve as a physical manifestation of Otherness; perhaps the Snake Goddess of Belle Isle can be contacted by communing with the horde, or maybe the crashed UFO in the river uses the fish flies to search for signs of their jettisoned power core on an annual basis.

Missing In Action - Topics for Further Exploration

I've been a bit frustrated trying to track down a few leads. If you can figure out anything about any of the following, please get in touch.

• Dr. J.P. Kowal, of 59 and/or 5821 Chene Street in Detroit is mentioned as a recipient of a carbon copy of Liber 31, a piece of writing by Crowley's close ally Charles Stansfeld Jones. He appears to have archived a variety of Crowley's writings, including diaries, and may have been connected with theosophical doings in the 1920s.
• Warren H. Goetz, reportedly the head of a UFO cult in the Detroit area from 1967 through 1974; the cult spent a substantial amount of time on "Project Bluebird", an attempt to build a rather impressive-sounding flying saucer. For details, see CONTACTEES, CULTS, AND CULTURE, which uses a pseudonym for the group.
• Colorful details about the amusement parks, particularly Edgewood Park and the Ingersoll Amusement Center

Detroit Links

As you might expect, I've been checking out a lot of websites for this project. Here are a few ones I've found interesting that haven't made it into the articles above:

• Detroit Funk: A photoblog of buildings, grafitti, and other miscellanea of Detroit
• Giant Squid: A Giant Squid named "Giant Squid" has set up shop in Detroit as an advice columnist. That, and apparently he was elected President in 2004. Funny, you'd think I'd have heard about that...
• R2-Detroit: The Detroit branch of FanForce, a Star Wars fan organization. Ok, I really just like their name, but they participate in parades in the city, so they're kosher for inclusion in my book.