Picture of downtown Bay City and the old Bay City Club was featured in article on crime here in Master Detective Magazine in 1936.

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"Ghostly Legends" Trolley/Bus Tours to Begin June 25 From Antique Center

Elm Lawn Cemetery Walking Tours to Begin June 19

June 13, 2010
By: Dave Rogers

"Ghostly Legends" and Hell's Half Mile historical trolley and bus tours will be resumed the second and fourth Fridays of each month at 5 p.m. beginning June 25 during the summer and fall tourism season.

The tours will be sponsored by Historical Press L.L.C., in cooperation with the Bay City Antique Center, 1020 N. Water St. Transportation will be provided by Bay Metro Transit Authority.

Either the trolley and/or a regular bus will be used on the tours.

Cost of the tours will be $9 for adults and $5 for children under 12, according to Historical Press officials Dave and Dolores Rogers.

The tours will run through October and will be expanded depending on demand. Tour participants are urged to sign up in advance so that an additional bus may be added if necessary. Meanwhile, monthly walking tours of Elm Lawn Cemetery will begin the third Saturdays of each month at 2 p.m. with Maureen McDermott as tour guide. These tours are sponsored by Historical Press in cooperation with Midwest Memorial Group, Inc., owner-operator of the cemetery.

Persons wishing to take the walking tour may sign up in advance at the cemetery gatehouse office or meet the tour guide at the cemetery entrance. Cost of the tour is $5.

Ghostly Legends and Hell's Half Mile trolley/bus tours will be 90 minutes, will be narrated and will include information about historic mansions, cemeteries, buildings, ghost reports and legendary lore along Hell's Half Mile and citywide from the lumbering days into the 1930s and beyond.

Among events and personalities to be discussed on the tour will be:

The annual influx of thousands of rowdy lumberjacks on Hell's Half Mile after the cutting season and the violence they caused in the community,

the murder of Fabian "Saginaw Joe" Fournier in 1875 on the Third Street ferry boat dock,

the Republican Bull Moose Riot of 1912 at the armory,

rampages and murders by the Steve Madaj Gang in the early 1900s and 1920s,

the capture of two members of the Bonnie & Clyde Gang in 1932 at the skating rink that is now the Bay City Auto Company,

the visit here by notorious slayer Pretty Boy Floyd in the 1930s,

the sentencing here of Hamtramck bandit Tony Chebatoris by Federal Judge Arthur Tuttle after a botched Midland bank robbery, and

the murder of theatre manager Floyd Ackerman by Johnny Woos in 1943 and Woos's ultimate release from prison in 1967 after a retrial and defense by attorneys David Skinner and Eugene Penzien.

For more information about any of the tours, please contact Historical Press at 686-5544 or the Bay City Antique Center at 893-1116.

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