Dark Places: the Old Gratiot County Jail (1877-1939)
Look closely, and you’ll see shadowy figures in the windows of the old Gratiot County Jail. The imposing structure of brick, stone, and iron rose from the ground in 1877 in Ithaca, Michigan, at the cost of about $5,700. … Continued
The Strange Story of Joseph Berger’s “Money-Making Mill,” 1913
The suave dandy’s mugshot card after his arrest in 1913. (Author’s collection) Silver-tongued Joseph Berger, a tailor by trade, made a living running swindles on the unsuspecting throughout northern California. The suave dandy used his good-looks, smooth-talking, … Continued
Eyewitness a Double Hanging (c. 1890)
A six-card series of cabinet card photographs details a double hanging, c. 1890. While the cards do not contain names or places, the sequence provides an interesting glimpse into law and order in the western frontier. Each cabinet card contains … Continued
Obsession (West Bridgewater, Pennsylvania, 1918)
Mary and Maeterlinch Pavlinich of West Bridgewater, Pennsylvania, took in boarders to earn extra income. So, they opened their home to George Karas, a swarthy, mustachioed charmer from old-world Austria. The thirty-nine-year-old had the square shoulders of a boxer and … Continued
Otto Cobb: Chicken Thief (Corning, New York, 1908)
Otto Cobb, prisoner number J2440, has a sinister-looking smirk in his March 1908 mugshot. His expression is halfway between a scowl and a grin—somewhere on the edge between disgust and cockiness. He may look the part of a Goodfella, but … Continued
Her Bertillon is Only Skin Deep (Rochester, New York, 1908)
Twenty-seven-year-old house maid Ida Olliver apparently had her eye on a particular ring. Unfortunately, it wasn’t for sale, so in a moment of weakness, she pocketed it—a petit theft that landed her in a Rochester, New York, courtroom. It was … Continued
Nicholas Moran, Dandy Forger (Cleveland, Ohio, 1906)
Newspaper reporters described his as “tall and aristocratic looking, with gray hair and beard.” He typically wore a Prince Albert jacket and a fur coat. He carried a diamond-encrusted pocket watch, which was attached to his jacket with a heavy … Continued
So, I married an axe murderer (Detroit, Michigan, 1895)
Dr. Horace Pope, a Detroit physician, never knew what hit him. The first axe blow sliced off the top of his scalp and sprinkled the dark, green patterned wallpaper in his den with crimson dots. The second blow bit into … Continued
Sundowners: Auburn Prison (Auburn, New York, c. 1880s)
After a long day’s work, two convicts loaf around their solitary cells, enjoying the sundowners penetrating the windows of Auburn Prison’s B-block in this c. 1880s stereo-view by an unknown photographer. Whoever took the picture managed to capture, for posterity, … Continued
Hellgate Hath No Fury: the “Seduction” of Bessie Leigh (Missoula, Montana, 1916)
Prison mugshot card of Bessie Leigh from an original in the Dark Corners of History archives. Her name was Bessie Leigh. She was young (twenty-six), vivacious, curvaceous, and lonely. What she might have neglected to mention was that she also had … Continued