Purple Gang in the North

How Club Manitou was Planned, Built, Operated, and Transmogrified

By: Mark Huck, Judith Landis

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Detroit's notorious Purple Gang had expansion plans in the northern woods of Michigan near its summer resorts. By 1929, Club Manitou was in operation, with a maze of escape tunnels surrounding its basement speakeasy.

Northern Michigan’s Little Traverse Bay region has been a summer destination for wealthy Midwesterners since the 1880s. Many summer resort associations by the early 1900s had formed around the shoreline of the bay. This opened the door for the creation of a two-tiered system of law enforcement during the area’s summer months. Wealthy resorters from St. Louis, Chicago, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Pittsburg, and Detroit did not want to give up their daily cocktails and love of gambling during the years of state and national prohibition (1918-1934). To supply this demand, the Harbor Springs Ramona Park Casino and the Club Manitou were both in place by the late 1920s. This book captures that history. It is a must-read for those interested in the speakeasy era. It is also a must-read for those who later came to know the Club Manitou as the Club Ponytail in the 1960s. It was the Midwest’s premier teen night club.
-Richard A. Wiles, Northern Michigan historian