100 Years On, Houdini's Final Escape Still Draws a Crowd in Detroit
A century after his death on Halloween 1926, the magician's legacy continues to draw visitors and séance attempts in Michigan.
By Aiko Brooks ·
If you are in Detroit this Halloween, you are marking 100 years since Harry Houdini died there. The city hosted him for 19 performances between 1894 and 1926, but the magician's final act was a failure to escape a medical crisis. He had ruptured his appendix, and two surgeries at Grace Hospital did not save him.
Houdini's reputation was built on surviving traps that seemed designed to be fatal. In 1906, he jumped 24 feet from Detroit's Belle Isle Bridge into the river while bound by two sets of police handcuffs. He later created the Water Torture Cell, a box filled with water where he was lowered head first with his ankles locked. Dorothy Young, who toured with him as a stage assistant, said in a 2004 NPR interview that she watched the act closely because a secret code existed in case he could not get out.
The end of his life began with a challenge. In a Montreal dressing room, a college wrestler punched Houdini's stomach before the magician could tense his muscles. He was in severe pain, but he wanted to fulfill contracts for shows in Detroit. Jeremy Dimick, a curator at the Detroit Historical Museum, said Houdini performed one show but could not apply his own makeup and was carried from the Garrick Theater to his hotel. Doctors later found a ruptured appendix. He died on Oct. 31, 1926.
The places connected to that night no longer exist. The theater, hotel, and hospital are gone. The funeral home that prepared his body became a girls' art school, which also closed. Juanita Hammond, who led that school, showed visitors a storage room in 2004 where Houdini was laid out, and said some students avoided the kitchen because they feared they might see him.
His wife, Bess Houdini, held séances for a decade after his death. On Halloween 1936, she ended her search. In a 1936 film cameo, she said that if contact had been possible, she would have received some sign from him in the past 10 years.
John Sherwood, at the American Museum of Magic in Marshall, Michigan, has used Houdini's milk can in séances. The can held water and six locks, and Sherwood has used it in attempts to reach the magician. He plans another séance for this Halloween.
Houdini performed 19 times in Detroit between 1894 and 1926.
