Halloween 2022 might be starting to come into focus, but The Ticker couldn’t help looking back at late October celebrations dating back more than 100 years — including the years when trick-or-treaters terrorized Traverse City. 

One of the earliest references to the holiday comes from the Traverse City Morning Record in October 1898, letting its audience know that “Hallowe’en is but a few weeks off,” and the order of Junior Workers of Grace Episcopal Church have “prepared an elaborate program” full of “pranks and tricks appropriate to the occasion” to take place in the Church basement. Later updates would clarify further that “old-time games and fun” would also be part of the program, as well as a cover charge: five cents, to support the Sunday School library.

Things weren’t so Puritan elsewhere: On November 3rd of that year, the Record-Eagle reported on some Halloween tickery around the state including an encounter in Muskegon where “boys were taking especial delight in teasing a cross old man” who, after spending some time “vainly endeavoring to drive them away,” shot and killed a 15-year-old boy. Elsewhere, 40 tombstones were knocked down in a graveyard and “hoodlums stole a blanket from [a] buggy.” 

Praise is saved for a particularly athletic professor of dentistry at the University of Michigan who “grappled with three grown men [who were] raising mischief generally.” Per the paper, he “literally wiped the face of the earth with them.” They also passed along a significantly more plainly written report out of Toledo, where a woman “was so badly frightened by a crowd of boys playing Hallowe’en pranks that she died.” End of story. 

While pumpkin spice was still a long ways off, pumpkins themselves were a big deal in 1903, at least on the society page. A number of Hallowe’en gatherings included decorative gourds, including one at the house of Mrs. John F. Ott, who hosted a party where “the rooms were darkened and lighted with jack o’lanterns, the lights gleaming through the strange and grotesque faces.” The menu included “butter … molded into the shape of tiny pumpkins” and “cakes cut into pumpkin shapes.” A large jack o’lantern was awarded to the first place winner of that afternoon’s game: a Euchre tournament, naturally. 

Most turn of the century reporting on the holiday focuses on these two categories: dangerous pranks and society parties, with plenty of black cats, corn-cob witches, fortune telling and the occasional soaping of windows. We also don’t get a lot of reporting about the practice of “trick or treat” until the mid-1940s, when Traverse City police actually banned it. According to the Record-Eagle, Police Chief Charles Woodrow called it “a racket” as well as “a nuisance to homeowners. I know of no other city that puts up with such foolishness,” adding “This must stop now.” A few days later, the Record-Eagle’s “Observer” column claimed responsibility for the enacting of the ban. 

“A few years back, when just the youngsters came to the door, ‘trick or treat’ was a cute practice and Traverse City homeowners usually had apples, cider, donuts or candy for them. Then the ‘pros’ muscled in and the thing became a headache,” reads the column. “Two years ago this practice got completely out of hand…the older boys started out on their own and made a racket of what had started out to be a fun thing. They would come to a door and, if not satisfied with the ‘treat,’ would slam it on the floor and shout ‘cheapskate,’ ‘stingies’ and stuff like that.”

“They even reached the point where they demanded money instead of food. It was then the Observer made a complaint and the police, also seeing how the innocent Hallowe’en practice had degenerated into a racket, placed a ban on it.” At this point they must have realized they were being a bit of a party pooper, as they closed by recommending an hour or two where children between 5-7 “could make the rounds and be assured of a hearty welcome.”

The outright ban apparently only lasted that one year, because in 1946 Chief Woodrow was quoted by as saying “We will not interfere with the fun of boys and girls who are behaving properly in their Hallowe’en celebrations.” With that in mind, the police were still on watch: “Every effort will be made by the departments to prevent funsters from getting out of hand and committing property depradations.” 

Still, when 1947 rolled around, Chief Woodrow “was emphatic in his statement that there would be no ‘trick or treat’ in the city this year,” though “State police have asked also that pranks be kept within reason.” Window soaping was not encouraged, but also “not considered grounds for police action.” 

By 1949 that had softened to “disapproval” of trick-or-treating, and in 1950 they’d given up on fighting against hordes of children looking for candy: “Trick-or-treat, delight of the little fellows, will be tolerated to a certain degree this year. It is the pleasure of the youngsters in the four, five, six and seven year group to garner a few apples and lollipops with the threat of soap on the windows if they fail to provide,” the Record-Eagle reported.

They added: “The roving bands of youngsters of another generation, [police] said, have almost become a thing of the past.” On another page that week: An ad from Oleson’s grocery stores suggesting stocking up on Hallowe’en candy for $29 cents a … while also advertising sixteen different varieties and sizes of soap from brands like Rinso, Lifebuoy and Lux.