A dance, a devil, and a minister in Hutchinson, Minnesota
“One thousand dollars reward for the capture of the ‘devil,’ dead or alive,” the Askov [Minnesota] American announced on page 1 of its Jan. 26, 1922, edition.
It was one of many newspapers across the United States publishing stories about the devil appearing at a dance in Hutchinson, Minnesota.
The tale stems from a gathering held on Oct. 30, 1921, at Lake Marion, which is south of Hutchinson. Hutchinson is in the south-central part of the state, west of Minneapolis.
According to the Willmar Tribune’s Nov. 23, 1921, edition, about 100 people were at this dance when “his Satanic Majesty, in person, forked tail, cloven hoofs, horns and all, enshrouded in fire of many colors, suddenly appeared in the center of the dance floor – some say from above, others that the form materialized on the floor where it was first seen – and from then on he had complete possession of the place.” The Askov American (Jan. 26, 1922) reported that, “women and girls screamed and some fainted. One or more are still confined in bed with hysteria. They all fled terror stricken from the place. Some hid in the woods all night, others found shelter at farm houses. Twenty-six cars were left standing by the pavilion until daylight came and the party rallied and kept their courage up by keeping close together and got the cars away.”
I have read about this story. A lot. And after examining 33 articles published in 15 Minnesota-based newspapers, I conclude that newspaper coverage of this alleged manifestation was woefully flawed. Few articles show evidence of even the most rudimentary investigative tactics. Sources were neither verified nor contextualized. Witnesses were non-existent. And this holistically fantastic story, repeatedly circulated, is still talked about today, more than 100 years later.
Though it may appear, on first glance, that many news organizations in Minnesota were covering this story in late 1921, they actually were just taking content from either the Hutchinson Leader or the Minneota Mascot and re-printing it, word-for-word, in their own publication, then citing these newspapers as the source. None of the articles I read included an author’s name, with the exception of the Minneota Mascot, whose publisher, Gunnar B. Bjornson, was credited. So, when referring to articles' authors, I will use the news organization's name and edition instead.
What confounded writers was not so much that the devil allegedly appeared, but that he appeared at a dance – a bacchanalian source of social ills, as far as they were concerned. “Why the devil would the Devil want to break up a dance of this modern day?” an article in The Albert Lea Tribune (Dec. 5, 1921) asked. The Dec. 2, 1921, edition of the Morris Tribune cited northern Minnesota counties that halted all country barn dances “after the county attorney and the county commissioners had been called upon to deal with the problem of thirty-one children born out of wedlock. We were told, this week, about a public dancing place in still another county, that had eleven ‘unfortunate’ girls as its season’s catch.” The Princeton Union (Dec. 22, 1921) was an outlier, deeming the whole thing, “A hallucinative shadow cast by the moonshine.”
Many newspapers printed a letter written by someone identified as A. L. Richardson. Writers explained neither who Richardson was nor his connection to the event. Doing so was necessary for readers to understand why he was a credible source. According to the 1920 U.S. Federal Census, Andrus Laverne Richardson was a Methodist minister in his early 50s living with his wife and children in Hutchinson. Writers introduced Richardson’s letter as a response to an inquiry Richardson received from a Mrs. C. L. Bartlett of Bertha. But sometimes, it was Mrs. C. L. Bartlett of Bertina (The Blooming Prairie Times, Jan. 5, 1922). Or even a Mr. C. L. Barlet from Bertha, Iowa (The Catholic Bulletin, March 3, 1922).
Then, in February 1922, the story escalated.
According to the Albert Lea Tribune’s Feb. 6, 1922, edition, a report initially published in the Fairmount Independent quoted a Miss Louise Miller, “who returned last week from a visit with relatives in that part of Minnesota.” Unlike previous reports, Miller says the devil had appeared at not just one, but several barn dances, and the $1,000 reward was now $5,000, offered “to anyone who would shoot the Evil One on his next appearance.” A 14-year-old boy had apparently taken up this mantle. But much to the boy’s horror, the devil was actually a minister in disguise. The preacher “was rushed to a hospital where he is still in a critical condition” (Albert Lea Tribune, Feb. 6, 1922).
This local Methodist minister was never named. But again, multiple newspapers printed “follow up” stories similar to this and citing Miller. The Ellendale Eagle on Feb. 9. The New Richland Star on Feb. 10. The Kiester Courier on Feb. 25, for examples.
These articles were dubious, for several reasons. As I said earlier, key characters weren’t named. Who was the boy? Who was the minister? And who was Louise Miller and why was she a credible source? Also, the reward money the proprietor was apparently offering varied between $50 and $5,000, depending upon the publication in which it was reported. Fifty dollars in 1922 is about $938 today. And $5,000? That’s a whopping $93,840 in 2024 American dollars. All of this coming from a proprietor in rural Minnesota who, also, was never named in a single article I read.
And then there is the writing. It’s passive. Instead of saying who did what, writers assigned actions and decisions to murky, untraceable origins. Some common examples were, “It is said that …,” “A decision was made …” and “Report has it that …” This sentence structure suggests a lack of accountability. I found that suspicious.
So did Minneapolis Journal reporters, it turns out. On March 7, 1922, its journalists recapped how, three months earlier, “a writer with a wonderful imagination wrote a story about a barn dance, a devil and a minister, which was reprinted through the United States and brought Hutchinson more advertising than if the Chamber of Commerce had purchased full page space in national magazines.”
It chided reports aggregated from other newspapers that cited a “person who knew a man who met a man who knew a girl who attended the dance” as sources. Hutchinson resident, lawyer, and renown conservationist Sam Anderson is on the record, telling the Journal that the story “was made of whole cloth:” “There isn’t the slightest foundation in fact for any of it. No shots were fired, no one appeared in satanic costume and, in fact, I don’t think they dance the shimmy in this locality. If they do, I haven’t seen any example of it.”
Only a couple newspapers published stories suggesting it had someone trying to make sense of how the story began. The Ellendale Eagle (March 16, 1922) and Minneapolis Journal (April 22, 1922), as examples, both reported that the story began when a woman saw “an uncouth dressed fellow” and remarked that he looked like the devil. “Several people overheard the remark and being storytellers, enlarged it. In the spirit of jest, a number of people added the lurid features” (The Ellendale Eagle, March 16, 1922). The proprietor and his family did not leave the place in fright, but because it was the last dance of the season, “left two days after for an auto trip to his relatives in Illinois" (The Ellendale Eagle, March 16, 1922).
According to the Minneapolis Journal (April 22, 1922), the story remained “heatedly denied by Hutchinsonians who should know.” When its reporters approached said Hutchinsonians for interviews, these almost-sources would “only smile knowingly and refuse to talk, indicating that they might tell something if they would.”
As for Richardson, he stated in the April 19, 1922, edition of the Willmar Tribune that there was “probably very little in fact to the story of the devil’s first appearance.”
“That was Hallowe’en night,” he said. “Probably a couple of boys had a whole lot of fun with some grown up people who were not very brave that night because they were drinking moonshine whisky and carrying on in a way that takes the real courage out of men.”