Trails of the Tyomies
By John Luthens
Wandering the trails of Autumn into Superior, Wisconsin
Rising like Stonehenge from its namesake lake in the furthest corner of northwest Wisconsin, the city of Superior is a feast for the senses in all seasons. Weathered stone buildings and arching bridges. The lonesome echoes of freighters and fishing boats in the harbor. The coarse feel of sand- dune beaches decorated with twisted driftwood sculptures that stretch into impossible angles on the horizon.
But come late Autumn, round about Halloween, the waves of Superior really begin dancing on the shores. The laughter in the northern sky howls like a merry band of goblins. Phantom clouds rush low across the lake and gulls scream like banshees above the swaying bridges. The pine-tar scent of ore docks mixes with the crisp taste of leaves that blow sideways from the trees with the pitter patter whispering of ghosts.
It was exactly that kind of windblown, Lake Superior day that found me chasing spirits in the one of the most storied buildings in the northwestern corner of the state. The supreme mistress Mother Nature had been out and about with her autumn brushes, and she had commissioned a wild portrait on the walls of the Tyomies building on Tower Avenue.
“Couldn’t have picked a better day to capture ghosts,” laughed local historian, author, and longtime friend Nan Wishered, who was awaiting my arrival on the steps. “Might be the wind playing tricks, but I can almost hear old Oscar Corrigan clanking away in there on his printing press and posing from the great beyond. Hope you brought the flash for the camera.”
The colors and shadows of the Tyomies building in Superior, Wisconsin.
Dressed three stories high in brick and trimmed in lake-stained wood, the Tyomies was erected in the boomtown heyday of Superior in 1892 and has worn a long string of costumes over the years: a law office for timber speculators and mining companies; apartments for wandering shipping crews and dockworkers of every nationality; a speakeasy tavern back in prohibition times, and a bookselling emporium of rare tomes and manuscripts.
For the past six years, its lower floor has been home sweet home to Sweden Sweets, a candy shop, soda fountain, and fudge cookery that outshines even the finest haul of Halloween treats. Local artists have trimmed the outside walls into a bright rainbow of caramel apples, ice cream floats, and candy-coated swirls, and the shop’s owners have polished the wood flooring, painted the fresco design on the tin roof above the candy displays, and transformed the original bar from the building’s speakeasy days into a fantastic ice cream and soda fountain counter.
Stepping from a jack’ o lantern stew of swirling leaves and lake mist on Tower Avenue and into the cheerful smells of fudge, popcorn and candy, the possibly of ghosts in the Tyomies seems far removed. But like the eternal paradox of “Trick or Treat”, the upper stories of the Tyomies and the original foundation of its basement, which remain locked and sealed off to the general public, have weathered over a century’s worth of Lake Superior seasons in a virtually untouched condition.
Thanks to Nan Wisherd’s publishing connections, a photography team of myself, my son Tyler, and Nan’s husband, Scot, had been granted special permission from the building’s owner to explore and document the inner sanctums of the Tyomies. And, after meeting with some of the workers in Sweden Sweets, we began to get the picture that the original haunts of the Tyomies were prone to more poltergeists and spirited shades than one could shake a stick at.
Doors have been heard opening and closing on their own accord, lights flicker and candy shelves rattle. Mysterious shadows are rumored to swirl from the wooden bannisters above to harry the shop clerks and candy makers. Sealed tunnels loom in in the basement as a testament to the secret comings and goings of bootleggers and fedora-hatted characters from the roaring 1920’s. One of the shop workers told us that we could go down and see the bricked-off tunnel entrances if we so desired, but she “ flat-out refused to set foot down there.”
Scot Wisherd prepares to photograph one of the sealed tunnels in the Tyomies basement.
Secret tunnels, noisy ghosts and flying candy notwithstanding, Nan Wisherd had upped the ante of our back-corridor exploration while researching for an upcoming book on Finnish history in northwestern Wisconsin. Prying open one of the most historic secrets of Superior, the real ghosts that we were after in the Tyomies building were shaded black with lost dreams and inked red with the timeless blood of murder.
In the Finnish language, the word Tyomies translates to “the worker”, and in the 1930’s the wooden peaks and stone foundation on budding Tower Avenue was home to the Tyomies Society, an organization dedicated to the socialist philosophy of working for the common good.
Tucked unassumingly in the small-city wilds of Superior, the Tyomies Society assembled a full-scale printing press, and its dynamic editor, Oscar Corrigan, moved his extended family into the upper levels of the Tyomies and began to roll out a Finnish- language newspaper that extolled the virtues of Communist idealism and advocated for Finnish emigration to Soviet Russia in hopes of sharing in a new life.
Distributed in the Finnish tenements of the cities and along the most rural of farm lots alike, the Tyomies paper resonated with Finns who were mired in the Great Depression and enduring dangerous working conditions, but it also created a bitter chasm between families and friends who were eager to journey to Russia and embrace the Communist ideal, and others who were steadfastly committed to riding out the tumultuous waves of growing America.
When Oscar Corrigan and his family embarked from the scenic spires and natural beauty of Superior to sail for Russia, his printed columns published beneath the bastion of the Tyomies had persuaded countless other Finnish-born settlers to leave their North American homesteads and join them: And unbeknownst to all of them, the psychopathic, paranoid regime of Joseph Stalin was waiting for them on the Soviet shores.
Stalin’s KGB assassins came in the night like ghouls, again and again. And when the upper hallways and back-rooms of the Tyomies building finally went dark, when the press room of the Tyomies Society was put to bed and the cornerstones and shuttered windows were left in silence with only the crying of the gulls and the changing of the seasons along the harbor for company – some 20 million people, including many Finns with Superior ties and Oscar Corrigan, himself – were never seen alive again.
Nan Wisherd had asked if I was ready to capture some ghosts, and when we said our goodbyes on that windy, Autumn day in Superior and parted ways, we had done exactly that. I’ve been questioned many times since about what was hidden in the cobwebbed corners of the Tyomies. “Did spirits still lurk in there after the stories and the dust of history had finally settled?”
Tyler Luthens exploring the stairways and bannisters in one of the oldest sections of the Tyomies.
Creaking and shadowed hallways, the dust of ages gathered on wooden staircases, room after room of peeling plaster, faded paneling and shuttered windows rattling with the Superior wind and sucking at the brightest of our camera flashes. A stonewalled basement with rounded columns and the foundation of a printing press still visible, darkened stairways and tunnels sealed off, most likely to keep us out, but possibly to keep something from getting in. Goosebumps running up and down our arms the entire time and, though we never saw Oscar Corrigan’s s ghost or heard the lost cries of Finnish souls vanished, we knew without a doubt that they were still there.
The author, John Luthens, awaiting an ice-cream reward at the soda fountain bar in Sweeden Sweets after hunting the ghosts of the Tyomies.
Journeying on the brink of the changing seasons in Superior, relishing in poltergeists and ghosts gone by and the mouthwatering taste of Sweden Sweet’s homemade candies – all of it was rich enough reward. But we came away knowing that the true spirits resting in the shadows of the Tyomies were even darker and more decadent than the chocolates,
Sweeden Sweets, located in the Tyomies building at 601 Tower Ave in Superior, specializes in home-made chocolate, fudge and candy. To make the historic shop a part of your next northwestern Wisconsin adventure, contact them at (715) 718-0713 or visit their website at sweedensweets.com