On July 18, 2013, the city of Detroit, Michigan, filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in the history of the United States. Over one-half of the 713,777 inhabitants of the city had not paid their property taxes as of that date. This is a stunning fact, especially coupled with the fact that this city had a population of 1,800,313 in 1950. Detroit was very wealthy; the surrounding area still is, to a degree. They all lived in or around Detroit: the Dodges, the Fishers, and the Fords. Many of these families still make billions of dollars in the Detroit area. At one time, there were cars, steel, shipping, and every other imaginable way to make a fortune. There were unions and union organizers. Everyone made money. The middle class rose from the floors of the assembly line and the mills. Its members were African American, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Slavic, and Polish. They came from every country in Europe and every state in the segregated South to find and live the American dream. They found it in Detroit, that industrial metropolis on the southeast end of the Lake St. Clair. There were criminals who profited from Prohibition. Those families built enormous wealth as well. Some other people of questionable repute-men like Harry Bennett, head of Ford security, made their fortunes legitimately by working for the industrial giants of the day. Others made their fortunes off working men and women. James Riddle Hoffa, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, made a living off hard-working people, but in 1975 he disappeared-much as the city of Detroit would later disappear. This story is about where it all started for the Hoffa family, and how it all ended. Who knows what happened to Jimmy Hoffa? For all anyone knows, someone could be driving him even now.
- | Author: Erik A. Gunn
- | Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
- | Publication Date: Dec 06, 2016
- | Number of Pages: 98 pages
- | Language: English
- | Binding: Paperback
- | ISBN-10: 1540876489
- | ISBN-13: 9781540876485
