Few today even remember the Bath School Massacre, and it is rarely – if ever – even mentioned by the media alongside those other mass killings. The reason is that it sadly doesn’t fit the modern narrative.
While it left forty-four people dead, including thirty-eight children, no one could blame video games, and suggesting movies had an influence would be a stretch as this day of infamy took place on May 18, 1927. Unlike other mass school killings that have taken place largely in the suburbs, this one took place in the small Michigan town of Bath Township located about one hundred miles northwest of Detroit.
Even more noteworthy is the fact that the killer, farmer, and school board treasurer Andrew Kehoe, didn’t shoot up the school either. Rather he used surplus dynamite and other explosives from the First World War and blew up the school with the children inside.
As both a farmer and the school board’s treasurer, Kehoe had been unhappy that all of the region’s students were moved to a new school. It improved the education the students would receive, but it also resulted in higher taxes, and Kehoe was openly against the decision and accused the school superintendent of fiscal mismanagement. Unlike the stereotypical “quiet loner,” Kehoe was married and had a reputation of being hot-tempered as well as frugal. …
Many believed he might have been contemplating suicide. They just didn’t know he didn’t plan to go alone.
On May 18 he murdered his wife, killed his two horses and blew up his farmhouse.
Tragically that wasn’t enough for Kehoe. He had secretly planted explosives at the school, and at 9:45 am the dynamite was detonated in the north wing of the school. An alarm clock was used to trigger the explosion. Thirty minutes later Kehoe, who had driven his truck – which was filled with explosives – to the school, set off another bomb, killing the school superintendent, three others, and himself.
Police later discovered an additional 500 pounds of dynamite in the south wing of the building. Only a short circuit in the wiring kept the tragedy from being far worse. A total of forty-five people were killed and another fifty-eight injured. Nearly a quarter of the children in the town were among the dead. …
Yet in the days before the 24-hour news cycle, the story didn’t hold the attention of readers. It was just two days later that Charles Lindbergh successfully completed his first-ever nonstop transatlantic flight and the bombing was no longer front-page news.
— Peter Suciu in America’s Worst School Massacre Involved No Guns
