On July 31st 1922, dozens of lunching New Yorkers crowded into the popular Shelburne Restaurant and Bakery at 1127 Broadway. For a few, it would be their last meal.

The Shelburne was famous for its peach and huckleberry pies but on this hot July day, the pies contained a deadly surprise: arsenic. As the afternoon unfolded, 60 of the Shelburne’s pie-eating patrons became seriously ill and required hospitalisation. Six of them did not survive. Four of the dead were young female office workers in their late teens or early 20s.

Police and city officials launched an immediate investigation, ordering a forensic examination of the leftover pie, the restaurant’s bakery and its stores. They found nothing amiss with the bakery’s flour and other ingredients, suggesting that the pie pastry had been tampered with by a mystery poisoner:

“According to [Commissioner of Health] Dr Monaghan, the ingredients from which the pie crust was made had been analysed and found pure, so that the arsenic must have been put in while the dough for the crust was being made. Dr Monaghan [was] also informed that the proprietors of the restaurant did not keep rat poison or any other insect powder containing arsenic about the place. Accordingly, he said the chances that the poison might have been mixed into the dough accidentally appeared to be very slight.”

Police attention turned to the three people employed in the bakery: the manager, the baker and his assistant. All denied any involvement, however, the baker falsely believed he was about to be fired while his assistant reportedly disappeared without a trace.

With no evidence, the New York police were unable to lay any charges. Unsurprisingly, the Shelburne’s clientele evaporated overnight and it was forced to close down the following year. The deaths also caused a slump in pie sales across New York:

“In spite of the fact that the poisoning was shown to be due to… food prepared only at the one restaurant, patrons of restaurants were reported yesterday to be eating only a small fraction of the pie usually consumed in this city. The demand for huckleberry and blackberry pie has fallen almost to nothing.”

Source: New York Times, August 2nd 1922. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.