Unsolved is a true crime podcast series from 9&10 News.
Each month, David Lyden will dive into an unsolved crime in northern Michigan.
It is Mason County’s oldest cold case: the shooting death of Luther Foster.
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Foster was a prominent community member and leader in the early days of Ludington.
“James Ludington owned all the land around here, or most of it, and started his lumber business here. He lived his whole life is an adult life in a couple hotels in Milwaukee,” said James Jensen, President of the Board of Directors for the Mason County Historical Society.
“So we hired a superintendent and that superintendent was Luther Foster who lived here in Ludington and worked on his behalf,” explained Jensen.
And Foster quickly made a name for himself in the community.
“He was involved in a couple of churches, one of them was the Congregational Church, which still exists in Ludington. It’s now called the Community Church. He was very active in the temperance movement he was a musician, an actor, very involved in in the community. His wife was the bell of the local society,” said Jensen.
But that life on notoriety would be shattered one night in late June of 1876.