The Port of Missing Men

"Consider putting your preconceptions of Billy Gohl’s story back on the shelf and immerse yourself in this compelling new read."

"[P]art whodunit mystery, part biography, and part case study of Grays Harbor’s itinerant workers and their labor movement...The Port of Missing Men makes major contributions to both local history and the larger story of industrial capitalism."

"In this thoroughly researched study of Gohl's career and trial, Aaron Goings persuasively argues that the union activist was framed by Grays Harbor elites.... The Port of Missing Men illustrates how untruths can be repeated often enough to be widely believed, and difficult to dislodge.... [Goings's] laser-like focus on this isolated deindustrialized area...reveals the interconnections between business and political leaders at the local and state level and how they marshaled repressive tactics to silence Gohl, the IWW, and others."

"Goings smashes through the mythology to deliver a compelling and exciting story that is at once real crime and labor history."

"Aaron Goings has done a fantastic job of taking a famous local legend about a mass murderer and grounding it in the true story of labor violence and strikebreaking of the era, a period when workers struggled to stay alive each and every day. Goings has masterfully combined narrative and academic history to produce a compelling, smart, and fun book."

"This work persuasively challenges a century-long belief: did the maritime labor activist at the largest lumber port in the world really deserve an enduring reputation as a monstrous serial killer? Goings provides the defense that Billy Gohl never got in court. What a welcome labor history lesson from the Pacific Northwest!"

"True crime meets labor history in this page-turner. For more than acentury, William ‘Billy’ Gohl has been called the Ghoul of Grays Harbor. Aaron Goings, a native of Grays Harbor, does us a tremendous service inrescuing Gohl, an innocent man, albeit more than a century after he died behind bars. While his conclusion may upset some, Goings delivers a more convincing source for the notorious ‘floater fleet’ of Grays Harbor—not a powerful union leader but, rather, capitalism itself."