If you want to find spooky fun, you don't have to wait until Oct. 31.
In many parts of the country, tricks and treats (but mostly tricks) begin the day and night before Halloween.
Depending on where you live, you may know Halloween Eve by a number of different names. Some folks in New Jersey call it "Mischief Night." Those in Detroit may call it "Devil's Night." Midwesterners might say "Gate Night." And some kids in parts of New England and Ohio call it "Cabbage Night."
Regardless of what you call Halloween Eve, the night is often accompanied by hijinks involving toilet paper decorating, egg throwing, pumpkin smashing ... or all three. ("Gate Night" originates from the mischievous act of unlatching fences to let animals roam free, and "Cabbage Night," as the name implies, involves placing rotten vegetables on porch stoops or smearing them on windows.)
Prior to the 20th century, this type of minor mischief was confined to the last night in October. Later, the combination of the Great Depression and the escalating threat of war in the 1930s heightened episodes of minor vandalism.
Many communities started offering thrill-seekers "treats" to keep them from playing "tricks." Once World War II began, some children pledged to support soldiers abroad by refraining from Halloween vandalism.
But the tricks didn't disappear. The pranksters just moved them to the previous day — Oct. 30.
Halloween Eve tricks have generally been fairly mild, except in Detroit, where incidents of arson began ticking up on what was called "Devil's Night" in the 1970s, reaching a fiery pitch in the mid-1980s.
According to the Detroit Historical Society, the Detroit Fire Department extinguished more than 800 fires on Oct. 30, 1984. Though pranksters mostly set fire to properties that had been abandoned due to the city's rising unemployment, some of the fires resulted in injury or death.
Starting in 1985, Detroit enlisted a city-sanctioned volunteer operation to stop fires before they began, and in 1986, the city began enforcing a curfew in the last three nights of October to keep unaccompanied children under 18 off the street after 6 p.m. They eventually renamed Oct. 30 as "Angel's Night," and the combined efforts were so successful that The Detroit News reported that 2017 would be the last year of Halloween-related curfews and regulations.
Detroit Fire Chief Eric Jones said at the time, “Next year, let’s give Halloween back to the kids.”
