Many know about Terre Haute's long-gone reputation as a "sin city," but that hardly tells the whole story. Unknown to all but a few, the city was home to a POW camp for Confederate prisoners and divers once plucked valuable freshwater pearls from the Wabash River. Druggist Jacob Baur discovered a way to liquefy carbon dioxide, earning him the title "King of Soda Fountains." Before the advent of Hollywood, motion pictures were made here. And one of the biggest child stars of the 1930s and '...

The author of Hidden History of Terre Haute and Wicked Terre Haute explores the home of sin in the Sin City.Home to uproarious saloons, swindling gambling dens, and thriving brothels, Terre Haute's infamous West End was so wild the Chicago Tribunecalled it "the scene of a hundred all night carousings." Pimps, pickpockets, and conmen roamed the crowded streets where legendary Madam Edith Brown's pleasure palace was the crown jewel of broth...

Join local historian Tim Crumrin as he reveals the blackguards, rogues and swindlers of Terre Haute's rough and rowdy past.For more than a century, Terre Haute earned its reputation as a sin city. One of the most notorious red-light districts in the Midwest, the West End, housed sixty brothels and nearly one thousand prostitutes at its height in the 1920s. Across this sordid scene strode the stylish and indomitable Edith Brown, the city's most famous madam. When Pr...