History and Hauntings of the Halloween Capital takes a look into why the small village of Anoka, MN, has been declared (by Congress and everything!) to be The Halloween Capital of the World. This fun look at the elements that make up this unique town, from the rivers along its borders and limestone underfoot to the historical locations and rich characters that helped put Anoka on the world map—to those characters who have seemed to stick around long after their time—History and Hauntings o...

One brutal murder. Two possible suspects. And a "fascinating . . . puzzling case" that divided a Michigan community ( Lansing State Journal).In the summer of 1982, the body of twenty-year-old Maggie Hume was found under a pile of blankets in the closet of her apartment. A Catholic school girl and daughter of a local football coach, Maggie had been raped and strangled. It was the only active murder investigation in Battle Creek, Michigan, suggesting the cas...

What really happened on the circus train in 1918? Read the story of this tragedy for the entertainment industry of the time. In the cool, pre-dawn hours on a June night in 1918, a train engineer closed his cab window as he chugged toward Hammond, Indiana. He drifted to sleep, and his train bore down on the idle Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus Train. Soon after, the sleeping engineer's locomotive plowed into the circus train. In the subsequent wreckage and blaze, more than two hundred circus perfo...

"[A] magisterial tale of how the Anishinaabe Odawa lived through and shaped the history of North America and the early modern world." —Kathleen DuVal, professor of history, University of North Carolina, Chapel HillIn Masters of Empire, the historian Michael McDonnell reveals the pivotal role played by the native peoples of the Great Lakes in the history of North America. Though less well known than the Iroquois or Sioux, the Anishinaabeg who lived along La...

During the 1930s in the United States, the Works Progress Administration developed the Federal Writers’ Project to support writers and artists while making a national effort to document the country’s shared history and culture. The American Guide series consists of individual guides to each of the states. Little-known authors-many of whom would later become celebrated literary figures-were commissioned to write these important books. John Steinbeck, Saul Bellow, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ral...

Springfield has launched a lot of history, from the career of Abraham Lincoln to the wagon train that bore the Donner party to their fate. While taking this tour with Garret Moffett, you will come face to face with the history that has refused to leave. Meet the Gibson Girl who turned society circles into séances during her life and the vengeful actor who held down a leading role as mischief maker after death. And maybe you should pause before you shake the hand of a Civil War reenactor at...

In this all-new addition to the People of Wisconsin series, author Susan Mikos traces the history of Polish immigrants as they settled in America’s northern heartland. The second largest immigrant population after Germans, Poles put down roots in all corners of the state, from the industrial center of Milwaukee to the farmland around Stevens Point, in the Cutover, and beyond. In each locale, they brought with them a hunger to own land, a willingness to work hard, and a passion for building...

Eliot Ness might come busting in and take all of you crooks to jail--or more likely he won't, even if you've been robbing banks all over Cleveland and bragging about it to the media, like self-proclaimed "last of the big-time bank robbers" Eddie Watkins. This isn't your Kevin Costner version of Eliot Ness, and this isn't your standard collection of Cleveland eccentrics. Join author Ted Schwarz on this romp celebrating bizarre misdeeds and noteworthy accomplishments of Clevelanders large an...

Essentially the story of WMMS, Radio Daze captures the radio scene during the ’70s and ’80s, chronicling how this small FM rock station became the top-rated station in Northeast Ohio and made Cleveland one of the most important radio markets in the world. Mike Olszewski obtained exclusive interviews with many radio legends, revealing how insidious and destructive the battle for radio dominance became. Among other things, he exposes the story behind the reports of ballot box stuffing by WMM...

Boot & Milk Balls take us back in time to the mirth and madness of a bygone era. The antics of fun-loving, hometown characters, often turn bazaar. Two popular legends, grossly entwined, evolve to become one macabre tradition.Three additional short stories; Lost Books Found, Hidden Treasures and the MPA; bring this mischievous Des Peres, Missouri era to a close.

Take a fascinating journey through the history of Glen Ellyn, Illinois with more than 200 vintage photographs and anecdotes from the locals who experienced it. Glen Ellyn took its name from a Victorian real estate development whose massive promotional campaigns brought this unusually beautiful village to the attention of city dwellers eager to move their families away from the grimy, coal-fired environs of Chicago. The story begins with hardy New Englanders who felled trees to build log ca...

In his introduction to Dan Dancer’s The Four Seasons of Kansas, bestselling author William Least Heat-Moon reflects upon the Great Kansas Passage of those who race their cars westward across Interstate 70 without trying to understand the truth of the place. Ted Cable and Wayne Maley come to the rescue of those travelers with a new guide that will expand and enrich their understanding of a state whose history, in Heat-Moon’s words, is “a tumbling of guns, torches, hatchets, and kni...