From art exhibitions and natural wonders of the planet to world-class music and dazzling theater, University Circle is Cleveland's cultural, educational, and civic showpiece. Found in its one square mile are arts and sciences, museums and parks, galleries and restaurants. The circle area began as the turnaround for the Euclid Avenue streetcar in the 19th century and has developed into the cultural capital of Cleveland, as it is home to the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cleveland Cultural Ga...

It was a time of unregulated madness. And nowhere was it madder than in Chicago at the dawn of the Roaring Twenties. Enter a slick, smooth-talking, charismatic lawyer named Leo Koretz, who enticed hundreds of people to invest as much as $30 million—upward of $400 million today—in phantom timberland and nonexistent oil wells in Panama. This rip-roaring tale of greed, financial corruption, dirty politics, over-the-top and under-the-radar deceit, illicit sex, and a brilliant and wildly charmi...

**Winner of the Chicago Tribune‘s 2013 Heartland PrizeA critically acclaimed history of Chicago at mid-century, featuring many of the incredible personalities that shaped American culture**Before air travel overtook trains, nearly every coast-to-coast journey included a stop in Chicago, and this flow of people and commodities made it the crucible for American culture and innovation. In luminous prose, Chicago native Thomas Dyja re-creates the story of the city in i...

At 9:00 on the morning of March 6, 1963, in the quiet St. Paul neighborhood of Highland Park, Mrs. Fritz Pearson glanced out her window and saw something almost unimaginable: slumped on the front steps of the home across the street was a woman, partially clothed in a blue bathrobe and bloodied beyond recognition. The woman, Mrs. Pearson would come to learn, was her beloved neighbor Carol Thompson, wife and mother of four.Earlier that morning, T. Eugene Thompson, known to friends as...

Track the history of the Chicago Great Western Railway through vintage images in this volume authored by David J. Fiore Sr. The Chicago Great Western Railway (CGW) was a Midwestern line that operated in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota, Kansas, and Nebraska. Although this territory was served by much larger systems, the CGW was able to retain its share of passenger and freight business for 83 years through aggressive management, dedicated employees, innovations, and efficient operations...

More than two decades have passed since Youngstown lost its beloved Strouss' Department Store. But Youngstowners can still taste those incomparable chocolate malts, see the dramatic view from the store's mezzanine and feel the excitement of the annual Thanksgiving Day parade. The story of Strouss' kept pace with the powerful trends that defined Youngstown as a whole. This was especially true during the boom years of the early twentieth century, when the store was the shopping hub in a comm...

Every Natural Fact: Five Seasons of Open-Air Parenting is a narrative of mother-and-son nature outings across the state of Wisconsin. In a style that blends the voices of Janisse Ray and Annie Dillard, a mother and son explore parallels in the world of people and nature. The interconnected chapters stand on their own and build upon each other. These explorations of natural history, flora and fauna, and parenting themes demonstrate that the mythic thread that winds through everythi...

As July 7, 1861, dawned, war was in the air in Lexington, Indiana. The county seat of Scott County was abuzz with the latest news of the southern rebellion. The _Madison Daily and Evening Courier_ told of skirmishes between Federal troops and “secesh” forces at Harpers Ferry and Falling Waters, Virginia. Closer to home, word had come that William A. Sanderson had organized a new outfit, the Twenty-Third Indiana, and was recruiting throughout the Second Congressional District for men to joi...

Although their ancestors came from the Great Lakes region and they now live in several midwestern states, the Ioway (Baxoje) people claim a rich history in Missouri dating back to the eighteenth century. Living alongside white settlers while retaining their traditional way of life, the tribe eventually had to make difficult choices in order to survive—choices that included unlikely alliances, resistance, and even violence.This is the first book on the Ioway to appear in thirty year...

Winner, ISHS Annual Award for a Scholarly Publication, 2018In Corn Kings and One-Horse Thieves, James Krohe Jr. presents an engaging history of an often overlooked region, filled with fascinating stories and surprising facts about Illinois’s midsection.Krohe describes in lively prose the history of mid-Illinois from the Woodland period of prehistory until roughly 1960, covering the settlement of the region by peoples of disparate races and religions; the exploitati...

Sports are a key expression of civic identity along the Ohio River and are a large part of any discussion of Cincinnati's heritage. Their significance helps us interpret the broader issues of economic and social classes, gender differences, race and ethnicity matters, politics, and community values-in short, sports help us understand ourselves.Covering the time period from the 19th century when German immigrants formed the first American Tuner societies for athletic training, and professio...

Plans to establish the first public institution of higher education in the Dayton region were laid in 1961. At the time, Dayton was the second largest metropolitan city in Ohio. The need for a public higher-education institution became critical as Dayton emerged as a center of high technology that needed an educated workforce. In 1962, many key business leaders throughout the community led a community-wide fundraising effort to secure the necessary seed money for the branch campus of Ohio ...