Landmarks

Name: Sunset Lodge in Georgetown
Brand: David Gregg Hodges
SKU: 9781467143660
Price: 16.49 USD
Availability: InStock

The Landmarks American history books series offers readers accessible, well-illustrated histories of USA landmarks and historic sites. Learn the secret history of the Chicken Ranch, Texas’s iconic brothel. Let loose at Detroit’s Rock’n’Roll palace, shop the hallowed shelves of Kaufmann’s, then relax at the Sandy Hook Highland beach resort. From the rise of Idlewild to the fall of Younkers, these Landmark books will bring iconic locations to your backyard. [View all Landmarks books]

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Inside the Texas Chicken Ranch

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

Sunset Lodge in Georgetown

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

Inside the Ohio Penitentiary

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

Eastern State Penitentiary

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

Virginia State Penitentiary

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

Joliet Prison Blues

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

Frontier Kansas Jails

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

Jacktown

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

The Burlington County Prison:

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

Sunset Lodge in Georgetown

9781467143660

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

Hazel Weisse moved to Georgetown in 1936 and opened a brothel three miles south of Front Street. Despite being illegal, the business remained open for thirty-three years until Weisse’s retirement in 1969. She was well known, shopping every week on Front Street and appearing in the newspaper as a donor to charitable causes. She sent her “sporting ladies” to town for their weekly doctor visits, banking deposits and shopping trips. Weisse was also aware of the community around her business. She did not allow her employees free access to Georgetown. She approved their choices of clothes to wear to Front Street, warned them not to look at men on the sidewalk and forbade soliciting. Author David Gregg Hodges reveals the history and stories behind the Sunset Lodge.

Inside the Ohio Penitentiary

9781626190979

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

Uncover the full extent of mayhem and madness locked away in one of history's most notorious maximum-security prisons.

As animal factories go, the Ohio Penitentiary was one of the worst. For 150 years, it housed some of the most dangerous criminals in the United States, including murderers, madmen and mobsters. Peer in on America's first vampire, accused of sucking his victims' blood five years before Bram Stoker's fictional villain was even born; peek into the cage of the original Prison Demon; and witness the daring escape of John Hunt Morgan's band of Confederate prisoners.

Eastern State Penitentiary

9781596294035

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

The only comprehensive history of one of America's most infamous prisons, Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, PA.

Looming on the horizon like a storm cloud made of stone, the Eastern State Penitentiary spent more than a century as the fortress that both the law-abiding and criminal feared. In this superbly balanced and thoroughly researched volume, Paul Kahan presents the history of this revolutionary penitentiary, from its inception as a model of the revolutionary Pennsylvania System of incarceration in 1829 to the demands for its closure in the wake of ever-increasing violence in 1971. Through tales of spectacular escapes, official corruption, reformation and retribution, Kahan chronicles the tensions that plagued Eastern State since the arrival of its first prisoners.

Virginia State Penitentiary

9781467137638

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

Thomas Jefferson developed the idea for the Virginia State Penitentiary and set the standard for the future of the American prison system. The prison endured severe overcrowding, three fires, an earthquake and numerous riots.

Vice President Aaron Burr was incarcerated there in 1807 as he awaited trial for treason. More than 240 prisoners were executed there by electric chair. At one time, the ACLU called it the "most shameful prison in America." The institution was plagued by racial injustice, eugenics experiments and the presence of children imprisoned among adults. Join author Dale Brumfield as he charts the 190-year history of the iconic prison.

Joliet Prison Blues

9781467147354

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

Named warden of the Illinois State Penitentiary in 1913, Edmund Allen arrived with a glamorous new wife and ambitious plans of reform that did away with years of striped uniforms and humiliating practices. Two years later, his wife was found murdered in her bed, shocking the country and throwing the prison into chaos. Over the past century, life behind bars at Joliet has often been a national spectacle. Infamous inmates like Leopold and Loeb, John Wayne Gacy, Baby Face Nelson and James Earl Ray drew headlines, and iconic scenes in movies like The Blues Brothers ensured that the prison walls themselves were instantly recognizable. From overlooked prisoner profiles to the kind of dramatic incidents that incited riots or inspired Hollywood, Amy Steidinger's stories cover the modern era of Old Joliet Prison.

Frontier Kansas Jails

9781467137768

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

Gunslingers, gamblers and outlaws vastly outnumbered sheriffs and marshals in the cattle towns of the Kansas frontier. Famous lawmen, such as Charlie Bassett, Wild Bill Hickok and Tom Smith, kept the peace by sheer force of personality and the integrity of the local lockup. The story of the state's settlement can be tracked in the fascinating development of these bastions of prairie justice. Makeshift jails of earlier times were replaced by limestone, brick and concrete structures with iron cells and elaborate locking systems. From the squirrel cage of Wichita to the iron jail of Lawrence City, tour these early Kansas prisons with author Gerald Bayens.

Jacktown

9781467135238

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

Competing with the likes of Detroit and Ann Arbor, Jackson won the battle to build Michigan's first state prison in 1838. During the era of the "Big House" and industrial growth, the penitentiary's on-site factories and cheap inmate labor helped Jackson become a thriving manufacturing city. In contrast to Jacktown's beautiful Greco-Roman exterior, medieval punishments, a strict code of silence, no heat, no electricity and a lack of plumbing defined life on the inside. Author Judy Gail Krasnow shares the incredible stories of life at Jacktown, replete with sadistic wardens, crafty escapees, Prohibition's Purple Gang, a chaplain who ran a brothel and influential reformers.

The Burlington County Prison:

9781609491055

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

Built in 1811 in Mount Holly and intended to be a short-term holding facility, Burlington County Prison became one of the most notorious prisons of its time as criminals of all sorts spent days, years or lifetimes in its dungeon-like cells. Renowned architect Robert Mills designed the structure to be escape-proof, but more than a few prisoners overcame that challenge. Murderers, kidnappers, abusers, alcoholics, the mentally ill and other undesirables"? served time here. Many were executed on the grounds, while others never left. From conception to construction, from criminal deviants to prisoners guilty of simply being poor, authors Dennis Rizzo and Dave Kimball explore the prison's past and present, the whole story of one of New Jersey's most well-known landmarks."