Landmarks

One night in 1874, a murderer crept into a New Braunfels home and killed twelve-year-old Emma Voelcker with an axe. The prime suspect was a family friend named Faust, lodging in the nearby Magnolia Hotel. A future governor prosecuted Faust, and an unknown assailant snuck past thirty-six armed guards to assassinate him. More than a century later, when Erin Wallace and her husband, Jim Ghedi, began restoring the hotel, first opened during the wild days of the Texas republic, they experienced eerie echoes from the past. One presence in particular cut through the chaos of slammed doors and roaming shadows to guide them to the Magnolia's darkest mystery. Wading through trial transcripts, newspaper archives and messages from disturbed ghosts, they discovered a secret history of Emma's death, a possible cover-up and its continuing legacy.

Author Gil Klein reveals the fascinating role of Lafayette Square in the nation's history.

Lafayette Square near the White House is surrounded by landmarks and steeped in a fascinating history of rebellion. A congressman shot and killed the son of Francis Scott Key in broad daylight on the square and got away with it. On the night Lincoln was assassinated, a co-conspirator forced his way into Secretary of State William Seward's house and nearly killed him. The women's suffrage movement created the White House protest that goes on to this day. Puerto Rican nationalists tried to force their way into the Blair House to assassinate President Truman, who was living there.