Name: Chronicles of Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin
Brand: Thomas H. Fehring
SKU: 9781626192171
Price: 23.99 USD
Availability: InStock

Chronicles of Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin

9781626192171

$23.99

Wander through a history of Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, told largely through the letters and recollections of early residents of the village. Current residents can get a sense of what it was like to live in their community during its formative years, as it was becoming the sort of place where literally every house has a story. In addition to giving a voice to familiar landmarks and beloved local characters, the story of Whitefish Bay also provides prime seating for the drama of Wisconsin at large during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Join editor Thomas Fehring as he fishes out the fascinating history of this remarkable coastal town..

Fading Ads of Milwaukee

9781467141987

$24.99

Across the city, fading advertisements and ghost signs tell the story of Milwaukee as it was in years gone by. Near Riverside Park, Schlitz still touts its national dominance decades after the brewery's dissolution. A recently restored downtown sign reminds passersby of the John Ernst Café, a once-beloved German eatery. In West Allis, Sealtest makes an expired pitch for its ice cream. On the northwest side of the city, a sign for Roundy's Foods stands as tall, bright and clear as the day it first went up. Join Milwaukee native and ghost sign hunter Adam Levin as he explores the national brands and local shops of the Cream City's past.

George Wallace in Wisconsin

9781467151375

$21.99

A revealing account of the tensions that embroiled Wisconsinites as Alabama Governor Wallace took his struggle north of the Mason-Dixon Line

George Wallace ran for president four times between 1964 and 1976. In the Badger State, his campaigns fueled a debate over constitutional principles and values. Wallace weaponized states' rights, arguing that the federal government should stay out of school segregation, promote law and order, restrict forced busing, and reduce burdensome taxation. White working-class Wisconsinites armed themselves with Wallace's rhetoric, pushing back on changes that threatened the status quo. Civil rights activists and the Black community in Wisconsin armed themselves with a different constitutional principle, equal protection, to push for strong federal protection of their civil rights. This clash of ideals nearly became literal as protests and counter-protests erupted until gradually diminishing as Wallace's political fortunes waned.

Historian Ben Hubing explores the tumult surrounding the so-called little man with the big mouth.

Haunted Chippewa Valley

9781609499778

$21.99

The Chippewa Valley is nestled snugly in a vast tract of Wisconsin farmland that offered early settlers a secure place to settle into the American dream. But the valley also harbors a strange and sometimes confusing past. From the boisterous activity of the lumber boom to the lingering stillness of the Eau Claire Asylum, this northwestern corner of the Badger State is filled with tragic stories and tall tales. Cast off with the ghost ferries of Caryville or stand vigil in the small, secluded cemetery where the spirits of children come out to play. Join Devon Bell on a journey into the eerie history of the Chippewa Valley.

Hidden History of the Wisconsin Dells Area

9781609490317

$21.99

The history of the Wisconsin Dells area is as unique as its glacier-sculpted landscape. It has been a gathering place for tribal councils, a vacation spot for enthralled tourists and a stopping point for the raftsmen who might have had a little too much of the Devil's Eyewater" brewed by pioneer Robert Allen. Local expert Ross M. Curry has been chronicling the region, from Baraboo to Lyndon, for almost sixty years. Join him for those chapters of the area's story that he himself has witnessed, and then follow him as he hikes back to a time before the Kilbourn Dam, when towns were lit by gaslight, justice might be enforced by duels or "necktie parties" and hardships had to be outlasted by tightknit families with unshakable faith and their own butter churns."

Hidden History of the Wisconsin Dells Area

Historic Milwaukee Public Schoolhouses

9781609497804

$21.99

It's no surprise we feel a connection to our schools, where we learn to read, write and forge social bonds of all kinds. They are potentially the scenes of our first crushes (and the second and third). They are where we learn to create ourselves. For more than a century, Milwaukee has taken its schoolhouses seriously, and it has a matchless variety of gorgeous landmarks to prove it. Robert Tanzilo pays homage to some long-lost schools, salutes some veteran survivors and examines the roles they play in their neighborhoods. Learn a little about some remarkable Milwaukee architects and see what the future may hold for some of the city's most beloved old buildings.

Lost Fox Cities

9781467140331

$21.99

The lumber kings and paper barons of the Fox River Valley transformed a wilderness of vast, rich timberlands and raging river waters into empires of pine, paper and power. In Oshkosh, lumber dynasties such as Paine and Morgan helped rebuild a nation ravaged by fire and war. Four young Neenah entrepreneurs with no experience in papermaking formed Kimberly-Clark, one of the largest paper manufacturers in the world. H.J. Rogers of Appleton watched his home light up the night after he wired it with Edison's electric lightbulbs, the first in the world to do so utilizing hydroelectricity. These men ushered in an era of opulence shining with steamboat excursions along the river, palatial mansions in plush neighborhoods and lavish hotels and movie houses. Much of this bygone age now exists only in photographs, written accounts or memories. Local photographer and historian Scott Wittman recovers this vanishing history.

Milwaukee Garage Bands

9781609496258

$23.99

Milwaukee hasn't earned a reputation as a launching pad for hopeful rock stars, but for generations it has had the perfect acoustics for the garage band rock scene. Of course, the whole point of garage rock is that every place has the perfect acoustics, but just try telling that to the folks who heard Blitzkrieg Over Kenosha for the first time. With dual citizenship in the research library and the basement show, Peter Roller follows Milwaukee's garage rockers everywhere they haul their amps, observing bands like the Stilettos, the Angry Daisies, the Palmettos, the Chevelles and the Violent Femmes in their natural habitat.

Cover image for Milwaukee Garage Bands, isbn: 9781609496258

Mysterious Madison:

9781609493691

$21.99

The city of Madison is no stranger to odd goings-on and events that just don't add up. Plunge into murky waters in search of the Lake Mendota monster or briefly part the clouds of the Great Airship Mystery of 1897, which was witnessed by such credible sources as "Wisconsin judges, good church-going folk and those not predisposed to drink whiskey." Please don't stare for too long at Myrtle Downing's shoes, which were said to be made from human skin. Revisit some of the murders that earned the intersection of Murray Street and Desmond Court the epithet "Death's Corner." And that is just a portion of the unsolved crimes, strange creatures and bizarre happenstance that make up Mysterious Madison.

On a Wisconsin Family Farm

9781467145282

$23.99

Based on Corey Geiger's popular Homesteader's Hope column, On a Wisconsin Family Farm flings the barn doors wide open to a cast of characters who built America's Dairyland.

In 1905, twenty-eight-year-old Anna Satorie, granddaughter of Bohemian immigrants, went against cultural norms and became the sole owner of her family's homestead when she purchased the farm from her father. The next year, Anna married neighboring farmer John Burich, also of Bohemian extraction, and the couple went about building a thrifty family farm. But pioneer life was fraught with trials and tribulations. Polio and tuberculosis claimed loved ones, and the difficulties of Prohibition forced the family to fabricate the death of John's bootlegging brother to keep gangsters away from the farm. Neighbors pitched in as fellow immigrant families helped construct farmsteads and support one another through unsanctioned bank loans, daring dynamite work, and barn raisings. Leaving work aside, this vibrant community also threw parties met by the rooster's early-dawn crow.

Pairing his rural roots with lively storytelling, Geiger captures six generations of farming, family, and faith.

Schuster's and Gimbels

9781609493899

$21.99

Love to shop? The residents of Milwaukee, Wisconsin were lucky to have Schuster's and Gimbels, a part of Milwaukee culture.

For well over a century, Milwaukee shoppers have had Gimbels or Schuster's on the brain. Even if they didn't crave sewing notions or prize-winning apple pies, they were watching holiday parades wind by, tuning in for Billie the Brownie's radio updates or losing themselves in front of one of the fabulous window displays. Not only were they magical places to shop but also wonderful places to work, creating the kind of community where a kid might come in to work the Christmas rush and stay for twenty-five years. Enjoy this loving trip through the history of these beloved stores, from their arrival in Milwaukee in the 1880s through the 1962 merger and beyond.

Sherman Park:

9781609496418

$19.99

Sherman Park residents blazed integration trails ahead of the slow progress of Greater Milwaukee and the country. Racial tensions and violence in the South drove nearly thirty thousand African Americans north to Milwaukee in the 1960s. Most of Milwaukee accepted overt racial prejudice. But in Sherman Park, mixed-race families found support, and activists of all races fought against discrimination in housing, schools, buses and even social clubs. The Sherman Park Community Association harnessed the power of community to change things for the better. Former association president Paul H. Geenen, who with his wife raised four children in Sherman Park, traces the blueprint his community mapped out for progress and diversity in Sherman Park: A Legacy of Diversity in Milwaukee.

Soul of a Port:

9781609490812

$21.99

Ever since her boat drifted up against the mammoth docks in Milwaukee's harbor, Leah Dobkin has been enthralled by the evolution of the port and the city so firmly moored to it. From an era when it was a "Milwaukee Miracle" to make landfall without losing luggage to a promising future powered by alternative energy, Soul of a Port is steered by that same sense of wonder. And since the port's story is not just one of nuts, bolts and cranes, Dobkin's narrative is also well crewed by the characters who have given the place such a fascinating legacy. Settle in for an entertaining passage that includes a longshoreman's poetry, the Milwaukee Clipper's recipe for prime rib, a tugboat ghost story and much, much more.

Wicked Watertown:

9781596298613

$21.99

Watertown is a perfect place to raise children, where criminal mischief and scandal are the rare exception to the rule. Discover over a century and a half's worth of exceptions. Travel back to the origins of Watertown, when the house next door might be a brothel and the man on the street might be a serial killer. Hear the tale of poor ninety-five-year-old Mary Kodesch, whose son left her to freeze to death in the barn, and that of the two young boys whose 1890 campaign of arson targeted everything from a church to a box factory. Then press on into the violent history of the Cleveland Street poltergeist house as Jannke delivers a thrilling combination of thoroughly researched fact and inexplicable mystery that will leave the hardiest Watertown residents torn between eagerly turning the next page and nervously looking over their shoulders.

Wisconsin at Antietam

9781467142151

$21.99

The Battle of Antietam was the bloodiest day in American history, and Wisconsin played a vital role. The Second, Sixth and Seventh Wisconsin Regiments served in the Iron Brigade, one of the most respected infantries in the Federal army, and fighting by their side in Maryland was the Third Wisconsin. The mettle of the Badger State was sorely tested and proven on South Mountain and on the bloody Miller's Cornfield. The Third alone lost more than half its men to death or injury, and the Iron Brigade, too, suffered extraordinary losses. Yet Wisconsin's sacrifices at Antietam rebuffed the Confederate incursion into Northern territory and enabled the Emancipation Proclamation. Civil War historian Cal Schoonover sheds new light on the exploits of Wisconsin soldiers in this turning point to secure the Union.

Wisconsin Farm Lore

9781609495381

$19.99

It's well nigh impossible to break into Wisconsin's history without picking up some respectable dirt in the way of farm lore, country wisdom and undisputed records of agricultural prowess. And when it comes to the Badger State, few people are as familiar with the soil of its stories as Martin Hintz. In his company, tramp across cranberry bogs, study centuries of beer and cheese pairings and give an affectionate thump to a 1, 810.5-pound pumpkin. Discover variety beyond crops and livestock and share in the dedication that planted victory gardens during World War II and the unadulterated joy of sliding down a straw pile in threshing season.

Wisconsin Legends & Lore

9781467143448

$21.99

A great read for those interested in Wisconsin history as well as those who like a great campfire story, Wisconsin Legends & Lore explores a rich diversity of stories from around the state.

Wisconsin is a land rich with stories. It was the "mother of all circuses,'? a place of buried treasure and home to eerie ghosts and monsters. Native American legends, tall tales told at lumberjack camps and taverns, ghost lore and modern urban legends all form the wonderful mythology of the Dairy State. Many know of Rhinelander's famous Hodag, the Beast of Bray Road in Elkhorn, Milwaukee's haunted Pfister Hotel and the Ridgeway Ghost. But few have heard obscure tales like the Christmas Tree Ghost Ship of Two Rivers, the Goatman of Richfield's Hogsback Road and the legend of the Witch's Tower of Whitewater.

Author Tea Krulos, an expert in all things strange and unusual, digs up Wisconsin favorites and arcane lore.