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Cover image for Central Ohio's Historic Prisons, isbn: 9780738560038
Central Ohio's Historic Prisons
$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%
Chicago to Springfield
Chicago to Springfield
$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%
Crusading Iowa Journalist Verne Marshall
Crusading Iowa Journalist Verne Marshall
$21.99
Frontier Kansas Jails
Frontier Kansas Jails
$21.99
Cover image for Inside the Ohio Penitentiary, isbn: 9781626190979
Inside the Ohio Penitentiary
$21.99
Jacktown
Jacktown
$21.99
Lansing Correctional Facility
Lansing Correctional Facility
$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%
Leavenworth Seven
Leavenworth Seven
$21.99
Cover image for Missouri State Penitentiary, isbn: 9780738590806
Missouri State Penitentiary
$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%
Murder & Mayhem on Ohio's Rails
Murder & Mayhem on Ohio's Rails
$23.99
Prohibition in Kansas City, Missouri
Prohibition in Kansas City, Missouri
$21.99
Sheboygan Tales of the Tragic & Bizarre
Sheboygan Tales of the Tragic & Bizarre
$21.99
The Burger Chef Murders in Indiana
The Burger Chef Murders in Indiana
$21.99
The Ku Klux Klan in Minnesota
The Ku Klux Klan in Minnesota
$21.99
The Ohio State Reformatory
The Ohio State Reformatory
$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%
The Original Battle Creek Crime King: Adam “Pump” Arnold’s Vile Reign
The Original Battle Creek Crime King: Adam “Pump” Arnold’s Vile Reign
$21.99
Wicked Women of Ohio
Wicked Women of Ohio
$23.99
Wisconsin State Reformatory
Wisconsin State Reformatory
$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

Central Ohio's Historic Prisons

9780738560038

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%
With the opening of the Ohio State Reformatory in 1896, the state legislature had put in place the most complete prison system, in theory, which exists in the United States. The reformatory joined the Ohio Penitentiary and the Boys Industrial School, also central-Ohio institutions, to form the first instance of graded prisons; with the reform farm on one side of the new prison, for juvenile offenders, and the penitentiary on the other, for all the more hardened and incorrigible class. However, even as the concept was being replicated throughout the country, the staffs of the institutions were faced with the day-to-day struggle of actually making the system work.
Cover image for Central Ohio's Historic Prisons, isbn: 9780738560038

Chicago to Springfield

9780738583730

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%
The story of Chicago gangsters in the 1920s is legendary. Less talked about is the tale of the politicians who allowed those gangsters to thrive. During the heyday of organized crime in the Prohibition era, Chicago mayor "Big Bill" Thompson and Gov. Len Small were the two most powerful political figures in Illinois. Thompson campaigned on making Chicago "a wide open town" for bootleggers. Small sold thousands of pardons and paroles to criminals, embezzled $1 million, and was then acquitted after mobsters bribed the jury. This book is the story of those Jazz Age politicians whose careers in government thrived on and endorsed corruption and racketeering, from Chicago to Springfield. It complements author Jim Ridings's groundbreaking biography, Len Small: Governors and Gangsters, which was praised by critics and situated Ridings as a trailblazer among Chicago crime authors.
Chicago to Springfield

Crusading Iowa Journalist Verne Marshall

9781467135979

$21.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
On December 12, 1934, police raided a canning factory in Cedar Rapids, uncovering an illegal liquor and gambling set-up. Verne Marshall, tempestuous editor of the Cedar Rapids Gazette, sensed a bigger story and a wider network of corruption. His aggressive investigative reporting led to multiple resignations, nearly fifty indictments and the dramatic trial of the state's attorney general. These explosive exposés earned Verne Marshall and the paper the 1936 Pulitzer Prize. Author Jerry Harrington traces the legacy of Marshall's incendiary crusade across Iowa's political landscape.
Crusading Iowa Journalist Verne Marshall

Frontier Kansas Jails

9781467137768

$21.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
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.
Frontier Kansas Jails

Inside the Ohio Penitentiary

9781626190979

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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.

Cover image for Inside the Ohio Penitentiary, isbn: 9781626190979

Jacktown

9781467135238

$21.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
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.
Jacktown

Lansing Correctional Facility

9781467112468

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%
Since 1868, the Lansing Correctional Facility (formerly the Kansas State Penitentiary) has stood watch over what would become the city of Lansing. Designed by Erasmus Carr, architect of the Kansas State Capitol, the prison is the oldest in Kansas. In the beginning, it housed male and female inmates from Kansas and Oklahoma, as well as inmates serving federal sentences. Today, the facility's population of minimum, medium, maximum, and special management custody offenders is approximately 2,400. Leavenworth County has also seen the addition of the United States Disciplinary Barracks, United States Penitentiary-Leavenworth, and Corrections Corporation of America-Leavenworth, making it the only county in the country to host a state, military, federal, and private prison. Images of America: Lansing Correctional Facility features photographs of the early days, when inmates were on the "silent system" and could not speak to one another, to more modern times when rehabilitation has become an important component of prison life.
Lansing Correctional Facility

Leavenworth Seven

9781467140409

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On December 11, 1931, chaos erupted behind Leavenworth's limestone penitentiary walls as seven desperate men put months of planning into action. Aided by notorious gangsters Frank Nash, George "Machine Gun" Kelly and Thomas James Holden, they blazed a path to freedom with stolen cars and terrorized hostages. Anyone who could carry a gun and knew the terrain quickly picked up the pursuit. Kenneth LaMaster wades into the flying bullets of first-person accounts, news reports and official FBI files for the full story of the frenzied prison break.
Leavenworth Seven

Missouri State Penitentiary

9780738590806

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%
The Missouri State Penitentiary was established in 1833 via a bill passed by the state legislature, and the first prisoner was incarcerated in 1835. Inmates constructed the main prison building from rock quarried at the site in 1836. The penitentiary closed on September 15, 2004, and plans are in place to redevelop the site into offices for state agencies and private enterprises. The Missouri State Penitentiary was once considered one of the largest maximum-security penal institutions in the United States. After 550 serious assaults occurred inside the prison in the early 1960s, Time magazine called it "the bloodiest 47 acres in America" (although the walls of the penitentiary only contained 37 acres). The penitentiary had the distinction of housing some very famous individuals: boxing champion Sonny Liston learned to box there under the direction of the prison
chaplain, infamous gangster Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd spent time there, and James Earl Ray was an escapee when he shot and killed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Cover image for Missouri State Penitentiary, isbn: 9780738590806

Murder & Mayhem on Ohio's Rails

9781626192607

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Ride Ohio's rails with some of the bravest trainmen and most vicious killers and robbers to ever roll down the tracks.

The West may have had Jesse James and Butch Cassidy, but Ohio had its own brand of train robbers. Discover how Alvin Karpis knocked off an Erie Railroad train and escaped with $34,000. Learn about the first peacetime train holdup that took place in North Bend when thieves derailed the Kate Jackson, robbed its passengers and blew the Adam's Express safe. Make no mistake--railroading was a dangerous job in bygone days.

Murder & Mayhem on Ohio's Rails

Prohibition in Kansas City, Missouri

9781467138710

$21.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
Like most cities during Prohibition, Kansas City had illegal alcohol, bootleggers, speakeasies, cops on the take, corrupt politicians and moralizing reformers. But by the time the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed, Kansas City had been singled out by one observer as one of the wettest cities, as well as the wickedest. A grocer managed a still in the basement of his store. A raid on the Tingle Oil Company found two hundred drums of oil and the largest illegal brewery ever found in the state. This seedy underworld transformed the Heart of America into the Paris of the Plains. Author John Simonson resurrects forgotten stories by revisiting places where they occurred and telling the salacious history of booze in Kansas City.
Prohibition in Kansas City, Missouri

Sheboygan Tales of the Tragic & Bizarre

9781609490355

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The untold stories of the tranquil town of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, that have been swept under the rug or lost over the years.

Sheboygan deserves its reputation as a conservative city clean, quiet and law-abiding. But here are some stories that have been swept under the rug or lost overboard. Venture into the mists of the ""Lake Michigan Triangle"" that have swallowed boats, planes and entire tribes. Investigate speakeasy shootings, safes burgled by a fly swatter, poisoned Christmas candy, flaming shipwrecks and the hoax that had militiamen firing on their own cattle. Or just sit down with some bizarre anecdotes about a hometown you thought you knew, from the town's first baseball game to the man freed from jail by a jug of whiskey to the deputy sheriff who had to enforce Nicholas Hoffman's first bath in 50 years.

Sheboygan Tales of the Tragic & Bizarre

The Burger Chef Murders in Indiana

9781467143080

$21.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
The evening of November 17, 1978, should have been like any other for the four young crewmembers closing the Burger Chef at 5725 Crawfordsville Road in Speedway, Indiana. After serving customers and locking the doors for the night, the kids began their regular cleanup to ready the restaurant for the following day. But then something went horribly wrong. Just before midnight, someone muscled into the place, robbed the store of $581 and kidnapped the four employees. Over the next two days, investigators searched in vain for the missing crewmembers before their bodies were discovered more than twenty miles away. The killer or killers were never caught. Join Julie Young on an exploration of one of the most baffling cold cases in Indiana history.
The Burger Chef Murders in Indiana

The Ku Klux Klan in Minnesota

9781626191891

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Minnesota might not seem like an obvious place to look for traces of Ku Klux Klan parade grounds, but this northern state was once home to fifty-one chapters of the KKK. Elizabeth Hatle tracks down the history of the Klan in Minnesota, beginning with the racially charged atmosphere that produced the tragic 1920 Duluth lynchings. She measures the influence the organization wielded at the peak of its prominence within state politics and tenaciously follows the careers of the Klansmen who continued life in the public sphere after the Hooded Order lost its foothold in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes.
The Ku Klux Klan in Minnesota

The Ohio State Reformatory

9781467114899

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

What started as an institution to reform young and non-violent criminals became one of the most infamous prisons in American history.


Before 1884, most first-time offenders between the ages of 16 and 30 were housed in the Ohio Penitentiary, where they were likely to be influenced by hardened criminals. That changed when the Ohio Legislature approved the building of a reformatory, a new type of institution that would educate and train these young men. Since its opening in 1896, the reformatory expanded its training programs and became a self-sustaining institution - the largest of its kind in the United States. By 1970, the reformatory had become a maximum-security prison filled with the most dangerous criminals in the U.S., with a death row but no death chamber. It closed on December 31, 1990, but preservation and restoration efforts are ongoing, and it continues to be as infamous today as in its heyday, appearing in numerous television shows and feature films, including The Shawshank Redemption.

The Ohio State Reformatory

The Original Battle Creek Crime King: Adam “Pump” Arnold’s Vile Reign

9781467119290

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Adam "Pump" Arnold was both feared and regaled in Victorian- era Battle Creek. He was a bootlegger and a pimp, a robber and a con artist, an arsonist and a loan shark and even an assassin. Arnold faced off with the city over illegal liquor sales and flaunted his victory with a life-size statue of the mayor dressed as a hobo. Called the "greatest criminal in the history of Battle Creek," Arnold was convicted in a captivating public trial for the murder of his own son. Join authors Blaine Pardoe and Victoria Hester as they explore the life and misdeeds of the unabashed criminal mastermind who rocked Battle Creek to its core.
The Original Battle Creek Crime King: Adam “Pump” Arnold’s Vile Reign

Wicked Women of Ohio

9781467138260

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Award-winning crime writer Jane Ann Turzillo recounts the stories of Ohio's most notorious vixens, viragoes and villainesses.


The Buckeye State produced its share of wicked women. Tenacious madam Clara Palmer contended with constant police raids during the 1880s and '90s. Only her death could shut the doors of her gilded bordello in Cleveland. Failed actress Mildred Gillars left for Europe right before World War II. Because she fell in love with the wrong man, she wound up peddling Nazi propaganda on the radio as "Axis Sally." Volatile Hester Foster was already doing time at the Ohio State Penitentiary when she bashed in the head of a fellow inmate with a shovel. The sinister Anna Marie Hahn dosed at least five elderly Cincinnati men with arsenic and croton oil and then watched them die in agony while pretending to nurse them back to health.

Wicked Women of Ohio

Wisconsin State Reformatory

9780738577159

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%
In 1897, the Wisconsin state legislature approved the creation of the Wisconsin State Reformatory on a 200-acre site between Green Bay and De Pere. It was born during a period of profound change when liberal reformers began to question the traditional punitive approach employed in American prisons. The result was a shift from a punishment-based system to one that favored progressive rehabilitation within the framework of the traditional prison model. Elmira, New York, may have served as the reformatory model, but no other state embraced the idea more fully than Wisconsin. For more than 50 years, the Wisconsin State Reformatory remained faithful to the reform mission, adapting to changes when necessary but always maintaining a strong link to its past.
Wisconsin State Reformatory