Products

From a hot springs attraction to a central location for gangsters, gambling, moonshine and organized crime, trace the evolution of this "loose buckle in the Bible belt", now a resort and major tourist destination.

In the late 1800s, Hot Springs, Arkansas, was a small town with a big attraction: hot thermal water. The federal government took possession of the downtown-area springs, and bathhouse row was born, along with the first property that would be considered a national park. Following not too far behind were great entrepreneurs who brought in gambling and prostitution to go with the area's leading industry: moonshining. By the time the 20th century rolled in, Hot Springs was booming with tourists and became America's first resort. In the early 1930s, former New York gangster Owen Madden took up residence in the spa city, and things became very organized. Gangland luminaries from Al Capone to Frank Costello made regular pilgrimages over the next few decades to what was referred to as "the loose buckle in the Bible Belt."

“Ninety percent of [what] was written about me is bullshit”

Isadore Blumenfeld, aka Kid Cann, came to Minnesota as a toddler when his family emigrated from Romania. In Prohibition-era Minneapolis, a city of vast wealth inequality and vicious antisemitism, young Isadore rose from impoverished newsboy to millionaire. Kid Cann’s ruthless determination, growing organized crime network and willingness to commit wanton violence ignited his meteoric ascent. He got away with innumerable crimes over four decades before a series of relatively minor offenses brought him down. Although ravaged by stress and stripped of his social stature, the infamous gangster earned a place in the folklore of Minnesota. Historian Ron de Beaulieu recounts the saga of the state’s most notorious crime boss.

Steubenville Ohio, a mecca of murder was nicknamed "Little Chicago" with gambling, prostitution, and bootlegging running rampant for over one hundred years.

Steubenville's Water Street red-light district drew men from hundreds of miles away, as well as underage runaways. The white slave trade was rampant, and along with all the vice crimes, murders became a weekly occurrence. Law enforcement seemed to turn a blind eye, and cries of political corruption were heard in the state capital. This scenario replayed itself over and over again during the past century as mobsters and madams ruled and murders plagued the city and county at an alarming rate.

From the duel on Bloody Island to the "Missouri Miracle'? kidnapping and recovery of Shawn Hornbeck, Missouri has seen its share of notorious crimes. The Show-Me State was home to the first Western gunfight on the town square between Wild Bill Hickok and Dave Tutt. The three trials of the alleged murderer of Colonel Thomas Swope, the founder of Kansas City's Swope Park, enveloped the state. Residents also saw the killings within a few blocks of each other that inspired the songs "Stagger Lee'? and "Frankie and Johnny.'? Vicki Berger Erwin and James W. Erwin explore crimes, criminals, and victims from the violent history of the last two hundred years in the Show-Me State.

Even in law-abiding southwestern Michigan, the Eighteenth Amendment turned ordinary citizens into scofflaws and sparked unprecedented unrest. Betta Holloway reached her breaking point when her husband, a Portland cop, was shot pursuing a rumrunner. She relieved his pain with a neighbor's homebrew. As farmers across the region fermented their fruit to make a living, gangsters like Al Capone amassed extraordinary wealth. Baby Face Nelson came to Grand Haven and proved that he had no aptitude for robbing banks. Even before the Volstead Act passed, Battle Creek bad guy Adam "Pump" Arnold routinely broke all local prohibition laws--and every other law as well. Meanwhile, Carrie Nation hectored Michigan with her "hatchetations." Authors Norma Lewis and Christine Nyholm reveal how the Noble Experiment fueled a rowdy, roaring, decade-long party.

Texas Guinan was the queen of New York's speakeasies in the Roaring Twenties. Her clubs were backed by leading gangsters and welcomed some of the city's biggest sharks and swankest swells. Movie stars, flappers, madams, musicians and more flocked to midtown's "Wet Zone," Greenwich Village and Harlem for inebriated entertainment. Patrons threw cultural norms aside as free-flowing hooch lubricated the jazz joints, sex circuses and drag balls that fueled the era's insurgent spirit. At the center of the party was Texas with her trademark catchphrases and guarantee to have a good time. Author David Rosen recounts Texas's adventurous life alongside tales of Gotham's nightlife when abstinence was the law of the land and breaking the law an all-American indulgence.

The Darker Side of Hampton County Hampton County is a rural county in South Carolina with a long and storied history, but it has a shady side. Author Michael DeWitt details the corruption, murders and crimes that remained in the memories of locals for years.>p/>