Products

Defined by a tangled web of deception for more than a century, Northwest Indiana's political culture involved secret handshakes, tapped phone calls, backroom deals and murder.

Found submerged in his car with a rock on the gas pedal, city official Babe Lopez's execution-style murder rocked East Chicago. Shot and killed at a political fundraiser, power broker Jay Given's murder occurred while four hundred guests mingled in a neighboring room. Former Lake Station mayor Keith Soderquist stole thousands of dollars from his reelection campaign and the city's food pantry account to gamble at local casinos. Author Jerry Davich explores the hidden political scandals and highly publicized court cases of public servants once sworn to serve and protect.

Down-home sayings, turns of phrase and expressions that have stood the test of time and tell the story of Eastern North Carolina word by word.

Growing up on a farm in the heart of eastern North Carolina's tobacco country, author Phil Beaman has been surrounded by country folk and their colorful language his entire life. Though these communities continue to change, the bond of their phrases, expressions, colloquialisms and just plain talk has remained within the hearts and minds of their people. Beaman chronicles this language in a humorous and fascinating collection of eastern North Carolina's most down-home sayings. Everything from the weather to drunken sayings to gobbledygook is presented straight from the horse's mouth. You may not know how to pronounce some of the words, but you will surely enjoy a trip back to the halcyon days of livin' off the land and chewin' the fat..

Lynching rumors simmered as journalists descended on the small town of Millington, Maryland, in the spring of 1892. The frenzy focused on nine African American men and boys--some as young as fifteen--accused of murdering Dr. James Heighe Hill, who was white. Prosecutors portrayed this as retribution for the Christmas Eve slaying of Thomas Campbell, an African American, for which no one faced criminal charges. Hill's alleged assailants were tried as a group before three white judges. Although some were clearly bystanders, all but one were convicted and sentenced. Four were executed by hanging, and the rest died in prison. Using court records, contemporary accounts and newspapers, author G. Kevin Hemstock narrates the tragic and compelling story of justice denied on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

Turn back the yellowing pages of Minnesota's past and explore the best of the state's worst moments, as chronicled in the Minneapolis Tribune and its successor newspapers. These stories and photos, culled from the Star Tribune's microfilm archive by author Ben Welter, range from the catastrophic to the merely curious. From a fire that destroyed the State Capitol in 1881, to a wordless fistfight that broke out on a Minneapolis street in 1898, a flu outbreak that killed more than 10,000 Minnesotans in 1918 and the arrest of Frank Lloyd Wright at a Lake Minnetonka cottage in 1926.

Shots rang out in a prominent Pittsfield family home on the morning of August 20, 1900, ending the life of young socialite May Fosburgh. Who pulled the trigger was unclear, and the scandal captivated attention well beyond the Berkshires. Her brother was a top suspect, but the distraught family claimed an intruder was to blame. Investigators, media and the public struggled to make sense of conflicting details, including suspicious gunpowder residue, as the mystery remained unsolved. Author Frank J. Leskovitz unravels the tale that still lingers in the hills generations later.

The three years from 1909 to 1911 were busy ones in Richmond, what with the misadventures of Adon A. Yoder, a muckraking
pamphleteer who gets beaten up, sued and thrown in jail; the organizing of women like Lila Meade Valentine to fight for their right to vote; the art of sculptor Ferruccio Legnaioli; the novels of Ellen Glasgow, Mary Johnston and James Branch Cabell; increased restrictions against African Americans; a public spectacle surrounding the murder trial of Henry Clay Beattie Jr.; exotic flying machines and automobile endurance contests; and the recording of Polk Miller and his Old South Quartette. Join local author Harry Kollatz Jr. (True Richmond Stories) as he revives the city of a century ago for a tour of Richmond in ragtime.

Uncover the details of the most murderous times in Birmingham Alabama's history.

A reign of terror swept the streets of Birmingham in the 1920s. Criminals armed with small axes attacked immigrant merchants and interracial couples, leaving dozens dead or injured over the course of four years. Desperate for answers, police accepted clues from a Ouija board, while citizens clamored for gun permits for protection. The city's Italian immigrants formed their own association as protection against the Black Hand, an organized band of brutal criminals. Eventually, the police turned to a dangerous and untested truth serum to elicit confessions. Four black men and a teenage girl were charged and tried, while copycat killers emerged from the woodwork. Journalist Jeremy Gray tackles one of the most curious and violent cases in Magic City history.