New Book Releases

Through the years, relentless change has swept away many of Mishawaka’s businesses and landmarks and the memory of once-prominent events.

The Great Mishawaka Fire of September 5, 1872, destroyed much of the central business district and changed the downtown forever. The street carnival of August 1901 was the most exciting week in the city’s history but later faded into obscurity. The Twin Branch Power Plant supplied the region with electricity, but hardly a trace of it remains today. The massive Rubber Regenerating Company operated for over twenty years, and now a popular park exists atop its buried rubble. Center Point Tower, the landmark that never was, pointed the way to downtown’s future revitalization.

Peter J. De Kever finds these and other lost stories from Mishawaka’s past.

Echoes of the past can be found in every corner of Monroe County.

Incredibly, the county has over a hundred lost towns across its fifteen townships. Some of these towns have notorious histories, such as the murderer who founded a village and the town that robbed its own citizens. Some succumbed to tragedy, including one that was swallowed up by the water and a resort town that disappeared. Others were simply absorbed by another state. Local historian and author of Hidden History of Monroe County, Michigan, Shawna Mazur collects the stories behind these vanished communities, revealing where these towns were located, how they grew and why they disappeared, often without a trace.

Explore the city of yesteryear

East Chicago, Indiana, was a melting pot. The Indiana Harbor neighborhood drew comparisons to Ellis Island as immigrants flocked from all over the world to work at its steel mills. Once home to more than a hundred nationalities, the “Workshop of America” made metal and many other products. Despite issues like pollution and political corruption, it earned the nickname “City of Champions,” winning state titles, sustaining a historic high school rivalry, and producing greats like Gregg Popovich and Junior Bridgeman.

Award-winning Region journalist and Lost Hammond author Joseph S. Pete explores bygone landmarks like Washington and Roosevelt High Schools, Inland Steel Christmas parties, the zoo, Taco Joe’s, the Mademoiselle Shoppe, movies palaces, the gym where Michael Jordan played his first Bulls game, and more.

White County has been acquainted with loss since its very beginning. First formed in 1834, the county saw its first citizens, the Potawatomi, removed to Kansas in September 1838. As time went by, communities like Wyoming never developed, and others like Headlee died out. Numerous high schools, including Buffalo, Idaville, Round Grove, Wolcott and six others, disappeared with consolidation in the 1960s. Longtime businesses like Bartlett Ford, Ben Franklin Dime Store, Miller's Department Store, and Kentucky Fried Chicken are long gone. Manufacturers like Bryan's Manufacturing, RCA, and McGill Manufacturing have died out, and organizations like the Knights of Pythias, Monticello Jaycees, and the Moose have faded away. Authors W.C. Madden and Maria Salvo Benson lead a journey through vanished people and places of White County.

Indiana Authors Awards (Nonfiction) 2024

More than two centuries removed from its founding, Indianapolis has seen its share of landmarks and landscapes pass into memory. Some have totally vanished, such as the National Road covered bridge over the White River, the Marion County Courthouse, the 1835 Indiana Statehouse and the previous headquarters for the long-standing Flanner House organization. Others still exist, but not in their original location or form, like Pogue’s Run, the Central Canal through downtown and the remnants of structures at Riverside Park. Indianapolis historian Edward Fujawa explores the history of lost sites, how they appear today and how some are still used or repurposed.

Nestled in the Loess Hills, Council Bluffs grew from a frontier settlement of wickiups and log cabins. The outpost boomed as a gateway to the West when gold was discovered in California in 1849. The Pacific House and the Ogden House became landmark hotels for the transient population. Meanwhile, residents thrived and cultivated a bustling city with the Masonic Hall, Dohany's Opera House and the Merriam block. None of these once iconic buildings remains today. Author S.M. Senden explores the perpetual rebirth of Council Bluffs through its most important buildings and relates a still unfolding story.

The massive steel mills of Youngstown once fueled the economic boom of the Mahoning Valley. Movie patrons took in the latest flick at the ornate Paramount Theater, and mob bosses dressed to the nines for supper at the Colonial House. In 1977, the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company announced the closure of its steelworks in a nearby city. The fallout of the ensuing mill shutdowns erased many of the city's beloved landmarks and neighborhoods. Students hurrying across a crowded campus tread on the foundations of the Elms Ballroom, where Duke Ellington once brought down the house. On the lower eastside, only broken buildings and the long-silent stacks of Republic Rubber remain. Urban explorer and historian Sean T. Posey navigates a disappearing cityscape to reveal a lost era of Youngstown.

Explore the stories behind Columbus' most stunning landmarks, both those sadly lost and others miraculously saved.

As the crossroads city of the Midwest, Columbus has always thrived. Over the years, many of the city's most important and most beautiful buildings--packed with marble, ornate metalwork, painted ceilings and glitz and glamour--have been reduced to dust or left in disrepair. Union Station and stately mansions of well-to-do industrialists are no longer there to tell the story of the city. The Alfred Kelley Mansion, the Chittenden Hotel, the Franklin County Courthouse, and the Walk of Wonders in the Great Western Shopping Center were lost, but the palatial Ohio Theatre and the modest Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker home, both designated National Historic Landmarks, were saved. Tom Betti and Doreen Uhas Sauer, authors of Historic Hotels of Columbus and Historic Taverns of Columbus, recapture stories and memories of a forgotten Columbus.

Many of the places that helped make Dayton a center of innovation were lost to history, while others survived and adapted, representing the city's spirit of revitalization.

Some of the city's distinctive and significant structures, such as Steele High School and the Callahan Building, were demolished, while others, including the Arcade and Centre City Building, saw hard times but now await redevelopment. Entire neighborhoods, such as the Haymarket, and commercial districts, such as West Fifth Street, vanished and show no traces of their past. Others, including the popular Oregon District, narrowly escaped the wrecking ball. From the Wright Brothers Factory to the park that hosted the first NFL game, Andrew Walsh explores the diverse selection of retail, industrial, entertainment and residential sites from Dayton's disappearing legacy.

From the arrival of the first steamship to Lake Michigan in 1821 through the turbulent booms and busts of more than 130 years, passenger steamers of this bygone era provided an essential link for immigrants, excursionists, businesspeople and leisure travelers. On offer were dining, dancing, day trips and luxurious shipboard settings, but mishaps like storms, fires and shipwrecks were a persistent danger to passengers and crew alike. Through fascinating tales and splendid images, Lost Passenger Steamships of Lake Michigan presents the romantic and sometimes dangerous story of a vanished industry that once connected communities all long Lake Michigan's shores.