Illinois

Illinois history exceeds the capacity of the Sears Catalog for categorization and the World’s Fair for spectacle. And no matter what the self-appointed tour guide at the local diner might say, the heritage of the land of Lincoln doesn’t end with Capone’s demise. Like the Chicago Loop, the Prairie State’s past seems to defy straightforward chronology—Cahokia offered a version of urban sprawl more than a thousand years before the first Windy City skyscraper. From Park Forest to Cave-in-Rock, scan our shelf of Illinois history books with the unflagging enthusiasm of a Wrigley Field hot dog vendor. [View all Illinois books]
Filter
75 products
Oak Park
Oak Park
$24.99
Nick Blase:
Nick Blase:
$23.99
Effingham County:
Effingham County:
$21.99
Murder and Mayhem in Chicago's Vice Districts
Murder and Mayhem in Chicago's Vice Districts
$21.99
Boone County Originals:
Boone County Originals:
$21.99

Oak Park

9781609490706

$24.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%

Journey to the past with historian David M. Sokol as he reveals the city that nurtured and inspired the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Ray Kroc and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Though it is a handsome village, with stately trees and often-generous lawns, Oak Park has neither major waterways nor dramatic vistas. But it is rich in figures of historical importance such as Ernest Hemingway, Doris Humphrey, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Percy Julian, Ray Kroc, and William Barton. It is also blessed with the world's largest concentration of Prairie School buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and his followers. The Oak Park community has nurtured such innovation with one hand while fiercely holding on to its own identity with the other, negotiating its relationship with Chicago and facing down a century and a half of constantly-shifting challenges.

Oak Park

Nick Blase:

9781609495497

$23.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
Nick Blase ruled the Chicago suburb of Niles for almost half a century, defeating every challenger and even facing down legendary Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley on occasion. Ultimately, Blase, the longest-sitting mayor in the country, resigned from office following an arrest on federal corruption charges the morning of his seventy-eighth birthday. He pled guilty and was sentenced to a year and a day in prison. Despite the cloud over his tenure, there is no doubt Blase made a huge impact on the sleepy suburb, turning the postwar bedroom community into an economic powerhouse that ranked with the largest cities in the state. After exhaustive research and hours of personal interviews, Andrew Schneider has put together a fascinating portrait of Blase's political career.
Nick Blase:

Effingham County:

9781596299658

$21.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
Those who have halted their treks down the National Road in Effingham County form a diverse band of characters, from Joseph Boleyjack, known as the "parched corn, summer preacher," to polished orators like William Jennings Bryan, who continued exhorting enthusiastic Effingham crowds as his train pulled away. Donaldson traces this story back to before this land was known as Effingham, to the burial mounds of the Kickapoo. He presses on through the challenges the county's determined inhabitants faced in the twentieth century, from the horrors witnessed abroad in the world wars to those faced at home during the Great Depression and in the tragic St. Anthony's Hospital fire. His obvious passion for the county's past is sure to strike a spark with lifelong residents and new arrivals alike.
Effingham County:

Murder and Mayhem in Chicago's Vice Districts

9781596296923

$21.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
From the very beginning, Chicago thrived on its reputation as a wide-open town. After the Great Fire, no part of the city was rebuilt more quickly than the vice districts, where bribed cops and brutal force emboldened professional wickedness to celebrate itself with gala events like the First Ward Ball, begun in honor of a madam's pianist and often so crowded that passed-out drunks couldn't even fall to the floor. Randolph Street was nicknamed Gambler's Row because men gambled with their lives by visiting it. In Little Hell, guns and knives could be rented by the hour. In these seedy areas only put to sleep by Mickey Finn's knockout drinks or Gentle Annie's knockout punches, it is no wonder that Detective Woolridge kept seventy-five disguises, made twenty thousand arrests and was shot at forty-four times.
Murder and Mayhem in Chicago's Vice Districts

Boone County Originals:

9781596299382

$21.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
Daniel Boone may never have set foot in the Illinois county that bears his name, but his tradition of blazing new trails is certainly honored here. Boone County has been the home of Native American legends, a Major League Baseball player, a Miss America and a cross-dressing Civil War soldier. And don't forget Hairbreadth Harry, King of the Hobos, "? who wrote poetry, walked backward and bathed in gasoline. Enjoy the best of Mike Doyle's historical columns as he introduces the fascinating folk of this "garden on the prairie, "? where some of the tallest tales are true."
Boone County Originals: