Missouri

Taking its cue from St. Louis architecture, the Show Me State operates as a gateway to discovery. The wonders of the 1904 World’s Fair, the scenic passage of Route 66 and the quest for that perfect meal in Columbia all testify to that exploratory drive. But like the restless rivers that gave Mark Twain his alias and inspiration, Missouri’s history proves no frontier provides uncontested passage. In the vicinity of Civil War guerillas or Prohibition Era bootleggers, an unlocked door could invite calamity. Crack open our catalogue of Missouri history books for a portal into the state’s adventurous heritage. [View all Missouri books]
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Missouri's Murderous Matrons
Missouri's Murderous Matrons
$21.99
The Life and Times of Missouri's Charles Parsons
The Life and Times of Missouri's Charles Parsons
$23.99
Hooked Rugs of the Midwest:
Hooked Rugs of the Midwest:
$21.99
Civil War Ghosts of Southwest Missouri
Civil War Ghosts of Southwest Missouri
$21.99
The Heart of Branson: The Entertaining Families of America's Live Music Show Capital
The Heart of Branson: The Entertaining Families of America's Live Music Show Capital
$21.99
Wicked Springfield, Missouri:
Wicked Springfield, Missouri:
$21.99
Desperadoes of the Ozarks
Desperadoes of the Ozarks
$15.95
Haunted Joplin
Haunted Joplin
$21.99
Haunted Jefferson City:
Haunted Jefferson City:
$21.99
The Haunted Boonslick: Ghosts, Ghouls & Monsters of Missouri's Heartland
The Haunted Boonslick: Ghosts, Ghouls & Monsters of Missouri's Heartland
$21.99
Wicked Joplin
Wicked Joplin
$21.99
St. Louis Jazz
St. Louis Jazz
$21.99
The Waldo Story: The Home of Friendly Merchants
The Waldo Story: The Home of Friendly Merchants
$21.99
The Battle of Carthage
The Battle of Carthage
$17.95
Wise Animal Handbook Missouri, The
Wise Animal Handbook Missouri, The
$16.99
Live! At the Ozark Opry
Live! At the Ozark Opry
$21.99
Bald Knobbers
Bald Knobbers
$16.95

Missouri's Murderous Matrons

9781467140720

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At the turn of the twentieth century, people in Missouri experienced unexpected and horrible deaths due to arsenic. Two different women in two different areas of Missouri, and for two different reasons, used arsenic as a means to get what they wanted. Emma Heppermann, a black widow killer, craved money. Bertha Gifford, an angel of mercy, took sick people into her home and nursed them to death. Follow the trails of these women who murdered for decades before being tried and convicted. From Wentzville to Steelville, Emma left a trail of bodies. And Bertha is suspected of killing almost 10 percent of the population of the little town of Catawissa. Authors Victoria Cosner and Lorelei Shannon offer the gruesome history of Missouri's murderous matrons.
Missouri's Murderous Matrons

The Life and Times of Missouri's Charles Parsons

9781467144445

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Charles Parsons is one of St. Louis's and the nation's most influential yet little-known figures. He was instrumental to the Union cause as a Civil War quartermaster and advisor to generals, politicians and presidents alike. As a world-traveling art connoisseur, he helped found the first art museum west of the Mississippi, to which he donated his remarkable collection of American, European and Asian art. To this day, his philanthropic work and dedication to education live on in some of the country's grandest institutions. Author John Launius tells the full story for the first time, from business failures in a riverside boomtown to national renown.
The Life and Times of Missouri's Charles Parsons

Civil War Ghosts of Southwest Missouri

9781609492670

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For southwest Missouri, the Civil War was an unparalleled period of violence, sorrow and anger. As the torches burned the physical landscape, the depredations inflicted were also scorched upon the psyche of the people who lived through fires. Survey Carthage's battlefield for stubborn holdouts or hold vigil at the Kendrick House for innocent bystanders who were swept up into the stratagems of bushwhackers and guerrillas. Meet the Bloody Spikes, Rotten Johnny Reb and scores more figures from the region's past who continue to trouble its present.
Civil War Ghosts of Southwest Missouri

The Heart of Branson: The Entertaining Families of America's Live Music Show Capital

9781609490041

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Millions of Americans cherish childhood memories of family trips to Branson to see performances by the Baldknobbers or the Presleys. Now they take their own children to see how new generations of those same entertaining families continue to split sides and tug heartstrings. Go backstage with Arline Chandler in places like Silver Dollar City and the Shepherd of the Hills. Reminisce in the stories of the people who made Branson into the showbiz marvel that it is today while holding on to the values of hard work and family at the town's cultural foundation. And learn about the emergence of newer acts like the Duttons, the Hughes Brothers and Shoji Tabuchi in a place where Broadway and the backwoods shake hands and SIX voices is all that is needed to produce a full orchestra.
The Heart of Branson: The Entertaining Families of America's Live Music Show Capital

Wicked Springfield, Missouri:

9781609497354

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From its founding in the early 1830s, Springfield was a rough frontier town where whiskey flowed freely, gunplay and fistfights abounded and gambling thrived. The Civil War not only brought the horror of warfare home to Springfield but also introduced worldly vices like prostitution that were scarcely known in previous years. Yet throughout its history, Springfield has managed to maintain a veneer of respectability not shared by certain other towns of southwest Missouri that were founded as wild, wide-open mining camps, like Joplin and Granby. Join Larry Wood as he digs beneath the surface of Queen City history to expose notorious characters and capers that would make even Joplinites blush.
Wicked Springfield, Missouri:

Haunted Joplin

9781609496326

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The barrier between Joplin's boisterous past and its present is as flimsy as a swinging saloon door. Lisa Livingston-Martin kicks it wide open in this ghostly history. In her expert company, tour a hotel with a reputation made from equal parts opulence and tragedy. Visit that house of horrors, the Stefflebeck Bordello, where guests regularly got the axe and were disposed of in mine shafts. Navigate through angry lynch mobs and vengeful patrols of Civil War spirits. Catch a glimpse of Bonnie and Clyde. Keep your wits about you--it's haunted Joplin.
Haunted Joplin

Haunted Jefferson City:

9781609494865

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Missouri's state capital groans beneath the burden of its haunted heritage, from the shadow people of Native American folklore to Boogie Man Bill, Missouri's wild child. The muddy river waters hide the shifting graves of steamboat crews, like the one that went down with the Montana, and the savage scars of the Civil War still linger on the land. Join Janice Tremeear for the fascinating history behind Jefferson City's most chilling tales, including a visit to the notorious Missouri State Penitentiary, where the vicious festered for 170 years.
Haunted Jefferson City:

The Haunted Boonslick: Ghosts, Ghouls & Monsters of Missouri's Heartland

9781609492083

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There is some uncertainty about the exact borders of the region that bounds the Boonslick trail but little doubt about the palpable and unsettling presence of its history. Stir up Missourians from St. Louis to Jackson County with the mention of ghosts, and after a few minutes of demurring, you will soon have more stories than you can shake a sheet at. Attend to the haunting music of John Blind" Boone or the otherworldly poetry of Patience Worth. Crouch down in Civil War battlefields, crowded taverns or the uncomfortable saddle of a headless horse. Wend your way through Missouri's haunted heart: the Boonslick."
The Haunted Boonslick: Ghosts, Ghouls & Monsters of Missouri's Heartland

Wicked Joplin

9781609490935

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A strange sort of pride tends to embellish infamy, like the notion that Frank and Jesse James robbed every bank in Missouri. But the citizens of Joplin need not exaggerate their community's unsavory past. Founded in the 1870s as a booming lead-mining camp, Joplin was a wide-open town from the start, and its wild reputation persisted into the mid-twentieth century. A neighboring town's newspaper aptly described Joplin as a naughty place."? Join author Larry Wood on a colorful tour of the city's raucous past."
Wicked Joplin

St. Louis Jazz

9781467141741

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In the early twentieth century, St. Louis was a hotbed for ragtime and blues, both roots of jazz music. In 1914, Jelly Roll Morton brought his music to the area. In 1919, Louis Armstrong came to town to play on the "floating conservatories" that plied the Mississippi. Miles Davis, the most famous of the city's jazz natives, changed the course of the genre four different times throughout a world-renowned career. The Black Artists Group of the 1970s was one of the first to bring world music practices into jazz. Author Dennis C. Owsley chronicles the ways both local and national St. Louis musicians have contributed to the city and to the world of music.

St. Louis Jazz

The Waldo Story: The Home of Friendly Merchants

9781609494728

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The quaint and quirky corner of Kansas City known as Waldo has earned its reputation the hard way through good times and bad since 1841. From its early days as a way station on the Santa Fe Trail, through the dark times in the path of a civil war, from the railroad boom to the Great Depression and right on into the challenges of the modern community, the merchants of in Waldo have played a unique and fascinating role in rooting and nurturing this special, yet very familiar place. Their stories the people, the landmarks, and the special times together make the Waldo Story.
The Waldo Story: The Home of Friendly Merchants

Live! At the Ozark Opry

9781596290983

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In the Ozarks, music frames everything. The Ozark Opry was a focal point of that cultural tradition for over fifty years, playing to sold-out audiences and influencing the course of the American entertainment industry in vital ways hitherto untold. This behind-the-scenes story of Lee and Joyce Mace's incredible venture by historian and former Opry performer Dan William Peek reawakens the foot tapping and fiddle scraping still clinging to the shores of the Lake of the Ozarks. This story also spotlights some of the most fascinating characters of the times, the Nashville stars, Chuck Foster, the Mabe Brothers, Albert Gannaway, Seymour Weiss, Scott O. Wright, Sarah Gertrude Knott and Cyrus Crane Willmore.
Live! At the Ozark Opry