Wisconsin

Investigate the mysteries surrounding the brutal murder of Wauwatos's Arthur "Buddy'? Schumacher Jr. A must-read for fans of true crime and Wisconsin history enthusiasts.

In 1925, the peaceful Milwaukee suburb of Wauwatosafound itself involved in mystery and horror. Eight-year-old Arthur ""Buddy"" Schumacher Jr. was last seen by three of his friends after they hopped off a freight train they'd jumped to get a ride to a nearby swimming hole.

For seven weeks, the community and state searched desperately to find the boy until his body was found just a mile from his house with his clothing torn and a handkerchief shoved down his throat. The police pursued several promising leads, but to no avail.

In this engaging mystery, author Paul Hoffman walks us back to the scene of the crime and through the reasons it was never solved.

Bucolic Door County has a rich haunted history of spooky shipwrecks, bizarre tales and ghost stories.

Because Door County received its name from ""Death's Door,"" the perilous strait with more freshwater shipwrecks than anywhere else in the world, it should be no surprise that the idyllic county has plenty of ghostly history. In the company of storyteller Gayle Soucek, meet lighthouse keepers whose sense of duty extends beyond the grave. Catch a glimpse of the phantom ship Le Griffon, never seen for more than a moment since it sailed through a crack in the ice in 1679. And it is not just the waters of Door County that carry the freight of haunted tales--Country Road T has its share of spooks, bizarre beasts have caused disturbances in the woods and there are whispered rumors that infamous gangster Al Capone added to the county's stock of ghosts through a handful of brutal murders, including an ex-girlfriend and two unacknowledged children.

Few cities keep their history alive as purposefully as the community of Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Today, restored mills and churches serve as a backdrop to a thriving arts and tourist community.

From the original stone mills that are now home to quaint shops to the preserved family homesteads, past and present coexist at every turn in Cedarburg. Settled in the early 1840s by German and Irish immigrants, the city was a hub of farming and recreational activities in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The city is now known as much for its festivals as it is for its charming aesthetics.

Door County is the home to numerous shipwrecks of pleasure craft and steamers, on a photographic journey of the treacherous waters and those they have claimed.

Door County is the final resting place of many shipwrecks, from the first Euro American ship to sail the western Great Lakes, LaSalle's fabled Griffin that left Washington Island in 1679 never to be heard of again, to modern-day pleasure crafts that find the shallow inlets and bays hard to navigate. Door Peninsula Shipwrecks takes the reader on a photographic journey around the peninsula and back to a time of wooden ships and iron men. From Sturgeon Bay to the east coast of the peninsula to the northern islands and Green Bay, the journey encompasses early wooden sail craft to steel steamers, the brave sailors who sailed the treacherous waters, and the heroic lifesavers who rescued them.

From the Lawrence Institute to hydroelectricity and paper, this Fox City's rich history is chronicled through vintage images.

Appleton's beginnings found their source at the Lawrence Institute, the university in the woods, on the Fox River. Rev. Henry Colman and Rev. William Sampson chose the bluff on the river for the site of the institute. Amos A. Lawrence donated $10,000, and the building began in July 1848. The city was made up of three villages: Martin (Grand Chute), Appleton, and Lawesburg. In 1857, the villages joined together to form the city of Appleton with Amos Story as its first mayor. Appleton's industry grew on the banks of the Fox River.

Take a journey through the history of Racine, Wisconsin with local author George Fennell.

When Gilbert Knapp founded Racine in 1834 and the first pioneers settled there, no one had the remotest idea that the wilderness would one day transform into a thriving city. Ideally situated on Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Root River, the site was chosen by Knapp because of its harbor potential.

The prospect of farming on the level prairies surrounding Racine also attracted many of the area's first settlers. Racine County is especially suited for growing wheat, which immediately became the county's leading agricultural product. The town of Racine quickly became a prosperous center serving the needs of the area's farm population. Even Racine's industrial base was founded on wheat; in 1842, J.I. Case invented a wheat thresher that helped Racine to grow into one of the foremost industrial centers in the United States.

Author George Fennell, a lifelong Racine resident and a member of the Racine Heritage Museum, has compiled some of the best images from the extensive photographic archives of the museum to narrate this visual voyage of Racine's transformation from a tiny harbor village into the Belle City of the Lakes.

Through the medium of historic photographs, Cudahy, Wisconsin: Generations of Pride captures Cudahy's evolution from the late 1800s to the present day. Featuring over 200 historic images from both the Cudahy Historical Society and Public Library as well as photographs from private resident collections, this book tells the stories of the people who settled there: where they worked and worshiped, how they lived, and how they celebrated. Today, Cudahy is in the midst of downtown redevelopment, and community pride continues to grow with each generation.

German immigrants are responsible for making the great town of Milwaukee what it is today.

German immigrants began arriving to Milwaukee in the 1830s. By 1859, over one-third of the city was German. They opened schools and churches, started businesses, ran for office, and introduced professional German theater, art, and music to the city. Milwaukee soon became known throughout the United States--and even abroad--as the ""German Athens of North America."" There is a reason Milwaukee is known as the city of beer and brats, why it is here that the biggest Germanfest in the country takes place, and why still today the German language can be seen and heard throughout the city. As the well-known German newspaper the Frankfurter Allgemeine stated in 2008, ""Deutscher als Milwaukee ist nirgendwo in Amerika"" (There is nowhere in America more German than in Milwaukee).

Wisconsin troops fought and died for the Union on Civil War battlefields across the continent, from Shiloh to Gettysburg. Wisconsin lumberjacks built a dam that saved a stranded Union fleet.

The Second Wisconsin Infantry suffered the highest percentage of battle deaths in the Union army. Back home, in a state largely populated by immigrants and recent transplants, the war effort forced Wisconsin's residents to forge a common identity for the first time. Drawing on unpublished letters and new research, Ron Larson tells Wisconsin's Civil War story, from the famous exploits of the Iron Brigade to the heretofore largely unknown contributions of the Badger State's women, African Americans and Native Americans.

Drink up the history of one of the most famous beer towns in the world.

Milwaukee is most famous for its booming brewing industry, which is directly tied to a surge in German immigration in the 1840s. These new citizens brought along their work ethic, culture, and a love for their native beverage. Not all immigrants arrived from Europe; many, like Richard Owens, came from Britain. Owens has been credited with establishing the first commercial brewery in the area in 1840. Other men followed, many of whom were already experienced in brewing, and seized the opportunity to start new businesses. Brand names were carved on the front of brewery buildings, deals were made with a handshake, partnerships were cultivated, and factory cities were raised. By 1860, nearly 200 breweries were in operation in Wisconsin, with more than 40 in Milwaukee alone. Of the original 40, four have stood the test of time: Blatz, Pabst, Schlitz, and Miller are still brewed in Milwaukee, right where they were born.

Befitting its role as Wisconsin's thumb, Door County has its own unique pulse. It is the "Door of the Dead," which some historians blame for more shipwrecks than any other body of freshwater in the world.

It is also the idyllic paradise "north of the tension line," that sends many unsuspecting tourists spiraling into an addiction that lands them in a summer home. The variety of nature's splendors and terrors is matched by the cast of characters that has risen up among them. In Door County Tales, these characters are given free rein, which seems only proper in a place where one might walk out of a restaurant and see goats grazing on the roof.