Named for the famous Spanish explorer who was said to have discovered the Fountain of Youth, Atlanta's Ponce de Leon Avenue began as a simple country road that conveyed visitors to the healing springs that once bubbled along it. Now, as one of Atlanta's major commuter thoroughfares, few motorists realize that the Avenue was a prestigious residential street in Victorian Atlanta, home to mayors and millionaires. An economic turn in the twentieth century transformed the Avenue into a crime-ridden commercial corridor, but in recent years, Atlantans have rediscovered the street's venerable architecture and storied history. Join local historian Sharon Foster Jones on a vivid tour of the Avenue-- from picnics by the springs in hoopskirts, to the Fox Theatre and Atlanta Crackers baseball, and the days when Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable lodged in the esteemed hotels lining this magnificent Avenue.

For twenty-six straight seasons from 1978 to 2003 Mount Saint Charles Academy captured the hearts of its fans and the state s high school hockey championship. Attributing the streak to a near-mystical force called Mount Pride, beloved coach Bill Belisle and his team have built the most successful hockey program in Rhode Island. In the thrilling 2013 season, they recaptured the Mount glory as state champions. Yet the high school hockey team is much more than its wins and losses it s a culture and a family. Beginning with the earliest days when Rhode Island s four-team league took to the frozen ponds with tree branches serving as rudimentary hockey sticks, author Bryan Ethier chronicles the history of the MSC Flying Frenchmen. Join Ethier as he takes to the ice with the great games, the star players and the unforgettable moments to tell the remarkable story of Mount Saint Charles Hockey.

Alabama is no stranger to the battles and blood of the Civil War, and nearly every eligible person in the state participated in some fashion. Some of those citizen soldiers may linger still on hallowed ground throughout the state. War-torn locations such as Fort Blakely National Park, Crooked Creek, Bridgeport and Old State Bank have chilling stories of hauntings never before published. In Cahawba, Colonel C.C. Pegue's ghost has been heard holding conversations near his fireplace. At Fort Gaines, sentries have been seen walking their posts, securing the grounds years after their deaths. Sixteen different ghosts have been known to take up residence in a historic house in Athens. Join author Dale Langella as she recounts the mysterious history of Alabama's most famous battlefields and the specters that still call those grounds home.

Cape May began as Cape May Island, where families journeyed to enjoy wide white beaches and gentle surf during the early nineteenth century. With the advent of steamships and railroads, the quiet village soon became America's first seaside resort town. Despite its charm and elegance, visitors slowed in the 1880s, as a series of mysterious fires claimed some of its most beloved structures. As the twentieth century dawned, Cape May's failure to modernize ultimately became its salvation. By the 1960s, visitors were once again flocking to this seaside destination to enjoy its quaint Victorian charm. Experience the elegant Chalfonte Hotel, stately Congress Hall and the classic Cape May Boardwalk with local historian Emil Salvini.

Killing Crazy Horse is the latest installment of the multimillion-selling Killing series is a gripping journey through the American West and the historic clashes between Native Americans and settlers. The bloody Battle of Tippecanoe was only the beginning. It's 1811 and President James Madison has ordered the destruction of Shawnee warrior chief Tecumseh's alliance of tribes in the Great Lakes region. But while General William Henry Harrison would win this fight, the armed conflict between Native Americans and the newly formed United States would rage on for decades. Bestselling authors Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard venture through the fraught history of our country's founding on already occupied lands, from General Andrew Jackson's brutal battles with the Creek Nation to President James Monroe's epic "sea to shining sea" policy, to President Martin Van Buren's cruel enforcement of a "treaty" that forced the Cherokee Nation out of their homelands along what would be called the Trail of Tears. O'Reilly and Dugard take readers behind the legends to reveal never-before-told historical moments in the fascinating creation story of America. This fast-paced, wild ride through the American frontier will shock readers and impart unexpected lessons that reverberate to this day.

If there's any place in Chicago that's been all things to all men, it has to be the corner of the city that is occupied by Edgewater and Uptown. Babe Ruth and Mahatma Gandhi found a place of refuge at the Edgewater Beach Hotel, but the locale has also been a sanctuary for Appalachian coal miners and Japanese Americans released from internment camps. Al Capone reportedly moved booze through a secret tunnel connecting the Green Mill and the Aragon Ballroom, "Burglar Cops" moonlit out of the Summerdale police station and a "Kitchen Revolt" by some not-very-ordinary housewives sent once-invulnerable machine ward boss Marty Tuchow on his way to Club Fed. Ferret out the hidden history of Uptown and Edgewater with veteran beat reporter Patrick Butler in this curio shop of forgotten people and places.

A Best Book of 2021 by NPR and Esquire From Kliph Nesteroff, "the human encyclopedia of comedy" (VICE), comes the important and underappreciated story of Native Americans and comedy.It was one of the most reliable jokes in Charlie Hill's stand-up routine: "My people are from Wisconsin. We used to be from New York. We had a little real estate problem." In We Had a Little Real Estate Problem, acclaimed comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff focuses on one of comedy's most significant and little-known stories: how, despite having been denied representation in the entertainment industry, Native Americans have influenced and advanced the art form. The account begins in the late 1880s, when Native Americans were forced to tour in wild west shows as an alternative to prison. (One modern comedian said it was as "if a Guantanamo detainee suddenly had to appear on X-Factor.") This is followed by a detailed look at the life and work of seminal figures such as Cherokee humorist Will Rogers and Hill, who in the 1970s was the first Native American comedian to appear The Tonight Show. Also profiled are several contemporary comedians, including Jonny Roberts, a social worker from the Red Lake Nation who drives five hours to the closest comedy club to pursue his stand-up dreams; Kiowa-Apache comic Adrianne Chalepah, who formed the touring group the Native Ladies of Comedy; and the 1491s, a sketch troupe whose satire is smashing stereotypes to critical acclaim. As Ryan Red Corn, the Osage member of the 1491s, says: "The American narrative dictates that Indians are supposed to be sad. It's not really true and it's not indicative of the community experience itself...Laughter and joy is very much a part of Native culture." Featuring dozens of original interviews and the exhaustive research that is Nesteroff's trademark, We Had a Little Real Estate Problem is a powerful tribute to a neglected legacy.

America was made by the railroads. The opening of the Baltimore & Ohio line--the first American railroad--in the 1830s sparked a national revolution in the way that people lived thanks to the speed and convenience of train travel. Promoted by visionaries and built through heroic effort, the American railroad network was bigger in every sense than Europe's, and facilitated everything from long-distance travel to commuting and transporting goods to waging war. It united far-flung parts of the country, boosted economic development, and was the catalyst for America's rise to world-power status.

Every American town, great or small, aspired to be connected to a railroad and by the turn of the century, almost every American lived within easy access of a station. By the early 1900s, the United States was covered in a latticework of more than 200,000 miles of railroad track and a series of magisterial termini, all built and controlled by the biggest corporations in the land. The railroads dominated the American landscape for more than a hundred years but by the middle of the twentieth century, the automobile, the truck, and the airplane had eclipsed the railroads and the nation started to forget them.

In "The Great Railroad Revolution," renowned railroad expert Christian Wolmar tells the extraordinary story of the rise and the fall of the greatest of all American endeavors, and argues that the time has come for America to reclaim and celebrate its often-overlooked rail heritage.

In the 1840s, land west of the Missouri River was a new frontier for courage, adventure, freedom and true grit. During this era and the decades that followed, Utah became the focal point for many brave settlers yearning for a new way of life. While Utah's proud Mormon legacy is well documented, there are lesser-known stories that contribute to the state's fascinating history. Join public historian, author and history columnist Eileen Hallet Stone for a look into the state's forgotten past as she presents a revelatory collection of tales culled from her popular "Salt Lake Tribune" "Living History" column. From newly freed slaves, early suffragists, desert farmers and union men to railroad kings, cattle barons, influential statesmen and more, this is "Hidden History of Utah."

Many Americans are familiar with Thomas Edison's "invention factory" in Menlo Park, where he patented the phonograph, the light bulb and more than one thousand other items. Yet many other ideas have grown in the Garden State, too--New Jerseyans brought sound and music to movies and built the very first drive-in theater. In addition to the first cultivated blueberry, tasty treats like ice cream cones and M&Ms are also Jersey natives. Iconic aspects of American life, like the batting cage, catcher's mask and even professional baseball itself, started in New Jersey. Life would be a lot harder without the vacuum cleaner, plastic and Band-Aids, and many important advances in medicine and surgery were also developed here. Join author Linda Barth as she explores groundbreaking, useful, fun and even silly inventions and their New Jersey roots.

The DeAutremont brothers were looking for a big score. They brought dynamite, guns and a getaway car. On October 11, 1923, at the summit of the Siskiyou Mountains in southern Oregon, the three young men held up a passenger train, with disastrous consequences. Their rash actions resulted in the tragic deaths of three Southern Pacific trainmen and one U.S. Mail clerk, unleashing a public outcry that still rings through Oregon's history. In this riveting account, rail historian Scott Mangold draws on interviews, in-depth research and previously unpublished maps and photographs to document the events at Tunnel 13. Join Mangold as he chronicles the resulting four-year manhunt and eventual conviction of the DeAutremonts and provides insight into the lives derailed by the robbery's bitter legacy.

For decades, history has considered Tammany Hall, New York's famous political machine, shorthand for the worst of urban politics: graft, crime, and patronage personified by notoriously corrupt characters. Infamous crooks like William "Boss" Tweed dominate traditional histories of Tammany, distorting our understanding of a critical chapter of American political history. In Machine Made, historian and New York City journalist Terry Golway convincingly dismantles these stereotypes; Tammany's corruption was real, but so was its heretofore forgotten role in protecting marginalized and maligned immigrants in desperate need of a political voice.

Irish immigrants arriving in New York during the nineteenth century faced an unrelenting onslaught of hyperbolic, nativist propaganda. They were voiceless in a city that proved, time and again, that real power remained in the hands of the mercantile elite, not with a crush of ragged newcomers flooding its streets. Haunted by fresh memories of the horrific Irish potato famine in the old country, Irish immigrants had already learned an indelible lesson about the dire consequences of political helplessness. Tammany Hall emerged as a distinct force to support the city's Catholic newcomers, courting their votes while acting as a powerful intermediary between them and the Anglo-Saxon Protestant ruling class. In a city that had yet to develop the social services we now expect, Tammany often functioned as a rudimentary public welfare system and a champion of crucial social reforms benefiting its constituency, including workers' compensation, prohibitions against child labor, and public pensions for widows with children. Tammany figures also fought against attempts to limit immigration and to strip the poor of the only power they had the vote.

While rescuing Tammany from its maligned legacy, Golway hardly ignores Tammany's ugly underbelly, from its constituents' participation in the bloody Draft Riots of 1863 to its rampant cronyism. However, even under occasionally notorious leadership, Tammany played a profound and long-ignored role in laying the groundwork for social reform, and nurtured the careers of two of New York's greatest political figures, Al Smith and Robert Wagner. Despite devastating electoral defeats and countless scandals, Tammany nonetheless created a formidable political coalition, one that eventually made its way into the echelons of FDR s Democratic Party and progressive New Deal agenda.

Tracing the events of a tumultuous century, Golway shows how mainstream American government began to embrace both Tammany s constituents and its ideals. Machine Made is a revelatory work of revisionist history, and a rich, multifaceted portrait of roiling New York City politics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries."

Eerie tales have been part of the city's history from the beginning: Pikes Peak and Cheyenne Mountain are the subjects of several spooky Native American legends, and Anasazi spirits are still seen at the ancient cliff dwellings outside town. In the Old North End neighborhood, the howls of hellhounds ring through the night, and visitors at the Cheyenne Canon Inn have spotted the spirit of Alex Riddle on the grounds for over a century. Henry Harkin has haunted Dead Mans' Canyon since his gruesome murder in 1863, and Poor Bessie Bouton is said to linger on Cutler Mountain, hovering where her body was discovered more than a century ago. Ghost hunter and tour guide Stephanie Waters explores the stories behind "Little London's" oldest and scariest tales.

Chartered by Gov. Benning Wentworth in 1764, Claremont received its name from the English estate of Claremont, home of the Earl of Clare. The town was known in early years for its fertile farmland along the Connecticut River, and mills sprang up along the Sugar River after the War of 1812 and following the formation of the Sunapee Dam Company. Numerous inventions by locals, such as John Tyler's iron turbine waterwheel, an important advance in harnessing waterpower, helped fuel Claremont's evolution from a farming community to a textile mill town. Albert Ball, whose patents included the diamond core drill, revolutionized the mining industry. Once known as the "Shopper's Town," Claremont enjoyed a period of prosperity as the industrial, commercial, and social center of western New Hampshire. Today, still reeling from the loss of industry in recent decades, Claremont is making steps to revitalize itself. The Monadnock Mills Revitalization Project, which brought the Common Man Inn & Restaurant to Claremont, and other projects are helping to once again make the community a travel destination.

True crime in the American heartland. Under the Banner of Heaven is a riveting account of Mormon fundamentalism and renegade prophets, from the bestselling author of Into the Wild and Into Thin Air. Now a major TV miniseries starring Andrew Garfield. Brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty insist they were commanded to kill by God. Jon Krakauer's investigation into the murder of a mother and her child is a meticulously researched, bone-chilling narrative of polygamy, savage violence and unyielding faith. An incisive look inside isolated Mormon Fundamentalist communities in America, this gripping work of non-fiction illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behaviour. 'A provocative look at the twisted roots of American fundamentalism.' - Will Self, Evening Standard 'Books of the Year' 'Excellent . . . a lucid, judicious, even sympathetic account not just of Mormon Fundamentalism but of the seductive power of fanaticism in general.' - Daily Telegraph 'Remarkable . . . for anyone interested in the wilder frontiers of spiritual conviction, this book is a must.' - Independent

For three decades after the Second World War, the 'Butcher of the Balkans' lived an idyllic life with his family in a Los Angeles suburb. Andrija Artukovic was a senior member of the Ustasha, a Croatian fascist and nationalist movement, and was responsible for the brutal murders of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. Wanted in Yugoslavia to stand trial for war crimes, he had illegally entered and claimed political asylum in the United States - and his powerful supporters sought to keep him there. Meanwhile, just 10 miles away, David Whitelaw lived with his mother, Judith, who fled Germany in 1938. Seventy-six of her relatives were killed in the Holocaust. When David learned Artukovic was living comfortably nearby, he vowed to ensure his deportation to stand trial as a war criminal. But when a firebomb, thrown with the sole intention of causing fear, saw the young man sent to jail, a battle began for his own freedom, while the war criminal remained at large. A true David versus Goliath battle, The Fierce is the story of the teenager who helped take down the worst mass murderer and war criminal in America.

A skillful and fascinating retelling of the often testy relationship between J. P. Morgan and Roger Fry, two men who did more to establish the preeminence of the Metropolitan Museum of Art than any collector and curator before or since. Shortly after the turn of the twentieth century, the Metropolitan Museum of Art began an ambitious program of collection building and physical expansion that transformed it into one of the world's foremost museums, an eminence that it has maintained ever since. Two men of singular qualities and accomplishments played key roles in the Met's transformation-J. P. Morgan, America's leading financier and a prominent art collector, and Roger Fry, the headstrong English expert in art history who served as the Met's curator of painting. Their complicated, often contentious relationship embodies and illuminates the myriad tensions between commerce and art, philanthropists and professional staff, that a great museum must negotiate to define and fulfill its mission. In this masterful, multidisciplinary narrative, Charles Molesworth offers the first in-depth look at how Morgan and Fry helped to mold the cultural legacy of masterpieces of painting and the development of the "encyclopedic" museum. Structuring the book as a joint biography, Molesworth describes how Morgan used his vast wealth to bring European art to an American citizenry, while Fry brought high standards of art history from the world of connoisseurs to a general public. Their clashes over the purpose and functions of the Met, which ultimately led to Fry's ouster, reveal the forces-personal and societal-that helped to shape the Metropolitan Museum and other major American cultural institutions during the twentieth century.

University Park is one of Los Angeles's most diverse and historic neighborhoods. Beginning with the founding of the University of Southern California in 1880, the area has hosted two Olympic Games and numerous presidents and been featured as a backdrop for dozens of movies, along with countless other events of cultural and historical significance. Few areas in Southern California boast such a wide variety of historic buildings--residential, educational and commercial--dating to LA's earliest days. With USC as its anchor, University Park thrives as a microcosm of LA's culture, architecture and development from an outpost accumulating settlers into one of the world's great cosmopolitan metropolises. Join author Charles Epting on this historical inventory of University Park's significant moments and lasting legacy.

Kemah is the Karankawa Indian word for "wind in the face." In the early 1900s, it was a breezy coastal village where many residents made a living in the fishing or boating industries. From the 1920s to the 1950s, Kemah relied on illegal gambling and bootlegging to survive. After the devastation of Hurricane Carla in 1961, local restaurants rebuilt and became favorites of Houstonians, who enjoyed the seafood and relaxing atmosphere. Because subsidence caused much of Kemah to flood during high tide, a marina was built in 1988 to ease the problem in low-lying areas. Today, the Kemah area has the third largest fleet of recreational boats in America. When older homes were converted into quaint shops, the Kemah Lighthouse Shopping District was formed. In 1997, property on the Clear Creek channel and Kemah bay front was acquired in order to develop the Kemah Boardwalk, one of the top 10 boardwalks in America.

In 1889, David Eccles chartered the Oregon Lumber Company, an organization that produced many mills and railways and whose influence was felt from Salt Lake City to Northern California and Idaho. Through family connections, Eccles was also involved with many other logging enterprises, and he influenced the growth of the Inter-Mountain region as well as the Pacific Northwest. Sumpter Valley Logging Railroads is a pictorial history of the Oregon operations, focusing on the operations along the Sumpter Valley Railway. It explores the rails, mills, and people, as well as the logging practices of a bygone era.