Local History

In the second half of the 19th century, the Euro-American citizenry of California carried out mass genocide against the Native population of their state, using the processes and mechanisms of democracy to secure land and resources for themselves and their private interests. The murder, rape, and enslavement of thousands of Native people were legitimized by notions of democracy - in this case mob rule.

The Cripple Creek District, on the back of Pikes Peak in central Colorado, first found fame through Bob Womack, the cowboy who publicized his knowledge of gold in the high country and drew thousands to the area. Gold fever allowed the region to flourish, while strikes, fires, and economic hardships threatened the district's survival. The dwindling population's fortitude, plus innovative ideas to boost the economy, carried the city from a struggling gold-miners' paradise to a favored tourist spot.

People are often surprised when they learn of the worldwide adventures of Michael J. Hawron Not just because of the extent of his travels or the remarkable experiences he’s had, but because he’s made a life with his family in the small town of New Boston, Texas. Putting down roots in a town thousands of miles away from the people you know can be as harrowing as immigrating to an entirely new country, but the right house, in the right town, with the right people can make all the difference in the world. ˃˃˃ After settling in New Boston during an unplanned detour, Hawron has learned ...

G.C. "Red" Jones' classic memoir of growing up in rural eastern Kentucky during the Depression is a story of courage, persistence, and eventual triumph. His priceless and detailed recollections of hardscrabble farming, of the impact of Prohibition on an individualistic people, of the community-destroying mine wars of "Bloody Harlan", and of the drastic dislocations brought by World War II are essential to understanding this seminal era in Appalachian history.

Part of the inscription on the base of the San Jacinto Monument reads: "Measured by its results, San Jacinto was one of the decisive battles of the world." James W. Pohl, a noted military historian, tells the exciting story of the pivotal battle of the Texas Revolution.

The storm gathers as we sleep. Despite vast amounts of blood and treasure expended since 9-11-2001, America and her allies are losing the war against Islamist violent extremists. For the first time since the War on Terror began, Green Beret Scott Mann, an original architect and implementer of this strategic program, reveals an immediately useful strategic framework to defeat ISIS, al-Qa'ida, and even criminal elements here at home.

Though troubled by violent border disputes with Massachusetts and bloody wars with Native American tribes, New Hampshire was settled by knowledgeable merchants and disgraced ministers. They quickly infused the colony with a spirit of rugged industriousness and defiant individualism that persists to this day. This engaging audiobook details the rise of that spirit as New Hampshire grew.

Do you know the WHOLE story of the State of New York, from the first human inhabitants to the years it was a Dutch colony? The state produced four presidents, was the first in many areas, and created its own state of mind. What made New York into the state it has become? Was there something unique about Manhattan Island? Was there something about the people that made them so successful? Why is it called the Empire State? Why was the Erie Canal so important?

Dear Traveler, Welcome to the WanderStories™ History of Istanbul as told by the best local guide. The city that we now know as Istanbul has been known by many different names throughout its long history. It was founded in 667 B.C.E. as Byzantium. Then, in 330, the Roman Emperor Constantine I christened it as New Rome. Later, it would come to bear his own name and be known as Constantinople, which was then rendered into Arabic languages as Kostantiniyye, which the Ottomans also adopted. The city was destined to finally be known in our modern age as Istanbul, derived from a Greek phrase ...

Gone to Texas engagingly tells the story of the Lone Star State, from the arrival of humans in the Panhandle more than 10,000 years ago to the opening of the 21st Century. Focusing on the state's successive waves of immigrants, the audiobook offers an inclusive view of the vast array of Texans who, often in conflict with each other and always in a struggle with the land, created a history and an idea of Texas.

No historian has been able to capture so elegantly the factors influencing the formation of the state of Texas. Three-time winner of the Jefferson Davis Award, William C. Davis precisely describes the spirit of the times during this momentous period. The conflicts between Anglo Texans, native Tejanos, and Mexican officials that led to war come to life with invigorating detail.

Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore National Memorial, hoped that ten thousand years from now, when archaeologists came upon the four sixty-foot presidential heads carved in the Black Hills of South Dakota, they would have a clear and graphic understanding of American civilization. Great White Fathers is at once the biography of a man and the biography of a place, told through travelogue, interviews, and investigation of the unusual records that one odd American visionary left behind.

As the 20th century began, oil in Texas was easy to find, but the quantities were too small to attract industrial capital and production. Then, on January 10, 1901, the Spindletop gusher blew in. Over the next 50 years, oil transformed Texas, creating a booming economy that built cities, attracted out-of-state workers and companies, funded schools and universities, and generated wealth that raised the overall standard of living - even for blue-collar workers. No other 20th-century development had a more profound effect upon the state.

Nuclear power once promised to be the solution to the world's energy crisis, but that all changed in the late twentieth century after multiple high-profile accidents and meltdowns. Power plant workers, finding themselves the subject of public opposition, became leery of reporters. But one plant in Zion, Illinois, allowed unrestricted access to one journalist: the Chicago Tribune's Casey Bukro. Bukro spent two years inside the Zion nuclear plant, interviewing employees, witnessing high-risk maintenance procedures, and watching the radiation exposure counter on his own dosimeter tick up and up.

The legend of Maggie's Bridge is well known to locals. In the late 1800's a young girl, pregnant and frightened, loses her life on a lonely bridge in a terrible storm. But what is the truth behind the story? Who was Maggie Bloxom? What fates brought her to that dark place and stole her future away from her? Claire Ludlow is a local. She grew up visiting the bridge at midnight and calling for Maggie. One night when she was 16 she sees more than she thought possible. When life draws her back to her home town years later and drops her within arms reach of the bridge, can she use newly ...

The Mound Builder Myth is the first book to chronicle the attempt to recast the Native American burial mounds as the work of a lost white race of “true” native Americans. Thomas Jefferson’s pioneering archaeology concluded that the earthen mounds were the work of Native Americans. In the 1894 report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Cyrus Thomas concurred, drawing on two decades of research. But in the century in between, the lie took hold, with presidents Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, and Abraham Lincoln adding their approval.

A sweeping, magisterial biography of the man generally considered the greatest president of the 20th century, admired by Democrats and Republicans alike. Traitor to His Class sheds new light on FDR's formative years, his remarkable willingness to champion the concerns of the poor and disenfranchised, his combination of political genius, firm leadership, and matchless diplomacy in saving democracy in America during the Great Depression and the American cause of freedom in World War II.

From rockbound coast, from farm and logging camp came the men of the Twentieth Maine, a volunteer regiment in the Civil War. It was at Little Round Top that the Twentieth Maine, with Joshua Chamberlain in command, performed one of the miracles of the Civil War and saved the left flank of the Union battle line.

The classic dog story Stickeen is John Muir's account of what happened on an Alaskan glacier with a little dog named Stickeen. One day, Muir went exploring a large glacier during a blizzard, with Stickeen in tow. They became stranded, and the only way out was across a precarious ice bridge. Both man and dog escaped, and this triumph changed Stickeen from a rather aloof canine into a devoted companion. Muir called his adventure with Stickeen "the most memorable of all my wild days”, and wrote that the little dog enlarged his life by extended its boundaries.

The Ku Klux Klan established a significant foothold in Arkansas in the 1920s, boasting more than 150 state chapters and tens of thousands of members at its zenith. Propelled by the prominence of state leaders such as Grand Dragon James Comer and head of Women of the KKK Robbie Gill Comer, the Klan established Little Rock as a seat of power second only to Atlanta. In The Ku Klux Klan in 1920s Arkansas, Kenneth C. Barnes traces this explosion of white nationalism and its impact on the state’s development.