Local History

On a bitterly cold afternoon in December 1986, a Michigan State trooper found the frozen body of Jerry Tobias in the bed of his pickup truck. The 31-year-old oil field worker and small-time drug dealer was clad only in jeans, a checkered shirt, and cowboy boots. Inside the cab of the truck was a fresh package of expensive steaks from a local butcher shop, the first lead in a case that would be quickly lost in a thicket of bungled forensics, shady prosecution, and a psychopathic star witness out for revenge.

Despite the abundance of books on the Civil War, not one has focused exclusively on what was in fact the determining factor in the outcome of the conflict: differences in union and southern strategy. In The Grand Design, Stoker examines how Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis identified their political goals and worked with their generals to craft the military means to achieve them - or how they often failed to do so.

The revolutionary Ohio Valley is often depicted as a chaotic Hobbesian dystopia, in which Indians and colonists slaughtered each other at every turn. In Unsettling the West, Rob Harper overturns this familiar story. Rather than flailing in a morass, the peoples of the revolutionary Ohio Valley actively and persistently sought to establish a new political order that would affirm their land claims, protect them against attack, and promote trade.

Long before the United States was a nation, it was a set of ideas, projected onto the New World by European explorers with centuries of belief and thought in tow. From this foundation of expectation and experience, America and American thought grew in turn, enriched by the bounties of the Enlightenment, the philosophies of liberty and individuality, the tenets of religion, and the doctrines of republicanism and democracy.

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.

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.

On November 18, 1958, when the limestone carrier Carl D. Bradley broke up during a raging storm on Lake Michigan, it became the largest ship in Great Lakes' history to vanish beneath storm-tossed waves. Along with the Bradley, 33 crew members perished. Most of the casualties hailed from the little harbor town of Rogers City, Michigan, a community that was stung with grief when, in an instant, 23 women became widows and 53 children were left fatherless. Nevertheless, this is also a story of survival....

In its youth, Portland, Oregon, was a bit like a rough-and-ready logging camp with a gritty, hard-punching deep-water port. Lusty lads dallied with hard-eyed beauties in dark alleys, and captains forked over “blood money” to buy men for their crews from shanghai operators. From the seedy waterfront to the notorious North End, Portland's sin sector offered vices packaged in pint glasses and perfumed corsets.

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.

As one of America's most fabled communities - long a magnet for artists, celebrities, the very rich, and their respective hangers-on - the Hamptons have been a scene of constant collision among the established old guard, New Money, and the local families who farmed and fished the region for generations. In serving up three centuries of Hamptons history, Steven Gaines introduces a host of colorful characters including Jackson Pollock, Ron Perelman, Lauren Bacall, and the Bouvier Beales of Grey Gardens infamy.

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.

Ronnie Earle was a Texas legend. During his three decades as the district attorney responsible for Austin and surrounding Travis County, he prosecuted corrupt corporate executives and state officials, including the notorious US congressman Tom DeLay. But Earle maintained that the biggest case of his career was the one involving Frank Hughey Smith, the ex-convict millionaire, alleged criminal mastermind, and Dixie Mafia figure. With the help of corrupt local authorities, Smith spent the 1970s building a criminal empire in auto salvage and bail bonds.

The completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 was a monumental achievement. Linking the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, it transformed New York City into a hub of international trade, drove the rise of industrial cities in once sparsely populated areas, and accelerated the westward expansion of the United States. Yet few of the laborers who toiled along the canal shared in the prosperity it brought.

In the late 1880s, Pleasant Valley, Arizona, descended into a nightmare of violence, murder, and mayhem. By the time the Pleasant Valley War was over, 18 men were dead, four were wounded, and one was missing, never to be found. Valley of the Guns explores the reasons for the violence that engulfed the settlement, turning neighbors, families, and friends against one another.

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.

Listen to this audiobook today to learn about the History of Arizona and New Mexico!

How to Find Zodiac includes an exclusive interview between author Jarett Kobek, true crime aficionado Rebecca Lavoie, and host of True Crime Obsessed, Patrick Hinds. This title encourages you to forget everything you think you know about the infamous killer as it reinvestigates what's possible within the case and poses a new suggestion of who's to blame.

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 ...

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.

How much do you know about the Aloha State? There’s so much to learn about Hawaii that even residents of the state don’t know! In this trivia audiobook, you’ll learn more about Hawaii’s history, pop culture, folklore, sports, and so much more! As an added bonus, you’ll learn words from the Hawaiian language throughout the audiobook. This audiobook is packed with trivia facts about Hawaii. Some of the facts in this audiobook are surprising, while others are sad or creepy. The one thing they have in common is that all of them are interesting!