Largely lost to time, these stunners include Atco’s dizzying love dreams, Camden’s underground mystical labyrinth, Glassboro’s UFO frenzy, and the origin of the “cursed” Deptford portion of Route 55. This gripping journey through New Jersey’s southernmost counties also offers views of an escaped show lion, a fatal family love triangle, and the young woman who hoodwinked Camden newspapers before going on to threaten the free world as Nazi propagandist “Axis Sally.”

Some Ohioans are destined for greatness--some are destined for notoriety.

Akron's Edward Wayne Edwards got an early start, snatching cash and cigarettes from his grandmother's purse. He eventually graduated to murder, offing as many as five people, and he ended up on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list along the way. Lester Eubanks killed a fourteen-year-old in Mansfield. After his death sentence was commuted to life, he was mistakenly allowed to go Christmas shopping and disappeared from a Columbus mall in 1973. U.S. Marshals are still looking for him. Cleveland bank robber "Fast Eddie" Watkins held off fifty lawmen for eight hours while sitting in his car in front of a house near Lodi. John Dillinger was born a Hoosier, but he took from Ohio banks as though he had a birthright to the funds.

North Jersey orchards produced internationally renowned Newark cider and high-proof apple brandy—known as applejack, cider spirits, Jersey Lightning, and dozens of other nicknames—which were signature products produced in hundreds of New Jersey distilleries. America’s oldest distillery is a Monmouth County applejack maker. Orchardists, cider makers, and distillers made New Jersey applejack famous. In addition, farmers supplied Washington’s Continental Army with spirits during the coldest winters of the American Revolution, and bootleggers produced thousands of gallons of illegal applejack during Prohibition. By the early 20th century, tastes changed, and the cider industry dwindled. Prohibition nearly snuffed it out entirely. In the 21st century, New Jersey cider is experiencing an unprecedented revival.

Stillwater is a place with its boots planted firmly in different worlds—Cross Timbers and Great Plains, cowboys and Natives, Boomers and gunslingers. Less evident, however, Payne County possesses paranormal peculiarities unseen by the average visitor. Ghostly soldiers persist at the first Civil War battlefield in the state, and phantom students mingle in haunted university halls. From the terrors of Ghost Hollow to glamorous remnants of the oil boom, spectral figures can be found “still pioneering” in “America’s friendliest college town.” 

Though it may look as pure as the driven snow, White Sands is bathed in the blood of the dead whose bones lie hidden beneath the dunes.

Still waiting to be found in the sea of gypsum is Albert Fountain, who vanished from the face of the earth in 1896 along with his eight-year-old son. Long before that, the spirit of Pavla Blanca searched for her conquistador lover in the form of swirling sand, mysterious giant footprints rose from the earth at Alkali Flats, and a sorcerer met his end near the spot that Spaceport America stands today. 

Sheltered between marsh and flatlands, the Montezuma Hills of Solano County are home to generations of farmers, fishermen, and folks seeking respite from cities. 

The community began in 1846 with a lone adobe house, built on a hillside for a future Mormon colony. The Mormons never arrived; however, many others did. Homesteaders, tradesmen, and innovators found a river of bountiful salmon, fields lush with wild oats, and opportunities to build new lives. Thriving villages sprouted along the sloughs—Collinsville, Birds Landing, and Denverton. Although these towns are nearly forgotten, the pioneers’ legacy has left an enduring imprint on the land. This book honors the community, the people who settled the area, and their descendants, whose generous contribution of time, memories, and photographs has made this book possible.