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The rugged scenery of the New Mexico Territory formed a dramatic backdrop for get-rich-quick schemes and brazen acts of violence. The cast included serial killers, cattle thieves, train robbers and other evildoers who simply did not know when to quit. Roving bandits like the Black-Jack Ketchum Gang disturbed the peace along with outlaw lawmen like Albuquerque’s Milton Yarberry. Donna Blake Birchell recounts the incredible exploits and fantastic tales of New Mexico’s shamelessly dangerous characters.

The opulent facades of the City by the Sea concealed the scintillating scandals, eccentric characters and unsolved mysteries of its wealthiest families.

Newport, Rhode Island, is renowned for its stunning cliff-side vistas and the luxurious summer homes of the Gilded Age elite. Learn how Cornelius Vanderbilt III was cut out of the family's fortune for his unapproved marriage to Grace Wilson and how John F. Kennedy's marriage to a Newport debutante helped to secure his presidency. Travel to the White Horse Tavern, where a vengeful specter still waits for his supposed murderer to return to the scene, and discover the mysterious voyage of the "Sea Bird" and its missing crew. Historian Larry Stanford searches the dark corners of Newport's past to expose these scandalous tales and more.

Wicked Akron, Ohio takes the reader on a journey through the seedy underbelly of the city's history.

Akron is known as "the rubber capital of the world'? and home to Goodyear. But look beneath those tires and you will find dirt…a lot of dirt! Explore Akron's darkest days, when citizens burned city hall to the ground and members of the Ku Klux Klan called the shots from the schoolhouse to the courthouse. Meet a grave robber who became a political leader, a mobster who ordered police murders and a beloved bootlegger turned bail bondsman. Say hello to Frank Hurn, a flashy, frenetic, fast-talking con man who was looking for suckers to invest in the Vulcans, an NFL team he promised to bring to Akron. From city saloon to suburban hideout, this is an alternative history lesson of the sometimes dicey coexistence of the well-heeled and the workers, men and women who lived big lives during Akron's fledgling days as a canal port, its pre-Depression heyday and zenith as a Midwestern industrial success story.

Author Kymberli Hagelberg, an award-winning journalist and native Northeast Ohioan, takes the reader on a morbidly-entertaining tour of the shadowy corners of Akron's history. With stories including mobsters and body snatchers, con men and Klansmen, plagues and fires, there is truly something for fans of local history and true crime stories.

Discover the wicked and sordid history of Asheville, North Carolina in this volume by author and Asheville native Marla Hardee Milling.

Asheville is a wonderfully strange city, but it has a few shadows in its past. Teenager Helen Clevenger was brutally murdered at the luxurious Battery Park Hotel in 1936. William Dudley Pelley called himself ""America's Hitler"" and founded his Silver Legion in Asheville. He stirred up enough anti war propaganda to go to prison. A desperado named Will Harris came into town on a cold night in November 1906 and left a trail of dead bodies and panic among Asheville citizens. Mayor Gallatin Roberts killed himself in the wake of collapsing banks. Asheville native Marla Hardee Milling delves into wicked stories of murder, sedition, corruption, arson and disease.

Atlanta is the only American city to have been destroyed by fire as an act of war, and it has its share of salacious stories. Wealthy felons hosted elaborate parties inside the federal penitentiary.

Billionaire bootleggers and murderous rich boys practiced corruption that reached all the way to the White House. Fast and fearless drivers, complete with glamorous reputations and criminal careers, gave rise to auto racing. Join author Laurel-Ann Dooley as she navigates the underworld of Atlanta's past filled with kidnapping, bribery, wives hiring hit men and all sorts of criminal debauchery.

Detailing the salacious history of Baltimore and its denizens from the city's earliest history up to and through Prohibition.

With nicknames such as ""Mob Town"" and ""Syphilis City,"" no one would deny that Baltimore has its dark side. Before shows such as ""The Wire"" and ""Homicide: Life on the Streets"" brought the city's crime rate to national attention, locals entertained themselves with rumors surrounding the mysterious death of writer Edgar Allan Poe and stories about Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of author F. Scott Fitzgerald, who spent time in a Baltimore area sanitarium in the 1930s.

Tourists make the Inner Harbor one of the most traveled areas in the country, but if they would venture a few streets north to The Block on Baltimore Street they would see an area once famous for its burlesque shows. It is only the locals who would know to continue north on St. Paul to the Owl Bar, a former speakeasy that still proudly displays some of its Prohibition era paraphernalia.

Join author Tim Younkman for a wild ride into Bay City’s wicked side.

From unscrupulous lumber barons to Hell's Half Mile, Bay City history casts a sinister shadow. Pope Leo XIII was forced to intervene when rioting Catholic immigrants seized St. Stanislaus Catholic Church and battled one another in the city's streets. The police discovered prostitute Lou Hall nearly beaten to death in the Block of Blazes. And respected publishing mogul Edwin T. Bennett's secret life led to the death of a young woman in a Bay City hotel room.

Corruption, scandal, and injustice take center stage inWicked Boise< p>

Known today for its beauty, safety and livability, Idaho's capital city does harbor a few skeletons in its closet. Vigilantes lynched Ada County's first sheriff. A wealthy brothel owner was viciously murdered and found secretly living in squalor. The sensational Prohibition-era trial of a moonshine ring that included the sheriff, police chief and a prominent doctor extended a morality crusade by law enforcement. Mike Kirby was arrested and condemned to three years hard labor for sending a "most disgustingly worded letter'?, while others were sentenced for violating the state's infamous "crime against nature" law.

Author Janelle M. Scheffelmaier explores motive, morality, and the uncomfortable gray space between right and wrong as she unearths some of Boise's darkest moments.

Wicked Bozeman delves into a dangerous and dark past

The Gallatin History Museum, housed in the old Gallatin County Jail, holds many secrets. From the house of ill repute on Mendenhall Street to the earliest jail break in 1873, the historic crimes are replete with con artists, forgers, robbers and the insane each leaving a trail of deceit and mystery. There is laughter, shock and the hard reality of a life lost to time behind bars.

Using the original jail ledgers as a jumping off point, Museum Curator Kelly Suzanne Hartman takes the reader along on an investigative journey through Bozeman's seedier past.

Join Bielawa as he navigates a precarious path through the unforgettably macabre and scandalous misdeeds of Bridgeport.

Beneath the smokestacks of the gritty cityscape of Bridgeport, Connecticut is the shocking criminal underbelly of this New England community. Sin and vice have long had a home on the shores of the Long Island Sound, and Bridgeport's sinister past is littered with tales of pirates, mobsters, bizarre Victorian murders, and even rumors of a doctor's attempts to reanimate the dead. Historian Michael J. Bielawa investigates such bizarre crimes as the unsolved murder of philanthropist James Beardsley, and the grisly discovery in Yellow Mill Pond during the 19th century, which helped legitimize forensic science. Join Bielawa as he navigates a precarious path through the unforgettably macabre and scandalous misdeeds of Bridgeport.

Wicked Charleston: The Dark Side of the Holy City, by local resident and tour guide Mark R. Jones, explores the dark alleys and seedy characters not often associated with the Charleston of today.

A beautiful Southern city distinguished by its opulent homes, towering church steeples and hospitality, Charleston, South Carolina, has long been associated with the genteel side of Southern living. However, beyond the outward appearances that most people associate with Charleston, there is another side that most visitors and residents would dare not believe is part of the very fabric from which the city's history was woven. From the sexual escapades of an original Lord Proprietor and the comings and goings of the most notorious pirates, to secret brothels and nightclubs, Jones leads the reader back to a time when "drinking, eating and whoring with more than fifty wenches" was perhaps more common in the Holy City than one may imagine.

In this follow-up volume, Mark R. Jones uncovers the seedy and wicked past of Charleston: Prostitutes, Politics and Prohibition.

The city of Charleston, South Carolina, with its matchless Southern charm, has sparkled gem-like on the Carolina coast for more than three hundred years. The Holy City, as it is known, has been a cherished home to generations and an inviting destination for visitors from all over the world, who come to tour its celebrated historic sites and to bask in both the warm sun and the famous Southern hospitality. But below the gleaming surface of Charleston, there has always been a darker side--a second history that has been hidden and denied by those who retell the city's story, and by those who have lived it. Charleston has played host to a wide variety of unsavory characters, and has seen scores of sordid deeds played out on its cobbled streets, beneath flickering gaslights. Wicked Charleston, Volume 2: Prostitutes, Politics and Prohibition is a captivating companion to Mark Jones's hugely popular Wicked Charleston. In this new book, Jones reveals more of the city's seedy history--from drinking and prostitution to murder and crooked politics--offering a rarely seen glimpse of a sinister side of Charleston's past.

Award-winning true crime author Jane Turzillo brings together the strippers, gangsters, robbers, shady politicians, and more from Cleveland's rough and rowdy past.

Wicked Coeur d’Alene recounts the violent conflict and lascivious mischief in the town's early years.

Newspapers echo accounts of desperate gamblers, prostitutes and prospectors who did everything they could to secure their own future—at all costs. Town druggist Mr. Salis Smith concocted medicine composed of 50 percent alcohol mixed with cocaine or opium for the despondent. Characters like Bootleg Mary or murderous Fatty Carroll, notorious for employing shallow graves, populate dark tales of hushed murders, illegal gambling and corrupt politics. From bloody mining disputes to outlaw train robberies, author Deborah Cuyle recounts the sordid, salacious and sinful sides of Lake City’s past.

Every city has its secrets and Columbus, Indiana is no exception. Sit back and enjoy the murder and mayhem!

Dubbed the Athens of the Prairie for its array of stunning modern architecture and abundance of public art, Columbus still endured its share of unsavory citizens, crime-ridden neighborhoods and tales of woe. Many residents avoided the infamous slums of Smoky Row and Death Valley, while others gave in to the allure of Lillian ""Todie"" Tull's famed house of ill repute on North Jackson Street. Two different father-and-son hoodlum partnerships, the McKinneys and the Bells, terrorized the area in the 1800s. And a brutal fistfight between a newspaper editor and the mayor sparked a scandal in 1877.

Join author, journalist, and historian Paul J. Hoffman as he takes you on a wild ride through the salacious side of Columbus. A must-read for fans of true crime and Indiana history.

Malice in a Mining Mecca

Pernicious activity tends to follow prosperity, and the heyday of the Cripple Creek mining district was no exception. Cripple Creek’s first murder spilled out from a saloon in 1892. The 1894 heist at the Victor Hotel took place mere months after opening. Railroad superintendent Richard Newell was gunned down over a construction right of way dispute—a contentious, nationwide issue to this day. By 1893, the area was home to dancehall girls and prostitutes, including the harlot who burned down Cripple Creek in 1896 and the vixen who torched Victor in 1899. From body snatcher “Pretty Jack” McEachern to conman-turned-Roosevelt confidante Ben Daniels, the district played host to a cast of capricious characters. Join author Jan MacKell Collins as she recounts the colorful camps and raucous ruffians that defined the oft-described Wild West. 

In 1854, Decatur was nicknamed Hell's Half Acre. By the 1910s and 1920s, the town was referred to as the Second Most Corrupt City in Illinois, gaining notoriety as a place where murder, bootlegging, prostitution, kidnapping, gambling and political corruption were common. Members of the Decatur police force, like Troy Taylor's great-grandfather, were hard-pressed to bar the door against crime in a town that seemed determined to remain wide-open. Wicked Decatur presents a rogue's gallery of those who have slipped through the cracks of legality over the past century and a half.

Discover sinister stories of Erie's hidden history.

Life on the lake is not always pleasant, as these stories of scandal, robbery, murder, suicide, the mob, and more, reveal. The threatening reign of terror from the Phantom Burglar in the winter of 1926 kept Erie residents living in fear, culminating in a shocking finale. In 1927, bandits stole the payroll of the Erie County Electric Company in a harrowing robbery, and the manhunt and investigation that followed captivated the city. Extortion and blackmail were the purported tactics of local Black Hand gangsters in threatening letters sent to one of Erie’s wealthiest turn-of-the-century citizens. The tragic murder of twenty-two-year-old Mary Sobucki enraged local law enforcement and shined a light on the underworld operations of baby harvesting farms. Author Justin Dombrowski presents narratives of Erie’s wicked past.

Present-day Fishers, Indiana, is one of the safest places to live in the U.S., but this respectable city has a rough and rowdy past.

Starting off as a small railroad community, Fishers attracted its fair share of drifters, and the whiskey flowed like water. It may have been small, but the lawless town made national headlines on more than one occasion. A two-day bar brawl led to one death and dozens of injuries and required the Sheriff to restore order. A sensational trial exposed mass grave robberies and led to legislative changes. James Redwine became the town's first homicide victim over a Christmas turkey shootout. Author Robert Bowling explores the history of this once small town and the misdeeds that thrust it into the national spotlight.

A rowdy red-light district, secret tunnels, and scathing newspaper editorials. 

Once home to sheep herders and ranchers, the railroad brought a new breed of pioneer to Flagstaff. Entrepreneurs and outlaws alike flocked to the growing town, some finding success and others finding their end at Greenwood Cemetery. When saloons and bawdy houses rebelled against new blue laws, quick-thinking mayor Thomas E. Pollock found a compromise that appeased most locals. Incorrigible characters like Commodore Perry Owens and Ben Doney could be found in town at the Parlor Saloon, while Dutch May Prescott kept the red-light district in the black. 

Author Susan Johnson uncovers the weird and wicked side of Flagstaff. 

#YeahThatGreenville is the official slogan of a city with a Southern Charm and congenial reputation. But the beauty of the Reedy River Falls cannot cover up its secret past. Theodosia Burr Alston regularly summered in Greenville prior to being "lost at sea'? in 1812. Rival newspaper editors Benjamin Perry and Turner Bynum, faced off in a fatal duel in 1832.Hugh Bramlett murdered his mother-in-law in 1919, before it was revealed that insanity populated his family tree. Genealogical researcher, Jennifer Stoy presents uncovered tales of mayhem, insanity, and a side of Greenville you didn't know existed.

The Darker Side of Hampton County   

Founded as a “white county” during the violence and political turmoil of Reconstruction, Hampton County’s roots are steeped in wickedness and blood. From the “Wild East” days of gunfights, train robbers, rustlers and rough-and-tumble timber towns to the shadowy era of moonshining and infamous solicitor “Buster” Murdaugh’s involvement in the “Great Whisky Conspiracy,” the county is rich with true tales of murder, crime and corruption. Meet colorful characters such as the banker who befriended a notorious bank robber and courageous heroes like the jailer’s teen daughter who saved an accused Black prisoner from death at the hands of a vigilante lynch mob. Travel this historical journey with award-winning storyteller, journalist and local author Michael M. DeWitt Jr.

These are the abhorrent, the grim, the can't-look-away misdeeds and miscreants of this city's past, when bicycle messenger boys peddled through the night to link prostitutes with johns and when the bigoted masses tightened their grip on the city behind mayor and Klansman John Duvall. From the unseemly to the deviant to the disastrous, Hoosier Andrew E. Stoner brings you lives as out of control as the worst wreck at the Indy 500 with a history as regrettable as it is riveting.

Kansans like to think of their state as a land of industrious, law-abiding and friendly people, and for the most part they are correct.

Kansas history has many tales of murders, cons, extrajudicial killings and other crimes. Its restive frontier attracted menacing characters, such as a cowboy who murdered a man for snoring, the serial-killing Bender family and the train-robbing James-Younger Gang. Although the area was eventually settled, the scandals did not cease. Learn about how a quack doctor nearly won the governorship, a decommissioned nuclear missile silo housed the largest LSD manufacturing operation in American history and more. Author Adrian Zink explores the salacious side of Kansas history in these wild and degenerate stories.

Lawrence County may seem a sleepy little place, but looks are deceiving.

The red light district in Ironton attracted enough attention for an FBI raid. On the other side of the law, Judge Lloyd Burwell became nationally known for his strict sentencing, which made him the subject for a movie starring Andy Griffith. A 1915 shooting on a shanty boat on the Ohio River sparked a fierce contest between Ohio and West Virginia over who had jurisdiction to prosecute the case. The mob ties of Continental Nite Club in Chesapeake ran all the way to the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas.

Local historian and author Lori Shafer gathers a selection of thrilling and occasionally gruesome tales from Lawrence County’s dark past.

Filled with tales of infamous duels, cheating congressmen, and much more, Wicked Lexington, Kentucky offers the first collection the city's rowdy and ruckus history .

Despite its illustrious beginnings as the "Athens of the west," Lexington has always had a darker side lurking just beneath its glossy sheen. It didn't take long for the first intellectual hub west of the Alleghenies to quickly morph into a city with the same scandalous inclinations as neighboring Louisville and Cincinnati. From Belle Brezing's infamous brothel of the late 1800s, frequented by some of the city's most prominent businessmen, and once pardoned by the governor, to historic sports scandals of the 1900s, local author Fiona Young-Brown tracks Lexington's penchant for misdeeds from founding to modern times.

Local historian Yance Marti uncovers the rough and rowdy blackguards who once made Milwaukee infamous.

The Cream City of yesteryear was a dingy haven for scofflaws and villains. Red-light districts peppered downtown's landscape, but none had the enduring allure of River Street, where Kitty Williams and Mary Kingsley operated high-class brothels. Chinese opium dens flourished in the backrooms of laundries. The demise of the Whiskey Ring brought down local distillers in a nationwide scandal that nearly reached the Oval Office. As a result, Police Chief John Janssen and the Committee to Investigate White Slavery and Kindred Vice waged a protracted battle to contain the most brazen offenses.

Authors Josh Foreman and Ryan Starrett lead readers on a descent into the darkest depths of Mississippi. From embezzler Edward Cates and his effort to avoid prosecution by faking his own death, to the hoop-skirted damsels of the antebellum South and a three-generation struggle for social supremacy, Mississippi knows its way around the seven deadly sins. The Black Knight of Mississippi Alexander McClung finally meets the duelist he can’t defeat—himself. Kiah Lincecum hunts for the easy dollar. Nellie Jackson’s Natchez bordello caters to a community’s base interests. John Law concocts America’s first Ponzi scheme with the Mississippi Bubble. The Magnolia State’s foremost food critic settles in for a famously gluttonous 31-course meal. And a wrathful scene unfolds at the Carrol County courthouse. 

Local author Brendan Kirby revives Mobile's history of gangsters, gambling, theft and arson.

Since its founding in 1702 as the first capital of the French colony of Louisiana, Mobile has witnessed all manner of salacious scandals. An 1847 murder resulted in the hanging of Charles Boyington, who maintained his innocence to the very end, and a great oak tree near his grave site seems to support him. Many believe the notorious Copeland gang started one of the city's worst fires as cover to escape with stolen loot. A 1932 murder case involved a slaying at the landmark Battle House Hotel and proved that Mobile juries could not always be trusted.

Explore the notorious and unusual side of Muncie's history.

Muncie is the classic small American city. But for much of the past two centuries, the city fell victim to murder, corruption and the bizarre. Mayor Rollin Bunch went to prison for mail fraud, while his police commissioner faced a murder rap. Viola Babe Swartz ran a brothel out of a truck stop that was raided by police at least a dozen times but ran for sheriff in the 1974 primary election. June Holland, of the locally famous Holland triplets, killed her neighbor for refusing to sell her house.

While known for the twang of its country music, Nashville is also home to a colorful and salacious past. A must-read for Nashville history enthusiasts.

The earliest settlers to lay claim to the land surrounding Nashville brought with them betrayal, murder and thievery. As the city grew, authorities unsuccessfully attempted to outlaw and remove vice. During the Civil War, the number of soiled doves in Nashville forced the army to legalize and regulate prostitution. The death of outspoken politician Edward Carmack triggered the state to outlaw booze for nearly thirty years, but that did not stop alcohol from flowing in the city. One local mayor even bragged about his patronage of saloons.

Elizabeth Goetsch dives into Nashville's wicked past and explores some of Music City's more tantalizing history.

Catch a whiff of rum and candor when Jacob Ritter sits to write one morning in 1861. His opening line: "I have killed my wife because she is a witch." When the trains roar through this New Albany, they are quite likely meeting flesh. The men in the saloons are armed and irritated. And the murderous can be most industrious, like the man who was sentenced to death, sold his body to New Albany's first physician, collected the cash, reneged on the contract and then tried to sell his corpse again. Millions have roamed these broad avenues during New Albany's nearly two hundred years. Most have been honest sorts. Others, well…

A look back at New Orleans's early wicked days and historic crimes

Since as early as the 1700s, New Orleans has been a city filled with sin and vice. Those first pioneering citizens of the Big Easy were thieves, vagabonds and criminals of all kinds. By the time Louisiana fell under American control, New Orleans had become a city of debauchery and corruption camouflaged by decadence. It was also considered one of the country's most dangerous cities, with a reputation of crime and loose morals. Rampant gambling and prostitution were the norm in nineteenth-century New Orleans, and over one-third of today's French Quarter was considered a hotbed of sin. Tales in this volume include that of the notorious Axeman who plagued the streets of the Crescent City in the early 1900s and Kate Townsend, a prostitute who was murdered by her own lover, a man who later was awarded her inheritance.

Take a trip with Larry Stanford through 350 years of Newport's hidden, dark history.

Founded by a small band of religious freedom seekers in 1639, Newport, Rhode Island, subsequently became a bustling colonial seaport teeming with artists, sailors, prosperous merchants and, perhaps most distinctively, the ultra-rich families of the Gilded Age. Clinging to the lavish coattails of these newly minted millionaires and robber barons was a stream of con artists and hangers-on who attempted to leech off their well-to-do neighbors. From the Vanderbilts to the Dukes, the Astors to the Kennedys, the City by the Sea has served as a sanctuary for the elite, and a hotbed of corruption. Local historian Larry Stanford pulls back the curtain on over 350 years of history, uncovering the real stories behind many of Newport's most enduring mysteries, controversial characters and scintillating scandals.

Controlled by the heavy hand of the mob and fueled by government corruption, Newport evolved through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries into a notoriously robust center of criminal activity.

With top political and law enforcement officials often on the take, the seedy status quo became so excessive that a May 1961 issue of Time magazine declared, "Newport has developed such a gaudy brand of gambling and prostitution that it stands today as one of the nation's most blatant sin centers." Eastern Kentucky University Professors Gary Potter and Thomas Barker, both experts on organized crime, along with Jenna Meglen, offer up a captivating chronicle of Newport's criminal development, complete with thought-provoking assessments of the possible advantages that organized crime brought to the city commonly considered to be Las Vegas's predecessor.

Even in paradise, evil sometimes creeps in.

Thoughts of Alabama invite images of Confederate jasmine and fertile cotton fields, sweet iced tea and Southern hospitality, but there's a darker side to the state's history. Some of the stories captured within the pages of this book are well known to the good folks of North Alabama; others are less familiar. The scandals of Lincoln's brother-in-law, the reign of terror created by Huntsville's Southwest Molester, the Decatur man who buried his wife's dismembered body under the fish pond and the beautiful Black Widow of Hazel Green--all of these stories are well researched and masterfully written by Huntsville author Jacquelyn Procter Reeves. True-crime fans will appreciate this treasury of stories spanning nearly two hundred years of North Alabama history.

Before Las Vegas, there was Phenix City, Alabama--the original sin city.

Once the sprawling capital of the Muscogee Indian Empire, the region took a sinister turn when a holy war engulfed the southern territories in 1812, leading to the murder of the infamous Chief William McIntosh. Later, atrocities continued at Fort Mitchell, the killing grounds for early Georgia politicians who fought to the death over rival politics and bitter feuds. By the 1950s, Phenix City was home to the Dixie Mafia, and crime and corruption ruled over the little riverfront city. Take a walk with author Faith Serafin as she travels through the darkest recesses of Phenix City's past.

Historian Thomas Keels tells many ribald stories in his book, ""Wicked Philadelphia: Sin in the City of Brotherly Love,"" including various methods of body snatching and murder. --Marty Moss-Coane, WHYY-FM

Prim and proper Philadelphia has been rocked by the clash between excessive vice and social virtue since its citizens burned the city's biggest brothel in 1800. With tales of grave robbers in South Philadelphia and harlots in Franklin Square, Wicked Philadelphia reveals the shocking underbelly of the City of Brotherly Love. In one notorious scam, a washerwoman masqueraded as the fictional Spanish countess Anita de Bettencourt for two decades, bilking millions from victims and even fooling the government of Spain. From the 1843 media frenzy that ensued after an aristocrat abducted a young girl to a churchyard transformed into a brothel (complete with a carousel), local author Thomas H. Keels unearths Philadelphia's most scintillating scandals and corrupt characters in this rollicking history.

Join author Richard Gazarik as he reveals the wicked history of the Steel City.

Muckraking journalist Walter Liggett dubbed Pittsburgh the Metropolis of Corruption in 1930 when he reported the city had more vice per square foot than New York, Detroit, Cleveland or Boston. Decades earlier, the Magee-Flinn political machine ruled public officials, and crooked police helped racketeers protect brothels and gambling dens. Mayor (later Governor) David Lawrence was indicted several times for graft but acquitted each time. Even Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney Sr. colluded with gangsters, according to FBI reports.

Delve into San Antonio's wicked past, from the lawless lore of the Spanish settlement through the criminal misdeeds of the modern metropolis.

Residents of the Alamo City tolerated scores of cockfighting pits, gambling joints, opium dens, around-the-clock saloons and other places of ill-repute. Some disturbers of San Antonio's peace, like Judge Roy Bean, left town to achieve greater notoriety elsewhere. Others, like the thief who stole the McFarlin diamond, seemed to vanish into thin air. But all of them left a page-turning story behind. Mike Cox catalogues San Antonio's most infamous incidents and miscreants.

Spokane’s early years were marked by an unchecked underworld of greed and sinister dealings.

Houses of ill-repute and homebrewed whiskey abounded, and hidden tunnels beneath the streets helped to stoke the lawlessness. Famous cowgirl Calamity Jane loved to deal faro when visiting the city and it’s rumored that outlaw Butch Cassidy¬¬, after a bit of plastic surgery, chose the city to live out the rest of his life in relative peace. A corrupt police department did little to curb the influence of the wealthy and those seeking to make their fortune through bootlegging, prostitution or gambling.

Join author Deborah Cuyle as she uncovers the colorful past of the Lilac City.