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A sad and shocking story of love betrayed

The murder of Bessie Little and the trial of her murderer rocked Victorian Dayton. Believing herself pregnant and desperate to save her reputation, young Bessie tried to force her boyfriend, Albert Frantz, to marry her quickly. Instead, he took her out for a buggy ride, shot her twice in the head and dumped her body in the river. When she was discovered, he tried to convince everyone that she committed suicide. The dramatic trial brought to light details of Bessie and Albert’s secret trysts, and Albert’s sanity became a point of contention.

In her third historical book about Dayton, Sara Kaushal delves into a tale of scandal and betrayal to discover the truth.

Baseball has long been synonymous with Kansas. Go back to the late 1800s and the birth of Walter Johnson and George Sweatt, Humboldt kids who played baseball at the highest level but in different leagues due to racism. Learn about the sixteen-year-old signed by the Kansas City Athletics, who left the University of Kansas campus to play his first game at Municipal Stadium the next day. Read about pioneers in the game named Joyce, Katie and Alex, determined and talented women who are part of our national pastime. Author Michael Travis shares his love for the game, rounding the bases from its beginnings in Wichita with League 42 to the Major Leagues.

Casting a legacy

Long before automobiles made Detroit the Motor City, the city boasted a flourishing and diverse industrial economy, albeit on a more modest scale. Among the myriad industries that defined the nineteenth-century city, none held greater significance or broader influence than stove fabrication. Three manufacturers—Detroit Stove Works, Michigan Stove Company and the Peninsular Stove Company—dominated this sector, collectively contributing more than 10 percent of all cast-iron stoves produced and distributed throughout North America. At the forefront of this triumph were Jeremiah and James Dwyer, whose vision and ingenuity played pivotal roles in shaping the industry’s success.

Historian Gerald Van Dusen explores the key role that this early industry played in laying the groundwork and facilitating the production of automobiles.

A part of Belt's City Anthology Series, this collection explores Akron, Ohio's past and what may happen there in the future. A portrait of the city's rich, mysterious, odd-leaning inner life.

Between 1910 and 1920, Akron was the fastest growing city in the United States, tripling in size and exploding from a population of 69,000 to 208,000. Its period of rapid growth coincided with the expansion of the rubber and tire industry, which in turn corresponded with that of the automobile industry. But since the mid-1970s, industry has abandoned Akron, and the city has lost 31 percent of its population. Once opulent neighborhoods are now swaths of abandoned homes, and the factories that made Akron the Rubber Capital of the World lie dormant.

Edited by Jason Segedy, and bringing together established writers like Rita Dove and David Giffels with the work of emerging voices, The Akron Anthology collects essays, poems, and photographs from the writers, artists, and activists who call Akron home. Here you'll find stories that include:

- The diaries of a doorman

- The trials and triumphs of refugees who have relocated to the city

- A portrait of Jamie Stillman, world-renowned effects pedal manufacturer

- Archie the talking snowman.

Providing readers with diverse group of voices, this collection offers an intimate look at a storied Ohio city.

A brief, elegant memoir of the author's work as a Red Cross volunteer delivering emergency water to residents of Flint, Michigan. A heartfelt portrait of a city, and a man, grieving.―Kirkus Reviews

A collection of short essays and exquisitely chiseled vignettes, Standpipe: Delivering Water in Flint sets the struggles of a midwestern city in crisis against David Hardin's narrative of his personal journey as his mother succumbs to dementia and death. Written with a poet's eye for detail and quiet metaphor, Standpipe offers an intimate look at one man's engagement with both civic and familial trauma. It's also a vivid investigation into how we all heal as a community.

This gentle, observant book is for readers looking to understand the human experience of the Flint Water Crisis, and as well as the deplorable conditions in Flint and the injustices that have plagued it for generations.

With a history dating back 2000 years, Columbia Tusculum stands as a vital contributor to the region’s development.

The lush, strategically located land provided essential resources for native hunting and trade as well as for pioneer farming. Positioned at the convergence of the Little Miami and Ohio Rivers, the young community became a hub for transporting people and goods. Over time, streetcars, railroads, and Columbia Parkway facilitated transportation, fostering migration and growth. Columbia's Lunken Airport, a major municipal airport in the early twentieth century, also enhanced Cincinnati’s connectivity.

Author Dinese Young unfolds the story of Cincinnati’s oldest neighborhood and its role in the city’s evolution.

Beneath the calm and bucolic appearance of Ross County, dark things await.

Chillicothe’s iconic Majestic Theater is a veritable haunted hotspot. Numerous homes in Huntington Hills report strange occurrences, and ghostly shadows appear nightly at Mound City. Unbeknownst to many, a Frankfort apartment complex stands on the hallowed ground of a family cemetery, leaving the spirits beneath the earth far from peaceful. Deftly weaving together elements of murder, mystery, suspense, and horror into a captivating blend of the supernatural and the unknown, award-winning author Neal Parks leads a haunting journey through local haunted lore.

Ghouls of the Glacial Lakes and Prairie Region

Buried in the annals of the region are torrid tales, disasters and the unexplained. At historic Fort Sisseton, the old hanging tree and a phantom buffalo soldier are just a few of its spectral stories. Partygoers from over a century ago still linger at Aberdeen’s Easton Castle. De Smet’s historic Laura Ingalls Wilder homestead attracts thousands of visitors annually, many unaware of its familial spirts. Locals in Watertown still debate whether the apparition at the Goss Opera House is that of a traveling performer named Annie or murder victim Maud Alexander, who was set on fire by her own son. Victims of a 1940 train wreck between Milbank and Marvin seemingly never left the scene of the accident. And Captain Luff of The Muskegon disaster can be seen mourning on the banks of Big Stone Lake. Author Deborah Cuyle chronicles the area’s most fascinating and perplexing lore. 

The Most Haunted City in Kansas

Atchison is a town where the migration West started and proudly calls itself the “most haunted city in Kansas.” Many former residents are still present longing to be heard and seen. Hannah Jo Cusack leaves pennies for the living to make her presence known. Another woman is perhaps still looking for her ride home walking the woods in the shadows of night. In the Sallie House, something seems to dislike the men visiting, while a ghost named Goldie still sits in her rocking chair scowling at all those who enter the home, but especially the women. Join Brooke Montoya as she shares the incredible stories and harrowing hauntings in Atchison.

In addition to its well-known associations with doctors and diagnoses, the city of Rochester offers a string of curiosities to those willing to look closely.

How did a secret bomber mission to Moscow during World War II lead to thousands of fighter planes flying through Rochester and the subsequent construction of a giant IBM manufacturing plant here? What was Rochester's contribution to the 1980 Olympic Hockey "Miracle on Ice"? Who was dubbed the “Greatest Doctor in the World”, and why? Who were the regular folks without whom the great Mayo Clinic might never have become a medical mecca?

Rochester Stories: A Med City History Paul Scanlon answers these and other questions in this enlightening and sometimes humorous study of Rochester’s past.

From its humble beginning as the Hopkin Club to its current status in the 21st century, the Scarab Club in Detroit focuses on fine, performing, and technical arts and is still housed in its original 1928 building.

On the cusp of its centennial anniversary, the Scarab Club (founded in 1907) weaves itself into the city of Detroit's and the state of Michigan's artistic cultural heritage, a historic local, state, and national landmark. The club's exhibitions, programs, and costumed balls, the prominent visitors' and members' signatures on the second-floor beams, and the architectural decor of the clubhouse combine for its unique distinction. From its inception, the Scarab Club's mission has been to educate and enlighten its members and the community in the arts. The organization maintains a clubhouse for the exhibition of arts, provides facilities for artists for the advancement of their craft, and for other activities directed toward the education in the arts.""

Discover the dozens of exciting never-before-published images of the people and events at Lunken Airfield.

Lunken Airfield flew headlong into the golden age of aviation in the 1920s. World War I veterans became gutsy barnstormers who had only roads and railroad tracks as navigational landmarks. They gave way to courageous pilots who flew airmail, as well as record makers who flew for the joie de vivre and fame under conditions fraught with danger. These flyers gave way to aircraft engineers and designers who would craft the next generation of planes. Pilots were seduced by the allure of international recognition and wealth, as well as the feeling of freedom experienced in the air. Along the way, they assumed the status of movie stars. On any given day, anyone from a spectator to a mechanic might hobnob with Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, Roscoe Turner, or Jimmy Doolittle, who routinely flew in and out of Lunken. Over the decades, Lunken has undergone many changes, but today, as it approaches its centennial, planes still take off and land daily, and crowds still flock to special events.

For more than a century, Cincinnati's candy industry satisfied our national sweet tooth. Dive into its specialties and past.

Stick and drop candies appeared here long before their Civil War popularity. Opera creams, rich fondant-filled chocolate candy brought here by Robert Hiner Putman, provided decadence. Candy corn, which the Goelitz Company introduced to the United States before World War I, remains a ubiquitous treat. Marpro Products created and popularized the marshmallow cone candy. Doscher invented the French Chew and made caramel corn a baseball concession at Redland Field decades before Cracker Jack became synonymous with our national pastime. The city's many Greek and Macedonian immigrants influenced the unique Queen City tradition of finishing a Cincinnati-style ""threeway"" of spaghetti, chili and cheddar with a chocolate mint. Local food etymologist Dann Woellert tells these stories and more in this delectably sweet history.

From Holy Family Log Church to Jarrot Mansion, the over 300 year history of the close knit Cahokia community is detailed in this photographic history.

In 1999, Cahokia will celebrate 300 years as the historic, close knit community located directly across the great Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri. The village's proximity to St. Louis allows residents to enjoy all the cultural opportunities of a large city, while keeping its small-town atmosphere. Cahokia has a distinctive French heritage and is today still inhabited by many of the same families whose ancestors came to the community in the 18th and 19th centuries. Among the many fascinating pieces of Cahokia's history featured in this book is the Holy Family Parish, founded by missionary priests from Quebec. The first Mass was said there on December 8, 1698, establishing Holy Family as the oldest continuous parish in the United States. Today, the treasured Holy Family Log Church, dating from 1799, occupies this site. Other images among the 200 shown here include the historic sites of the Cahokia Courthouse and Jarrot Mansion, as well as scenes of daily life around town.

Explore the fascinating history of Detroit’s Gesu Catholic Church and Schoolthrough the images and stories of the people who were there.

In a reconfigured farmhouse just a mile outside of the city limits of Detroit, a Jesuit priest and 25 men, women, and children gathered to celebrate Sunday mass on March 19, 1922.

The Reverend John McNichols named the Catholic mission church Gesu, the Italian word for Jesus.Gesubecame one of Detroit's landmark parishes. Its history illustrates the Motor City'sboom, bust, resilience, and resurgence. It was the home parish of four Detroit mayors, powerful members of Congress, auto industry titans, sports legends, artists, authors, and actors. At its peak in the mid-1960s, GesuSchool enrolled 1,600 students. Because of Detroit's decline and its racial and economic struggles, Gesuis one of only four Catholic elementary schools that remain in the city. But as Detroit rebounds, Gesu Schoolis growing again.

Author Patricia Montemurri is an award-winning Detroit journalist whose in-laws were the church's architects and stained-glass designers.Gesu'shistory unfolds here through vintage photographs from the parish archives, the Sisters Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the University of Detroit Mercy, the Walter P. Reuther Library, the Michigan Catholic, and the albums of Gesuparishioners and graduates.

The river itself carried the first travelers upstream to the short portage to the Mississippi watershed and the West. In the early 1800s, the Wabash and Erie Canal was started to provide a more reliable and even passage. Many came to work on it and settled, hacking out farmsteads from the dense, swampy forest. A canal lock nearby made a natural stopping and shipping point. In 1856, the Wabash Railroad superceded the canal with rapid all-weather transport and commerce flourished. The old canal towpath became a road, intersecting in the middle of the community with the Lincoln Highway, bringing in the automobile era. The local commuter age was born in the early 1900s with the interurban railroad from Lima, Ohio, to Fort Wayne, Indiana, providing hourly, fast service for jobs and shopping. This small, tree-lined city still shows clear marks of the ages and stages of transportation history that have given it life and form. Now greenway trails trace the old Indian paths along the river.

No matter where the scattered Jews of Chicago live now, many can trace their roots to this ""Jerusalem of Chicago.""

For nearly half a century, the greater Lawndale area was the vibrant, spirited center of Jewish life in Chicago. It contained almost 40 percent of the city's entire Jewish population with over 70 synagogues and numerous active Jewish organizations and institutions, such as the Jewish People's Institute, the Hebrew Theological College, and Mount Sinai Hospital. Its residents included ""King of Swing"" Benny Goodman, Israeli prime minister Golda Meir, journalists Irv Kupcinet and Meyer Levin, federal judge Abraham Lincoln Marovitz, civil rights attorney Elmer Gertz, Eli's Cheesecake founder Eli Shulman, and comedian Shelley Berman. Many of the selected images come from the author's extensive collection. This book will bring back memories for those who lived there and retell the story of Jewish life on the West Side for those who did not.

Beginning with the birth of the original club on Woodward Avenue in 1887, this book chronicles the history of the DAC up to the present, in over 200 vintage photographs-many never before seen outside of the club. Images gathered from the club's archives cover the formative years at the first club, the building and opening of the new club, the DAC's great athletic traditions, its membership and staff, social activities, the art of the DAC and its magnificent restoration at the end of the 20th century.

From lumber-era boom town to a solid and enduring city, Ludington: 1830-1930features more than 220 images which show the community's progress.

The lumbering industry brought thousands of workers and their families to labor in the mills of Ludington and in the forests along the Pere Marquette Riverin the 19th century. Though some moved on to new lumbering areas, many remained and prospered as Ludington grew to become a manufacturing, transportation, and tourism center in the 20th century.

Ludington: 1830-1930focuses on Ludington people and places during this pivotal century. Notable events chronicled within include the 1876 assassination of Luther H. Foster, the precipitous decline in lumbering in the 1890s, and the completion of the Million Dollar Harbor, which in 1914 confirmed the city's status as an important Great Lakes port.

Detroit has always been a haven for the working class. Headquartering the most powerful industrial union in American history, the UAW, the city's labor movements have had the power to influence national urban and social policy. Captured here are Detroit's nationally recognized labor campaigns, from the first sit-downs of 1937, to the powerful unions inspired by the radical philosophies of Jimmy Hoffa and Walter Reuther. Through the contribution of arms and tanks to World War II, to the devastating decline of the unions in the 1970s and '80s, the photographs here capture the multitude of races and faces that made Detroit one of America's greatest industrial cities, and the world's undisputed Motor City.

Chicago's Opulent Age examines the buildings, events, parks, and people of the city from the 1870s through the 1940s. Also featured are ""funlands,"" fairs, sculptures, and transportation.

The fires that destroyed Chicago in the 1870s just happened to be events that have led to the city's importance today. Chicago, after the destruction of its downtown, was free to use new architectural concepts and to examine how to use its crowded land space. It was free to reinvent itself. Soon, new Jenny-inspired ""tower"" buildings began to claw their way into the sky, enabling the city to concentrate its commercial core. By the turn of the century, Chicago had added many lakefront buildings, parks, and temples of art and music, built an elevated railway system, and hosted a World's Fair. Chicago was the first city to let the inventiveness of industrialism mold the way it went about its business and pastimes. More than 200 pictures and colorful narratives provide a fitting tribute to the past history of this great city.

New modes of transportation defined eras of change in the watershed. Electrified rails brought summer resorts and country estates; automobiles ferried suburbanites to Tudor side streets; and eventually, Interstate highways funneled exurbanites into shopping centers. Two centuries later, the Euclid Creek watershed holds 68,000 residents in 11 municipalities: Beachwood, Euclid, Highland Heights, Lyndhurst, Mayfield Heights, Mayfield Village, Nottingham, Richmond Heights, Pepper Pike, South Euclid, and Willoughby Hills.

Euclid Creek is a unique history of the Great Lake tributary stream and her many different communities. Drawing from numerous archives, the authors surmount municipal boundaries to show the whole history of a nearly forgotten natural landmark.

The Ohio Literary Trail: A Guide offers something unique for the armchair traveler and the road warrior alike.

The Ohio Literary Trail celebrates the Buckeye State’s role in shaping culture and literature worldwide. Along the trail, developed by the Ohioana Library Association, lie historic homes, museums, library collections, and historical markers honoring great authors, poets, and influencers of the literary landscape. Following the state’s five geographic regions for convenient self-guided tours, curious explorers can walk in the footsteps of Harriett Beecher Stowe and poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. They can view renowned collections of comics, picture book art, and Nancy Drew-themed artifacts. Or they can tour the home and farm of Pulitzer Prize-winner and conservationist Louis Bromfield. Betty Weibel, one of the trail’s creators, offers this guide to those looking for the literary treasures of Ohio.

The year was 1844, and scores of pioneers from the eastern and southern areas of the United States were migrating to the nearly impenetrable virgin forests of Indiana's newly established Tipton County, named for two-term Indiana senator and revered warrior Gen. John Tipton.

Displacing all but a fraction of the Miamis who once dominated the bountiful Indiana Territory, the white settlers cleared the land, built homes, and farmed the rich soil. Soon, the expanding railroads arrived, ushering in a cultural and economic boon with jobs, innovation, and an end to the settlers' isolated lifestyle. Despite the change, Tipton Countians remained loyal to their pioneer values, and future generations included war heroes, outstanding scholars, prominent athletes, and a president of the United States. Today, the spirit of the early pioneers endures throughout Tipton County, home to some 16,000 Americans who, like their ancestors, proudly hail their Hoosier heritage

The partner communities of Whiting and Robertsdale epitomize Americana and the melting-pot concept at its finest. Together, they built beautiful churches, quality schools, and recreational facilities.

Whiting started out as a small, frontier-like town settled by German and Irish immigrants and quickly became a booming industrial city after Standard Oil Company arrived in 1889 to build a refinery. Neighboring Robertsdale became home to thousands of Eastern European immigrants who came to the area in search of jobs and new opportunities. They raised their families to be proud Americans and incorporated traditions from their homelands into daily life. This pictorial history is a tribute to the citizens who created a warm and inviting environment amidst the cold, hard steel of the industries that surrounded them and who left behind a legacy rich in tradition, tenacity, and a tendency to celebrate everything!

In this region, houses of the wealthy sprang up alongside homes of workingmen as the city spread beyond the Wabash River banks and the downtown area. Its name comes from James Farrington, a banker and attorney who settled there in 1841. Over the years, Farrington's Grove residents have touched lives far beyond its boundaries. Max Ehrmann's poem "Desiderata" has inspired people worldwide to go placidly amid the noise and haste. The Coca-Cola bottle's shape owes its unique design to Earl Dean. Both racing fans and cooks owe a debt to Anton Hulman Jr., who resurrected the Indianapolis 500 and launched an advertising campaign that made Clabber Girl Baking Powder a household name. Farrington's Grove has been home to poets, political figures, industrialists, suffragettes, educators, artists, and college students.

Take a fascinating journey through the history of Brownsburg, Indiana with more than 200 vintage photographs and anecdotes from the locals who experienced it.

In 1835, William Harris sectioned off his land--the area now known as Mainand Green Streetsin Brownsburg--for the purpose of establishing a town.

Harris used beech trees, elm trees, and hickory stumps to define the town's boundaries; he called it Harrisburg. The name Harrisburg was already in use elsewhere in Indiana, so Brownsburg, which paid homage to early settler James B. Brown, was selected as an alternative. Brownsburg's railroad station, located between Indianapolis and Crawfordsville, positioned the farming community for dramatic growth. As new settlers arrived, new businesses, mills, and factories also began to open. Today, Brownsburg continues to grow, and the community is known for its engineering and racing industries and its first-rate schools.

Join author Linda Lichte Cook, a longtime resident of Brownsburg maintains the digital archives of images and historic documents known as the Brownsburg Then and Now/Indiana Memory Project as she showcases her town's rich history.

Throughout the years, Native Americans, pioneers, frontiersman, farmers, and merchants have made Clay County home. Historic Vermillion and Clay County captures the history, development, and changing landscape of the area in almost 200 vintage images.