What really happened on the circus train in 1918? Read the story of this tragedy for the entertainment industry of the time.

In the cool, pre-dawn hours on a June night in 1918, a train engineer closed his cab window as he chugged toward Hammond, Indiana. He drifted to sleep, and his train bore down on the idle Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus Train. Soon after, the sleeping engineer's locomotive plowed into the circus train. In the subsequent wreckage and blaze, more than two hundred circus performers were injured and eighty-six were killed, most of whom were interred in a mass grave in the Showmen's Rest section of Chicago's Woodlawn Cemetery. Join local historian Richard Lytle as he recounts, in the fullest retelling to date, the details of this tragedy and its role in the overall evolution and demise of a unique entertainment industry.

Author Janis Thornton reveals the stories of a day in Indiana like no other.

Palm Sunday 1965 started as the nicest day of the year, the kind of weather that encouraged Hoosiers to get out in the sun, fire up the grill, hit the golf course, or roll down their car windows and take a leisurely drive. That evening, however, throughout northern and central Indiana, the sky turned an ominous black, and storms moved in, quickly manifesting as Indiana's worst tornado outbreak. Within three hours, twisters, some a half-mile wide, ripped through seventeen counties, devastating communities and leaving death and destruction in their wake. When the tornadoes were finished with Indiana, 137 people were dead, hundreds were injured, and thousands more were forever changed.

Explore the city of yesteryear

East Chicago, Indiana, was a melting pot. The Indiana Harbor neighborhood drew comparisons to Ellis Island as immigrants flocked from all over the world to work at its steel mills. Once home to more than a hundred nationalities, the “Workshop of America” made metal and many other products. Despite issues like pollution and political corruption, it earned the nickname “City of Champions,” winning state titles, sustaining a historic high school rivalry, and producing greats like Gregg Popovich and Junior Bridgeman.

Award-winning Region journalist and Lost Hammond author Joseph S. Pete explores bygone landmarks like Washington and Roosevelt High Schools, Inland Steel Christmas parties, the zoo, Taco Joe’s, the Mademoiselle Shoppe, movies palaces, the gym where Michael Jordan played his first Bulls game, and more.

Indiana Authors Awards (Nonfiction) 2024

More than two centuries removed from its founding, Indianapolis has seen its share of landmarks and landscapes pass into memory. Some have totally vanished, such as the National Road covered bridge over the White River, the Marion County Courthouse, the 1835 Indiana Statehouse and the previous headquarters for the long-standing Flanner House organization. Others still exist, but not in their original location or form, like Pogue’s Run, the Central Canal through downtown and the remnants of structures at Riverside Park. Indianapolis historian Edward Fujawa explores the history of lost sites, how they appear today and how some are still used or repurposed.

But Speedway is more than a town that surrounds the most famous automobile racing track in the world. The city is proud of its quality schools, and residents have prospered from the businesses in the area. Civic pride runs strong through this community where generations of families have remained in the same neighborhoods, and sometimes in the same house.