Missouri

Name: Route 66 St. Louis Style
Brand: Joseph R. Sonderman
SKU: 9781467160575
Price: 17.49 USD
Availability: InStock

Taking its cue from St. Louis architecture, the Show Me State operates as a gateway to discovery. The wonders of the 1904 World’s Fair, the scenic passage of Route 66 and the quest for that perfect meal in Columbia all testify to that exploratory drive. But like the restless rivers that gave Mark Twain his alias and inspiration, Missouri’s history proves no frontier provides uncontested passage. In the vicinity of Civil War guerillas or Prohibition Era bootleggers, an unlocked door could invite calamity. Crack open our catalogue of Missouri history books for a portal into the state’s adventurous heritage. [View all Missouri books]

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Route 66 St. Louis Style

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

Route 66 in St. Louis

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St. Louis

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St. Louis

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Route 66 in the Missouri Ozarks

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Abandoned Ozarks, Southwest Missouri

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Missouri Botanical Garden

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Downtown St. Louis

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St. Louis's The Hill

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Missouri's Haunted Route 66

$21.99 $15.39 Save 30%

St. Charles

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Route 66 in Missouri

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Wicked Women of Missouri

$23.99 $16.79 Save 30%

Missouri's Wicked Route 66:

$21.99 $15.39 Save 30%

The Steamer Admiral

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

Harry Truman's Independence

$21.99 $15.39 Save 30%

Webster Groves

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Southwest Missouri Mining

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Haunted Graveyards of the Ozarks

$14.99 $10.49 Save 30%

St. Louis Coffee

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Iconic Restaurants of Kansas City

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Early Kansas City, Missouri

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Joplin

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Missouri Ozarks Legends and Lore

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Forest Park

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Iconic Restaurants of St. Louis

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Notorious Missouri

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Kirksville

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Civil Rights in St. Louis

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A History Lover's Guide to Kansas City

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Missouri's Mad Doctor McDowell

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St. Louis Union Station

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Maryville

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Steamboat Disasters of the Lower Missouri River

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Missouri Outlaws

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Route 66 St. Louis Style

9781467160575

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

For Route 66 to become the most famous highway in history, it had to pass through the "Gateway to the West." St. Louis is the largest city between Chicago and Los Angeles, and "St. Louee" comes first on the list of those that Nat King Cole and many other artists sang out on "(Get Your Kicks) on Route 66." The highway took a maze of different routes, including crossing the greatest of rivers on a bridge with a bend right in the middle. The roadside was lined with flashing neon, classic diners and gas stations where attendants provided speedy service. Also, there were classic amusement parks, drive-in theaters, a man selling frozen custard from a building adorned with wooden icicles, and a motel with a racy but beloved reputation. Joe Sonderman is a St. Louis area radio personality and traffic reporter who has been writing books on Route 66 for 15 years. Since that first work, he has been collecting Route 66 postcards and photographs, some never published before, along with new research on the paths Route 66 took through the area to come up with an entirely new look at Route 66 St. Louis Style .

Route 66 in St. Louis

9780738552163

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In 1926, highway planners laid out a ribbon of roadways connecting the nation. One of the most important wove its way across eight states, from the cities of the heartland to golden California. In The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck calls it "the Mother Road." Route 66 has become a legend, celebrated in books, movies, works of art, and popular music. The interstates could not kill it. As "the Main Street of America," Route 66 had to pass through "the Gateway to the West," St. Louis. Crossing the Mississippi River, the road took many different paths through the busy city and then united to travel into the rolling hills of the Ozarks. Along the way there were mom-and-pop motels, tourist traps, roadside restaurants, a man selling frozen custard, one living with snakes, and another who claimed to be Jesse James. Their stories are here.

St. Louis

9781467104616

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Founded as a humble trading post along the Mississippi River 250 years ago, St. Louis has since grown into a thriving metropolis. It appears to be a calm city, but like the mighty Mississippi, it has powerful undercurrents. Known as the "Gateway to the West," St. Louis was a port city and home to many manufacturing businesses making everything from shoes to ships. St. Louis, though, is perhaps best known for its breweries and distilleries. St. Louis: Out and About in the Gateway City captures the energy of people bustling along the street, dining out and going to movies, hopping a trolley, swimming, picnicking, clip-clopping along in horse and carriage, ice skating, or driving an automobile. It also touches upon issues of the day that had to be overcome-suffrage, the Great Depression, and civil rights, to name a few-and shows the resilient spirit of the people of St. Louis.

St. Louis

9780738561479

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For seven months in 1904, St. Louis was the greatest city on earth. Millions flocked to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition to behold the inventions of the early 20th century. Many saw electric lights, automobiles, aircraft, and moving pictures for the first time. At a time when few traveled more than a couple miles from home, visitors encountered the people and cultures of faraway lands. It was an educational experience, a "university of mankind." The Pike offered amusement rides, wild animal displays, and fanciful trips through the Hereafter and Creation exhibits. Fairgoers visited the Alps, the North Pole, Russia, and Paris and witnessed famous battles. Everyone wanted to ride the great Observation Wheel. There were hootchy-kootchy dancers and wonderful new foods, such as the ice-cream cone. But it was all temporary, a dream city made to last only a few months. With the exception of today's St. Louis Art Museum, the grand palaces are gone. St. Louis: The 1904 World's Fair tells the story of the greatest Victorian-era world's fair since the lights of the fair faded over a century ago, while also examining the fair's legacies and legends.

Route 66 in the Missouri Ozarks

9780738560304

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Route 66 in the Missouri Ozarks picks up the journey west where its companion book, Route 66 in St. Louis, leaves off. As Bobby Troup's song says, Route 66 travels "more than 2,000 miles all the way." But one would be hard-pressed to "Show Me" a more scenic and historic segment than the Missouri Ozarks. The highway is lined with buildings covered with distinctive Ozark rock. It winds through a region of deep forests, sparkling streams, hidden caves, and spectacular bluffs. This book will take the traveler from Crawford County to the Kansas line. Along the way, there are small towns and urban centers, hotels and motels, cafés and souvenir stands. Take the time to explore Missouri's Route 66--it is waiting at the next exit.

Abandoned Ozarks, Southwest Missouri

9781634994873

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Abandoned Ozarks: Southwest Missouri offers a poignant, artistic, and sometimes sorrowful look at abandoned structures that have helped shape the culture and society of the rural Ozarks region and the people who live there. Photographer and author Robert McCormick takes you on a colorful and historical journey into the past with his haunting and evocative photos of the buildings that helped knit together rural communities and families in ways that are often forgotten in today's fast-paced and homogenized world. As rural communities and schools were consolidated in the mid-twentieth century, many historic structures were left abandoned to decay, even as others were repurposed for unorthodox uses or preserved for their cultural significance. McCormick has traveled extensively throughout the region over a period of years to find the most historically significant and architecturally interesting examples of schoolhouses, churches, general stores, mills, barns, and farmhouses that showcase the unique identity of Ozarks inhabitants. Join the author on a nostalgic journey into the Ozarks' past.

Missouri Botanical Garden

9780738590585

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One of St. Louis's premier cultural institutions, the Missouri Botanical Garden has grown from the dream of businessman and philanthropist Henry Shaw to a National Historic Landmark and world-renowned center for science, conservation, education, and horticultural display. Enlisting the help of some of the most famous botanists of his time, Shaw planted and opened the garden to the public in 1859. The photographs in this book chronicle the dynamic history of the Missouri Botanical Garden and the men and women who have continued Shaw's legacy for over 150 years.

Downtown St. Louis

9780738508160

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St. Louis, a vibrant and bustling community, has long been dependent on the Mississippi River for trade and commerce, travel, and migration. Within the past century the city's downtown neighborhood has experienced the growth and change that has shaped this Midwestern city into one of the most notable cities in America. Downtown St. Louis is illustrated with over 200 vintage images that present a history as diverse as the residents of the area. Authors Albert Montesi and Richard Deposki survey St. Louis's downtown area, from a pioneer settlement as a fur trading post, to a major American city. Prosperity, decline, and finally renewal are many of the faces worn during the evolution of this unique city.

St. Louis's The Hill

9781467112215

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The Hill was named for its proximity to the highest point in St. Louis. Italians, mainly from Northern Italy, immigrated to the area starting in the late 1800s; however, by 1910, Sicilians were also immigrating to the Hill. Agencies in Italy were employed by mining companies and other industries to help Italian citizens gather all the required documentation for immigration. Italians came to the Hill because of its proximity to the factory and the mines and because it was a district that allowed them to purchase land and build a home. The Parish of St. Ambrose was founded 1903. After the original church was destroyed by fire, the new church was completed in 1926. The Hill has been home to some of St. Louis's nationally known residents, including baseball heroes Joe Garagiola and Lawrence "Yogi" Berra.

Missouri's Haunted Route 66

9781609490416

$21.99 $15.39 Save 30%

Alongside the nostalgic appeal of Route 66 lurk ghostly roadside hitchhikers, the Goatman of Rolla, amusement park spirits, Civil War dead and the shadows thrown by the mighty Thunderbird. Spanning three hundred dangerously curving miles, the stretch of the Mother Road in Missouri earned the title of "Bloody 66, "? and some of its stopping places are marked by equally grim history. The Lemp Mansion saw family members commit suicide one by one. Springfield's Pythian Castle was an orphanage before becoming a military hospital and housing World War II prisoners of war. Follow Janice Tremeear as she takes a detour down Zombie Road, peers into the matter of the Joplin Spook Light and even stays overnight in Missouri's most haunted locations to discover what makes the Show Me State such a lively place for the dead.

St. Charles

9780738561059

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In 1769, French Canadian fur trader Louis Blanchette built a cabin on the Missouri River in what is today St. Charles. He called the settlement Les Petites Cotes, or the little hills. Other now famous explorers soon passed this way, including Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who began their expedition here in 1804 to explore the Louisiana Purchase territory. Daniel Boone forged a path through St. Charles along the Boone's Lick Trail, which later joined the Santa Fe Trail and then the Oregon Trail. Today St. Charles hosts many annual events to celebrate its rich history and transport visitors to the past. However, the site of Missouri's first state capitol has not survived without tragedy and an occasional natural disaster, including a cholera epidemic, tornadoes, floods, and a couple of disastrous railroad bridge accidents.

Route 66 in Missouri

9781467102667

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Route 66 is the "Main Street of America," heralded in song and popular culture. It took a maze of different routes through St. Louis before slashing diagonally across the "Show-Me State" through the beauty of the Ozarks. In between, there are classic motels, diners, tourist traps, and gas stations bathed in flashing and whirling neon lights. Natural wonders include crystal-clear streams, majestic bluffs, and wondrous caverns. Roadside marketers concocted legends about Jesse James, painted advertisements on barns, lived with deadly snakes, or offered curios such as pottery and handwoven baskets. That spirit is alive today at the Wagon Wheel and the Munger-Moss, the Mule, Meramec Caverns, and Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, just to name a few. Their stories are included here.

Wicked Women of Missouri

9781467119665

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Marauders like Jesse James and the Younger gang earned Missouri the title of "Outlaw State," but the male desperadoes had nothing on their female counterparts. Belle "Queen of the Bandits" Starr and Cora Hubbard kept Missouri's sensationalist newspapers and dime novelists in business with exploits ranging from horse thefts to bank heists. Missouri native Ma Barker and her murderous sons rose to infamy during the gangster era of the 1930s while Bonnie Parker crisscrossed the state with Clyde Barrow. From savvy burlesque dancers to deadly gold diggers, historian Larry Wood chronicles the titillating stories of ten of the Show-Me State's shadiest ladies.

Missouri's Wicked Route 66:

9781609497668

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Tracing Route 66 through Missouri represents one of America's favorite exercises in nostalgia, but a discerning glance among the roadside weeds reveals the kind of sordid history that doesn't appear on postcards. Along with vintage cars and picnic baskets, Route 66 was a conduit humming with contraband and crackling with the gunplay of folks like Bonnie and Clyde, Jesse James and the Young brothers. It was also the preferred byway of lynch mobs, murderous hitchhikers and mad scientists. Stop in at places like the Devil's Elbow and the Steffleback Bordello on this trip through the more treacherous twists of the Mother Road.

The Steamer Admiral

9781467125086

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John Streckfus began his small Acme Company in 1889 with one wooden packet boat, the steamer Verne Swain, out of Rock Island, Illinois, carrying people and goods on the Mississippi River. His business grew, but each year brought competition from the growing railroads. He decided that excursion boats were the only way to compete. He built the steamer J.S. in 1901 and "tramped" her from town to town offering excursions and dance cruises. By 1910, the company comprised four boats and an office in St. Louis and offered excursion cruises on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. The flagship, the steamer Admiral, was far above the others. She provided excursions, fun, and memories for almost 40 years.

Harry Truman's Independence

9781609495961

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Even after leaving presidential office at a time when America was in its ascendance to global power, Harry Truman would call Independence, Missouri, the "center of the world." It was already a town rich in the history of westward exploration and spiritual pilgrimage before he began sixty-four years of residence there, but the way it shaped Truman and was, in turn, shaped by him has defined Independence's legacy. That defining relationship is explored here by Truman expert Jon Taylor as it never has been before.

Webster Groves

9781467113656

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Drive down almost any street in Webster Groves and one is filled with a sense of timelessness. Entire neighborhoods are in the National Register of Historic Places, and there are lovingly preserved century homes, beautiful old churches, avenues lined with gardens, and shopping districts more reminiscent of small-town America than a thriving suburb next door to the city of St. Louis. History runs deep here, as it is home to the first chapter of the Red Cross and the first Boy Scout Troop west of the Mississippi, the oldest women's organization in Missouri, the first professional fire department, and the first public library in St. Louis County. North Webster once held the only accredited high school for African American students in St. Louis County. Beginning as a site of country homes for St. Louis professionals, growing through a post-World War II boom that expanded into new neighborhoods, Webster Groves has remained true to its heritage and history.

Southwest Missouri Mining

9780738507644

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The southwest corner of Missouri made fortunes for many early settlers to the area, and created an economic boom rivaling the Gold Rush. In this new book, author Jerry Pryor creates a pictorial history of the efforts of those who staked everything on the chance of striking a fortune underground in the land west of the Mississippi. As early as the first Native American occupation of the region, mining for ore had always been an essential aspect of life in southwestern Missouri. In the mid-19th century, mining towns sprung up like weeds, with early wanderers hearing tales of fortunes made, sometimes accidentally, while plowing fields rich in ore. Joplin, Webb City, Carterville, and Oronogo all have origins in the mining camps that eventually grew into booming towns and cities. Soon this rich belt of mining land fostered a variety of lifestyles, ranging from the poor man's attempt to support his family under difficult and frightening conditions, to entrepreneurs such as Alfred H. Rogers, who organized the Southwest Missouri Electric Railway Company, the largest inter-city system west of the Mississippi.

Haunted Graveyards of the Ozarks

9781609499846

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From the neatly tended urban necropolis to the long-forgotten family plot at the end of a winding gravel road, these "quiet cities" of the Ozarks have the power to send chills up and down the spine of the most hardened skeptic. Be it the restless Civil War soldiers of Greenbrier, the mass murderer who stalks Peace Church or the red eyes that persecute visitors to Robinson, tales of ghostly activity abound in every burial ground carved out of the ancient Ozark hills. Follow Dave Harkins as he explores the fascinating history and unsettling lore clinging to these haunted graveyards.

St. Louis Coffee

9781467152327

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The Gateway City was a popular stop for miners, trappers and settlers heading west, so offices and wholesaler warehouses lined the riverfront. Railroads and steamboats brought an abundance of goods, including green coffee. By the early twentieth century, St. Louis--with more than seventy roasting companies--was the coffee capital of the United States. Some coffee businesses--including Blanke, Forbes and Evans--faded, while Ronnoco remains, working alongside newer generation roasters such as Kaldi's and dozens more. Author Deborah Reinhardt traces an industry that helped shape St. Louis history and shows how today's creative coffee professionals continue to influence a culinary culture.

Iconic Restaurants of Kansas City

9781467145862

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Generations of families and restaurateurs have loyally turned out the delectable foods that made Kansas City the food destination that it is. Opened in 1930, the Infante family's El Nopal at 416 West Thirteenth Street is reputedly the first restaurant to introduce a wider Kansas City audience to Mexican food. The city's beloved Savoy Grill was not only one of Harry S Truman's favorite haunts but also the restaurant where many Kansas Citians remember eating their first lobster dinner. "Amazin' Grace'? Harris's tiny Kansas City, Kansas H & M Barbecue kept alive Kansas City's "Paris of the Plains'? reputation--for those in the know. Author and native Andrea Broomfield goes on a journey to discover the roots of Kansas City's favorite restaurants.

Early Kansas City, Missouri

9780738590967

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In 1821, François Chouteau set up a fur-trading outpost along the Missouri River, bringing the first settlement of Europeans to what would become Kansas City, named after the Kansa tribe of Native Americans who inhabited the area. At the center of a growing nation, the "City on the Bluff" would build and thrive as a river town, a gateway to the West, and a railroad hub, absorbing the influences of pioneers and immigrants traveling through or making it their home. Striving to become "A City Beautiful," its parks and boulevards drew attention from around the world. These are the beginnings of a town carved out of a hillside in the wilderness, transformed into an exciting metropolis that would eventually be called home by Walt Disney, Ernest Hemingway, Jesse James, and many others who left a lasting mark on history.

Joplin

9781467110723

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When lead was first discovered in southwestern Missouri around 1830, it had little value, and zinc, called "black jack," was discarded as waste. After the Civil War, mining camps sprang up along the Joplin Creek Valley, which was named for Methodist circuit rider Rev. Harris G. Joplin. As the mining camps merged into neighborhoods and zinc increased in value, Joplin was quickly coined "the city that jack built." Known for being a rowdy boomtown, it was said that Joplin had a bar on every corner and a church across the street. Many early settlers came to Joplin seeking their fortunes in the mines, while others came to make their fortunes off of the miners.

Missouri Ozarks Legends and Lore

9781467150408

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A crossroads energy is the heart and soul of the Missouri Ozarks, where earthquakes, monster lore and UFO sightings are as familiar as limestone bluffs along historic Route 66. When Momo the Missouri Monster materialized amid auditory phenomena and UFO sightings, mayhem consumed a sleepy river town. The Joplin Spook Light has appeared nightly for more than a century. At sunset, park guards at the legendary Zombie Road turn away ghost hunters for their own good. Learn about how historic earthquakes reversed the flow of the Mississippi River. See Missouri native Mark Twain's lifelong interest in the paranormal following a lucid prophetic dream. Join Cynthia Carroll--author, tour director and sixth-generation native--as your guide through the magic of the Missouri Ozarks.

Forest Park

9781467125802

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At 1,293 acres, Forest Park exceeds the size of New York's Central Park by nearly 500 acres, and within are lakes, hills, wetlands, woodlands, and bountiful recreational opportunities. Within a few decades of its 1876 opening, Forest Park became the host for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, as well as the 1904 Summer Olympics. Known as the "Heart of St. Louis," the park features amazing attractions, such as the Saint Louis Zoo, the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Missouri History Museum, The Muny, and the Saint Louis Science Center. Millions of Americans have come to Forest Park for world-class festivities and for celebrations of heroes, from Lewis and Clark to explorers of outer space. Today, the park continues to host remarkable events, including Fair St. Louis, Earth Day, Shakespeare in the Park, and LouFest.

Iconic Restaurants of St. Louis

9781467145121

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St. Louis has an appetite for sure. The places that made it that way have fascinating tales of hard work and good flavor. From the white tablecloths of Tony's to the counter at Woofie's, the Gateway City came to culinary prominence. The glories of Union Station's Fred Harvey restaurant and simple spots like the Piccadilly highlight the variety. Mai Lee serves as the city's first Vietnamese restaurant, and Mammer Jammer was home of St. Louis's hottest sandwich. Recipes are included, like a favorite soup of Missouri's own Harry Truman. Ann Lemons Pollack, author of Lost Restaurants of St. Louis, found these stories and more, all to whet your appetite.

Notorious Missouri

9781467146692

$21.99 $15.39 Save 30%

From the duel on Bloody Island to the "Missouri Miracle'? kidnapping and recovery of Shawn Hornbeck, Missouri has seen its share of notorious crimes. The Show-Me State was home to the first Western gunfight on the town square between Wild Bill Hickok and Dave Tutt. The three trials of the alleged murderer of Colonel Thomas Swope, the founder of Kansas City's Swope Park, enveloped the state. Residents also saw the killings within a few blocks of each other that inspired the songs "Stagger Lee'? and "Frankie and Johnny.'? Vicki Berger Erwin and James W. Erwin explore crimes, criminals, and victims from the violent history of the last two hundred years in the Show-Me State.

Kirksville

9781467112758

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Kirksville has made a name for itself with its two major institutions of higher education--Truman State University and A.T. Still University--that attract bright students from all over the world. Incorporated in 1857, it has grown to become the most populous city in northeast Missouri. As the seat of government for Adair County, the courthouse stands proudly in the center of the business square downtown. Entrepreneurs have benefited from railroad lines that entered the town in the 1870s, and many businesses have flourished in Kirksville as a result. Residents braved the tumultuous Civil War and rebuilt the town after major tornadoes and ice storms. Kirksville is a beautiful place to live, as exemplified by nearby Thousand Hills State Park. It is indeed the town "where people make the difference."

Civil Rights in St. Louis

9781467107198

$23.99 $16.79 Save 30%

Since its very beginnings, St. Louis has been at the forefront of America's struggle for equality. Many people have contributed to the fight for justice both in and outside of the courtroom by challenging the country to live up to the ideals outlined in the Declaration of Independence. St. Louisans have fought for civil rights in housing, property, education, health care, voting rights, and criminal justice, creating landmark cases that have reshaped America. The fight has not been without victories but has often been laced with tragedy, pain, and suffering. St. Louisans have always been a driving force for change. St. Louis was the site of some of the earliest civil rights protests before Missouri entered statehood in the early 1800s. George Vaughn fought in the Supreme Court to end restrictive covenants and housing discrimination in the 1940s. Unarmed Michael Brown's death brought attention to the area, placing the Black Lives Matter movement in the nation's forefront in 2014. The civil rights movement in St. Louis illustrates the unfinished work to live up to America's promise.

A History Lover's Guide to Kansas City

9781467144407

$21.99 $15.39 Save 30%

Kansas City is often seen as a "cow town" with great barbecue and steaks. But it is also a city with more boulevards than Paris and more working fountains than Rome. There are burial mounds that date back more than two thousand years. The National World War I Museum and Memorial, opened in 1926, stands more than two hundred feet tall. Leila's Hair Museum has a collection that brings tourists from all over the nation. The Kansas City Jazz Museum features a historic district and world-class museum that document a time when dance halls, cabarets, speakeasies and even honky-tonks and juke joints fostered the development of a new musical style. Join author Paul Kirkman as he cuts a trail past the stockyards into the heart of America--Kansas City.

Missouri's Mad Doctor McDowell

9781467118880

$21.99 $15.39 Save 30%

Body snatcher. Grave robber. Mad scientist. Brilliant surgeon. Delve into the macabre world of St. Louis's Dr. Joseph Nash McDowell, a man so loathed by the public that he wore body armor and so idolized by his anatomy students that they dug up corpses for his experiments. This ghoulish doctor cast a pall over the city and left a host of fiendish mysteries. Did his mother's ghost actually help him escape an angry mob? Did he really hang the corpse of his daughter in Hannibal's Mark Twain Cave? What very real horrors remained in his medical college after loyal Unionists drove him out? Dissect a life surrounded by speculation and a legend littered with ghosts.

St. Louis Union Station

9780738519838

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

When St. Louis' Union Station opened to the public in 1894, nearly 10,000 people gathered to celebrate. What they saw rivaled famed stations in the East, with its barrel-vaulted ceiling, sweeping archways, and Tiffany stained-glass windows. Modeled after the walled city of Carcassone, France, Union Station was one of the busiest in the world during its heyday. Follow the history of this great architectural triumph from its original glory days through its demise and rebirth. The days of rail transportation come to life in more than 200 historic images, from steam engines hissing into the 11-acre train shed, to the perky smiles of the renowned "Harvey Girls." Union Station is also seen here as tens of thousands of passengers a day dwindled to mere hundreds. As the automobile and airplane gained momentum in the 1950s and 60s, railroading lost popularity and St. Louis' Union Station fell into disrepair and eventually closed. Now restored to its original splendor, Union Station is again a bustling center of urban entertainment and activity.

Maryville

9781467110792

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

In 1845, the Missouri State Legislature created Nodaway County out of the rolling Platte Purchase lands added to the far northwestern corner of the state. Within a decade, small communities emerged; the largest of them was the county seat of Maryville, which was platted in 1845 and started out as a frontier settlement. The intersection of two railroad lines in Maryville in the early 1870s brought traffic and commerce and later made it a center of education with the addition of the Fifth District Normal School in 1905. Superior regional agriculture, diverse local manufacturing, and progressive education helped build a vibrant and durable community that, while similar to hundreds of others throughout the Midwest, fills lives with the rich experiences of communities in constant transition.

Steamboat Disasters of the Lower Missouri River

9781467143257

$23.99 $16.79 Save 30%

During the nineteenth century, more than three hundred boats met their end in the steamboat graveyard that was the Lower Missouri River, from Omaha to its mouth. Although derided as little more than an "orderly pile of kindling,'? steamboats were, in fact, technological marvels superbly adapted to the river's conditions. Their light superstructure and long, wide, flat hulls powered by high-pressure engines drew so little water that they could cruise on "a heavy dew'? even when fully loaded. But these same characteristics made them susceptible to fires, explosions and snags--tree trunks ripped from the banks, hiding under the water's surface. Authors Vicki and James Erwin detail the perils that steamboats, their passengers and crews faced on every voyage.

Missouri Outlaws

9781625859150

$23.99 $16.79 Save 30%

Whether seen as a common criminal or Robin Hood with a six-shooter, the Missouri outlaw left an indelible mark on American culture. In the nineteenth century, Missouri was known as the "Outlaw State" and offered a list of lawbreakers like Jesse James, Bloody Bill Anderson, Belle Starr and Cole Younger. These notorious criminals became folk legends in countless books, movies and television shows. Author Paul Kirkman traces the succession of Missouri's first few generations and how each contributed to the making of some of the most notorious outlaws and lawmen in American history.