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“This Great Hospital Fight” – Dr. Drake

At the height of racial and political tensions in early twentieth-century Houston, two unlikely figures became allies. Dr. William M. Drake, a pioneering surgeon and Black community leader, and Joseph Cullinan, a white oil magnate and founder of the company that became Texaco, united in a desperate effort to save a hospital that symbolized hope. The Houston Negro Hospital was born from America’s Black hospital movement. Dedicated on Juneteenth 1926, it embodied a bold experiment to bring dignity and health care access to a community that was systematically denied both in the Jim Crow South.

Journalist and storyteller Carlton Houston—whose ancestors played a role in this remarkable heritage—reveals the untold, human drama behind the institution that would become Riverside General. Discover the vision, conflict, and resilience that shaped a century of health care through the struggle of those determined to save lives.

The true stories of the lost queens of vice

Territorial Arizona was a rough-and-tumble place, but three resilient women carved out places for themselves on the Western frontier. Minnie Powers, a former Mormon, ruled early Phoenix’s red-light district, while "Dutch May" Prescott’s scandalous Flagstaff sex show drew in crowds from miles around. In Jerome, "Belgian Jennie" Bauters lost her brothel to fire more than once, but she rose from the ashes every time. Their grit and determination to make the best of their new homes weren’t the only things they had in common. They might have survived the local gossip and notoriety with aplomb, but all three were gunned down in cold blood. Where their scandalous livelihoods once dominated headlines, now they’re remembered, if at all, for their sensational murders.

Author Merry Gordon delves into the lives—and deaths—of three of Arizona’s most infamous madams.

Arizona’s fire departments started forming while the area was still a territory. Early days of firefighting were largely done by residents rushing to help their neighbors with water bucket brigades trying, almost always unsuccessfully, to save houses or businesses.

In 1865, Wickenburg formed the first formal fire department to protect the growing mining town from the constant threat of fire. The next fire departments did not form until 1881 in Tombstone and Tucson. After that, fire departments developed quite rapidly as specific methods of firefighting were instituted. These included using hand-pulled fire wagons with water tanks and hoses and then horse-drawn apparatus with water or chemicals that were now being manufactured. By the time Arizona gained statehood in 1912, fourteen major towns had an official fire department. Today, there are over 140 fire districts and roughly 35 municipal fire departments.

Carol A. Schumacher is the chairperson for Arizona’s Queen Valley Fire District Board of Directors. She is also president of the Queen Valley Historical Society and authored Superior and Queen Valley with Arcadia Publishing. She visited every fire department in this book to research the history and gather photographs of these heroic firefighters. Chief Cecil Fendley, with the Queen Valley Fire District, is the longest-serving fire chief in Arizona, with 38 years of experience as of 2025.

100 years of cruising from Chicago to Santa Monica.

Opened in 1926, Route 66 was one of America's original highways. In modern times, the Mother Road is an icon of nostalgia and kitsch, but behind each pit stop is a uniquely human story. From Alberta Ellis, who created safe havens for African American travelers in the first half of the twentieth century to Bob Waldmire and Angel Delgadillo, who worked to preserve the history of the route after the interstates came through, the people behind these places are what truly make them special. 

Just off the well-traveled path are places like the Santa Fe Internment Camp, where many Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated during World War II, and the Apache Death Cave near Two Guns, Arizona, said to be the site where many Native Americans lost their lives. Visit the Amboy Crater, a dormant volcano in the Mojave Desert of California that hints at the distant geological past, and the town of Baxter Springs, which was once a major part of America's Main Street. 

Author Brain Clune brings to life the tales that left a legacy along Route 66. 

Stories of the people, the land and the water.

More than 160 years ago, the early settlers of La Cebolla Valley arrived and put down roots that would flourish into a lasting legacy. Freight wagons and travelers passed through the land, an integral piece of the Mora–Las Vegas Trail, bringing with them cultures and traditions that lived on in the people who stayed. Through perseverance and dedication, they built the Acequia de San José and the Acequia de La Isla, which have known nearly two centuries of use, and transformed a small natural pond into Morphy Lake.

With the help of the documents in the Agapito Abeyta Sr. Collection, a windfall discovered in a barn, historian Virginia Sánchez brings to light the cultural heritage of La Cebolla Valley’s inhabitants.

A Harrowing Heritage of Resilience

Beginning in the 1820s, Indian removal saw scores of families of African descent forced west alongside the so-called Five Civilized Tribes. The Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole Nations all brought their own slaves on the arduous, obligatory journey. These tribes demonstrated shared patterns—including Native women enslavers—as well as important distinctions. Seminole records more frequently preserved the names of their enslaved, reflecting resistance to removal and the central role of Black Seminoles. But enslaved people were present at every stage of removal, even when misclassified or omitted entirely from official records. Power operated differently within each tribe. Gender shaped vulnerability and authority. Enslavement and forced migration reconfigured tribal societies during one of the most traumatic periods in their histories. Drawing on oral accounts and extensive documentation, Terry J. Ligon’s unique scholarship restores voice and lineage to the remarkable survival of those carried west in bondage on the Trail of Tears. 

A Baffling and Brutal Case

Sunday, July 18, 1965, started out like any other hot summer day in Texas. Shirley Ann Stark and Susan Rigsby, Chi Omega sorority sisters at the University of Texas at Austin, left their Dallas homes early and drove together in Shirley’s Corvair to Austin. Little did they know the fate that awaited them later that afternoon as they visited the apartment of a friend and fellow UT student. The following day, the women were reported missing. A twelve-day nationwide search ensued, ending with the discovery of their bodies in a north Austin field. As one Associated Press reporter would later write, “The story held all the elements of a classic murder case: Campus beauties, youth, mystery, terror, and social standing.’’ Author Alan Burton revisits the forgotten, gruesome, and tragic double homicide that shook the Lone Star State. 

Over one hundred photographs capture the lives of those who once claimed Arizona's Verde Valley as home.

Verde Valley is regarded as one of Arizona’s most beautiful and scenic areas, with its red rock vistas and cultural heritage. From Sedona to Jerome to Camp Verde and other towns in between, Verde Valley attracts scores of visitors and new residents every year. The area’s history and culture are also reflected in its simple but deeply reverent burial grounds, where many of the Verde Valley’s early pioneers are buried. Verde Valley burials include ranchers, farmers, civic leaders, and many others, such as Sedona Schnebly, for whom the town is named, and Arizona governor Raul Castro. Additionally, some isolated burials are noted. 

The legendary monsters that roam the Land of Enchantment.

New Mexico is full of the strange and unusual, from mysterious cryptids to visitors from outer space. Hairy shapeshifters dart across the back roads of Grants and Gallup, while Sasquatch roam the Sandias and Sitting Bull Falls. Visitors from outer space drop in to terrorize Roswell in the form of escaped extraterrestrials, Spring-Heeled Jack floats over Silver City, and a faceless monster stalks the South Valley. Prehistoric survivors like the Thunderbird perch on the mountaintops, giant sloths leave massive footprints in the White Sands, and spectral dinosaurs glide across the scrublands of Ghost Ranch. Not even the waters are safe, as giant catfish roam the bottom of Elephant Butte Lake and Lizard Men swim through the acequias of the San Luis Valley.

Author John LeMay separates fact from folklore, and artist Chris Casey captures the likenesses of New Mexico’s legendary monsters. 

From settlement to sediment 

Unlike the freedman communities in Spiro, Ft. Coffee and Poteau, the town of Skullyville faded into a forgotten ghost town. Dr. G. E. Hartshorne’s 1950 “Skullyville and Its People in 1889” chronicled the inhabitants’ lifestyle and culture. Yet he excluded many that arrived in the 1830s, having survived the long and arduous journey of the Trail of Tears. Enslaved people of African descent, arriving alongside their Choctaw masters, were seldom mentioned in contemporaneous accounts. They labored for decades without pay, or the comforts of freedom. Their tribal oppressors joined the Confederates, vowing to maintain their slaveholding lifestyle. Conversely, some from Skullyville resisted by joining the Union Army. Many lived to see freedom, and established livelihoods after abolition. In April of 1866, Choctaw leaders joined the Chickasaw at Fort Smith to sign a peace treaty that abolished slavery and promised citizenship and suffrage to those once enslaved by their nations. Freedman descendent Angela Walton-Raji resurrects the lost voices of Skullyville and champions a legacy that outlasted the town itself.