The History Press

Chronicling the devastating Strand Theatre Fire of 1941 and celebrating the community's heroes and resilience in the face of adversity.

On March 10, 1941, at 12:38 a.m., the Brockton Fire Department responded to Fire Alarm Box 1311, which was pulled for a fire at the Strand Theatre. Fire Alarm dispatched the deputy chief, three engine companies, a ladder company and Squad A. Within six minutes, a second alarm was struck. Less than one hour after the first alarm, the roof of the Strand collapsed, and what appeared to be a routine fire turned into a disaster that killed 13 firefighters and injured more than 20 others. The disaster marks one of the largest losses of life to firefighters from a burning building collapse in the United States.

Centuries ago, Europeans desperate for gold and a route to the East found a lush, green paradise populated by native tribes in the New World.

Subsequent violence and disease all but wiped out the native population. The land nurtured Charlton Heston and Ernest Hemingway in their youths and spawned the assassin of President William McKinley. Northern Michigan also bore witness to the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, one of the worst shipwrecks in Great Lakes history, and to the bizarre kidnapping of Gayle Cook, an ill-fated attempt to save the Perry Hotel in Petoskey from bankruptcy. Author and storyteller Dave Rogers recounts these and other historical tales from Up North.

Human action made one of the worst natural disasters in Indiana history even worse. Indiana and the Great Flood of 1913 reveals how this happened and how to avoid a similar fate in the future.

Indiana suffered enormous losses in the Great Flood of 1913, yet this disaster is largely forgotten. The combined tornado and flood barreled through Terre Haute, killing more than twenty. One hundred fourteen miles away in Peru, the circus lost most of its animals in the storm. At the southwestern corner of the state, a "sea of water,'? as local papers put it, washed over Evansville turning streets into canals. In the capital, levee failures left hundreds homeless and vulnerable to disease and famine. Pulling from archival photographs, newspapers, and local accounts, Dr. Nancy M. Germano shares stories from across the state to reveal how Indiana's history of settlement and development contributed to one of the state's worst disasters.

Fortitude after the flames

In 1893, Fargo was simply trying to thrive amid an impending national depression. One Wednesday afternoon in June, a ferocious fire quickly devoured hundreds of businesses and more than thirty blocks in the heart of the fledgling city. Residents were stunned, but they weren't defeated. Through perseverance, grit and some helpful insurance money, owners immediately began rebuilding. The arduous reconstruction ended up protecting the city against unemployment and poverty.

Author Danielle Teigen describes the efforts and individuals who helped rebuild a stronger, better city. More than a century later, that resilience and determination continues to be a hallmark of the Gateway to the West.

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.

For more than five centuries, the waterways surrounding Long Island have profoundly shaped its history.

Familiar subjects of lighthouses, shipwrecks and whaling are found alongside oft-forgotten oddities such as Pan-American flying boats landing in Manhasset Bay in the early days of transatlantic flight. From the British blockade and skirmishes during the American Revolution to the sinking of merchant vessels by Germany in World War II, the sea brought wars to these shores. By the later part of the 20th century, Gold Coast millionaires commuted in high-speed yachts to Manhattan offices as the island's wealth grew. Historian Bill Bleyer reveals Long Island's nautical bonds from the Native Americans to current efforts to preserve the region's maritime heritage.

Every mass grave in Texas offers morbid proof that at one time, in that place, something went very, very wrong.

Texans have resorted to mass graves out of necessity, desperation and appalling indifference. These sites mark natural disasters or hide unnatural crimes that tested the limits of human endurance and empathy. Because of this, memorializing those who lie in mass graves can be controversial. Not everyone wants to dig up the darkness of the past, much less admit that the dirt is still fresh. Nevertheless, to honor those whose bones lie mixed with others, their stories must be told. In so doing, Kathy Benjamin exhumes essential shards of Lone Star history, from the Alamo to the present day.

Journey to the coast with Michael Morgan as he looks back at the area's most deadly storms.

Coastal Delaware, Maryland and Virginia have always been vulnerable to the power of storms. In the early nineteenth century, storm-driven shipwrecks led to the construction of the Delaware breakwater. In 1933, a storm created an inlet on the south edge of Ocean City and changed the character of the Maryland resort. The Ash Wednesday nor'easter of 1962 devastated oceanfront communities, led to the creation of beach replenishment projects that pushed the ocean back from the new multimillion-dollar buildings that sat on the sand and spurred the creation of Assateague Island National Seashore. Michael Morgan narrates the stories of these storms and reminds us of the power of wind and water.

These untold stories and never-before-seen images explore the human drama of the 1913 Flood as it unfolded in Tippecanoe County, Indiana.

Heralding the coming spring, the weather forecast promised a warm and sunny Easter in 1913. Little did the citizens of Tippecanoe County realize that a furious deluge would cause the Wabash River to swell to an ungovernable and lethal height. Bridges collapsed, whole buildings came unmoored from their foundations and washed away, and heroic rescue attempts saved lives and cost others.

Authors and retired Purdue professors Pete Bill and Arnold Sweet describe the travails of communities suddenly cut off from the rest of the world and facing a natural disaster that gripped twenty states.

Island in the Storm, by local historians Jamie and Dorothy Moore, documents in vivid detail the devastation, loss and eventual rebuilding of this beloved island community.

On the night of September 21, 1989, Hurricane Hugo slammed into the South Carolina coast at Sullivan's Island with winds exceeding 160 miles per hour. The colossal force of the hurricane was punctuated by storm surges ranging from five to ten feet above sea level. At approximately one minute after midnight, Hugo's eye passed over the island, and the charming community seaside community disappeared beneath the tumultuous sea for nearly an hour. After Hugo left Sullivan's Island in its furious wake, the first news broadcasts from the Charleston area reported that the island and neighboring Isle of Palms were completely destroyed. The Ben Sawyer Bridge--the only connection to the island at the time--was knocked off its pedestal and rendered useless, and so the hundreds of families who had evacuated the area could not return to their homes to see what, if anything, remained. The recovery process started slowly, and for many it would be a long, arduous journey. More than 15 years later, Sullivan's Island's homes and businesses have been restored, but the memory of Hugo's fury will not soon be forgotten.