The History Press [New Releases]

Best known for  Baby Boom-era housing developments that transformed potato fields and orchards into suburban sprawl, East Meadow’s past is full of fascinating long-forgotten events.

• Rediscover violent feuds of jealous farmers, such as the love triangles of the 19th century Brower clan.
• Marvel at the unlikely escapades of eccentric millionaire Jacques Lebaudy, who believed he was a sovereign emperor while living in a Gilded Age Salisbury estate.  
• Explore the exponential growth of one of New York's original school districts, full of political interference and drama that climaxed with a Pete Seeger performance sanctioned by the Court of Appeals of the State of New York

Founded in 1768 at the crossing of two Indian trails, Charlotte has a rich heritage to match its age. Hear the personal voices of discovery, hardship, wars, privation, segregation and achievement from village to boomtown.

In this extensively researched volume, accomplished author and historian Mary Kratt chronicles the history of Charlotte from the earliest Catawba inhabitants to the development of finance, culture and transportation, still centered on those ancient crossroads. Whether detailing the cotton fields and textile mills of yesterday or the banking center of tomorrow, Kratt's account is a fascinating history of the people who have made Charlotte a queen among southern cities.

Although war was traditionally the purview of men, the realities of America’s Civil War often brought women into the conflict. They served as nurses, sutlers, and washerwomen. Some even disguised themselves as men and joined the fight on the battlefield. In the border state of Missouri, where Southern sympathies ran deep, women sometimes clashed with occupying Union forces because of illegal, covert activities like spying, smuggling, and delivering mail. When caught and arrested, the women were often imprisoned or banished from the state. In at least a couple of cases, they were even sentenced to death. Join award-winning author Larry Wood as he chronicles the misadventures and ordeals of the lady rebels of Missouri.

From backroad barns to big city spots with a line around the block, Jason Weems sets Texans up with the recipe for a successful barbecue-centric adventure

From the bayous of the east to the dusty deserts of the west, embark on a journey through the countless smokehouses, roadhouses, and BBQ food trucks that line the backroads and main streets of Texas. Dive into a history that dates back to treasure hungry conquistadors and swashbuckling buccaneers. Learn what divides the state into five main flavor regions and read your plate of BBQ like a roadmap through history. Author Jason Weems journeyed over 3500 miles around the highways and byways of Texas to bring you a guide that’s dripping with pro-tips and sizzling with backstory.

One of the unsung heroes of the auto world, C. Harold Wills designed the Model T when he worked as Henry Ford's right-hand man.

Later, he founded his own company to produce the legendary Wills Sainte Claire. Every endeavor displayed his trademark inventiveness, from the development of the overhead cam engine to the toboggan run on the roof of his house. He used his money to create one of the first worker model cities at Marysville, Michigan. In this long-overdue biography, Alan and Lynn Lyon Naldrett preserve the legacy of an automotive icon.

A history of bygone eateries in downtown Cleveland featuring everything from diners to fine dining

From humble and hungry beginnings, the city of Cleveland grew over centuries until it boasted a dizzying array of gustatory choices. City dwellers and travelers alike flocked to the eateries at Public Square and Terminal Tower, including the Fred Harvey restaurants with their famous Harvey Girls. A single block-long street, Short Vincent featured the Theatrical Grille, the longest-running jazz joint in the area. The walls of Otto Moser's were a veritable Hollywood roll call, and the New York Spaghetti House offered a complete dining and aesthetic experience.

Fill your cup with the libation of your choice, grab a snack, and join author Bette Lou Higgins on a historical tour of the restaurants that kept Clevelanders fed.

Ann Arbor has seen many cherished landmarks and institutions come and go - some fondly remembered and others lost to time.

When the city was little more than a village in the wilderness, its first school stood on the now busy corner of Main and Ann. Stores like Bach & Abel’s and Dean & Co. served local needs as the village grew into a small town. As the town became a thriving city, Drake’s and Maude’s fed generations of hungry diners, and Fiegel’s clothed father and son alike. Residents passed their time seeing movies at the Majestic or watching parades go down Main Street. Join authors Patti F. Smith and Britain Woodman on a tour of the city’s past.

An award-winning barbecue cook serves up generous helpings of culinary history and lore, along with authentic recipes for this famous Southern dish.

With roots in Native American, African and European cooking traditions, Brunswick stew developed in colonial- and Federal-era Virginia, when squirrel was a necessary ingredient. By the nineteenth century, the mouthwatering delicacy had become an important part of politicking, celebrating and family gatherings. At the same time, it spread beyond Virginia, following barbecue culture into the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky.

Drawing on historical and contemporary sources, author and Brunswick stew expert Joe Haynes entertains with barbecue stew history, legend and lore, complete with authentic recipes.

Labor conflicts, arrests, espionage—it was all there at the once ubiquitous mills of Fulton County.

Employee records and snatches of paper prove workers spied on each other. Company owners were paranoid about labor unions taking over. Copious documentation, unearthed here by author Lisa M. Russell, brings the workaday drama back to life. These mills sustained families, but exploitation was far from uncommon. When mill workers finally went on strike, there was hell to pay. The company bosses yanked strikers from their shacks. With the help of Governor Talmadge, the National Guard arrested working women with their children. They marched these criminals to a former WWI prisoner of war camp that once held enemy German soldiers. Hard to believe this was happening in and around Atlanta in the early 1900s.

George Washington was first and foremost a Virginian. Born in the state's Tidewater region, he was reared near Fredericksburg and took up residence at Mount Vernon along the Potomac River.

As a young surveyor, he worked in Virginia's backcountry. He began his military career as a Virginia militia officer on the colony's frontier. The majority of his widespread landholdings were in his native state, and his entrepreneurial endeavors ranged from the swamplands of the Southeast to the upper Potomac River Valley. Historian John Maass explores the numerous sites all over the Commonwealth associated with Washington and demonstrates their lasting importance.

Discover how Fayetteville went from being a small town called Washington Courthouse only to bloom into one of Arkansas' largest and most vital cities.

The town of Fayetteville was originally known as Washington Courthouse and prospered during its first two decades, until it suffered decimation during the Civil War as troops moved throughout the region. In 1871, Fayetteville successfully bid to be home to the University of Arkansas, the state's first public university. Today, the city represents a cultural convergence, with remnants of historic trails such as the Military Road between St. Louis and Fort Smith and the Trail of Tears. Author and historian Charlie Alison details pivotal events that shaped the city.

In the 1820s, Texas was a wilderness. Settlers thought it was uninhabited although rich with wild game. But many Native American tribes lived in Texas and were at war with the Spanish in Mexico. Mexico ignored Texas and did not try to inhabit this wilderness. Finally, in the late 1820s and early 1830s Stephen F. Austin was allowed to bring in three hundred Anglo settlers and Texas began to be civilized. But to start there was only one town, no roads, no bridges, no planted fields. Texas was starting from ground zero but started fast. They tamed the wilderness and fought the Indians. They got their independence from Mexico and became a Republic, soon a U S state. They established a stable government similar to the one in the US and developed the infrastructure for business and international commerce. In less than eighty years Texas had tamed the wild frontier and became a modern state in the United States. C. Herndon Williams has found forty-two stories that chart this progress.

A collection of chilling tales from the most haunted places in Western Michigan.

Western Michigan is home to some of the state's most picturesque places - and also some of its most chilling tales. Ghost story researcher and enthusiast Amberrose Hammond exposes the mysterious and spirit-ridden world of many beloved Michigan destinations as she skillfully weaves narratives of a world unseen by most. From the lingering spirit forever working in the Grand Theatre and the band of melon-headed children prowling the Saugatuck State Park to the lights of the Lake Forest Cemetery staircase waiting to reveal one's place in the afterlife, these tales are sure to give pause to anyone daring enough to experience these hauntingly beautiful spots...after dark.

Kansas has tales as extraordinary as its plains, although the stories behind the legends are sometimes lost to time.

Discover the history of the state’s world-class violinist, homemade airplane and alleged volcano. Iola’s Mad Bomber blew up the town’s saloons after a hangover. The bulletproof and most “extinctest” creature lurked in sinkholes outside Inman. Hunters in Stafford County learned to leave out enormous quantities of food for local hermit Pelican Pete. Join author Roger Ringer as he delves into these and other facts behind the myths of the Sunflower State.

Recipes born in the city of stars

Los Angeles is a city where film mingles with food. From healthful salads to sweet treats inspired by California's agricultural bounty, the innovative fare mirrors the rise from a sleepy, western outpost to celluloid dream, where food has always played an award-winning role. The minds behind these delicious treasures include a pauper who reinvented himself as a prince, a penniless single mom who perfected a treasured recipe to create an empire, and a guru who provided good vibes and scandal alongside cold-pressed juices. Bake up the Cocoanut Grove's Coconut Strawberry Cream Tarts and sip a Zombie from the first-ever Tiki bar to create a little Hollywood magic in your own kitchen.

Amy Bizzarri rolls out the red carpet in celebration of Tinseltown’s iconic cuisine.

More than four decades after it occurred, the murder of Athalia Ponsell Lindsley remains notorious… and unsolved.

The only eyewitness said a man attacked Lindsley with a machete in broad daylight on the front steps of her white mansion. Gossip swirled that neighbor Frances Bemis knew who killed Lindsley and would notify authorities. Bemis was later murdered on her nightly walk. Author Elizabeth Randall puts the rumors to rest through research culled from over one thousand pages of depositions, records, official county documentation and interviews.

Join author Denise Parkinson for an intimate look at a Depression-era tragedy.

The once-thriving houseboat communities along Arkansas' White River are long gone, and few remember the sensational murder story that set local darling Helen Spence on a tragic path. In 1931, Spence shocked Arkansas when she avenged her father's murder in a DeWitt courtroom. The state soon discovered that no prison could hold her. For the first time, prison records are unveiled to provide an essential portrait. The legend of Helen Spence refuses to be forgotten--despite her unmarked grave.

Nicknamed "Liquor Island," Long Island was rumrunner's paradise during Prohibition.

With its proximity to major markets and coastal communities for easy transit, Suffolk County was awash in illegal hooch. Smugglers bringing cases of booze from offshore often secretly hid product temporarily in local garages and sheds, leaving a bottle as a thank-you. Coded communication crisscrossed the county on shortwave radios arranging sales and logistics. Violence from criminal outfits disrupted previously quiet towns, as locals too often were swept up in dangerous unintentional engagements with bootleggers.

Pour one out and join author Amy Kasuga Folk as she recounts stories from Suffolk County's Prohibition era

Discover Sun Valley through the eyes and words of Ernest Hemingway.

It was a cold, “windless, blue sky day” in the fall of 1939 near Silver Creek—a blue-ribbon trout stream south of Sun Valley. Ernest Hemingway flushed three mallards and got each duck with three pulls. He spent the morning working on his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. Local hunting guide Bud Purdy attested, “You could have given him a million dollars and he wouldn’t have been any happier.” Educator Phil Huss delves into previously unpublished stories about Hemingway’s adventures in Idaho, with each chapter focusing on one principle of the author’s “Heroic Code.” Huss interweaves how both local stories and passages from the luminary’s works embody each principle. Readers will appreciate Hemingway’s affinity for Idaho and his passion for principles that all would do well to follow.

New York's Finger Lakes region is filled with compelling characters, tragic disasters and fascinating mysteries.

Famed daredevil Sam Patch, known as the Yankee Leaper, thrilled audiences at Niagara Falls but took his last jump into the Genesee River with his pet black bear, plummeting to his death. The first ever Memorial Day was celebrated in Waterloo in 1866 and inspired a nation to adopt the holiday. Seneca Lake claims its fair share of ships, including the Onondaga, which was blown up with dynamite as part of a spectacle to commemorate the sinking of the USS Maine. Author Patti Unvericht reveals the forgotten history of the Finger Lakes region.

True stories and vintage photos of this bustling New York City borough, covering everything from crime and corruption to a beloved Christmas poem.

Queens has a history filled with fascinating firsts, cool characters and ramshackle ruins. From the nation’s first modern highway to the first-ever transatlantic flight, the borough has long been at the forefront of modern transportation.

Poet Clement Clarke Moore was inspired by childhood memories of Elmhurst when he wrote the poem “’Twas the Night before Christmas.” The infamous William “Boss” Tweed once fled jail to a secret hideout in a Bayside hotel. The remains of the old Creedmoor Hospital complex in Queens Village are haunting, as are the eerie remnants of Fort Tilden in the Rockaways.

In this fascinating book, Richard Panchyk reveals glimpses of the hidden history of Queens.

The first orange groves, planted in St. Augustine in the 1500s by Ponce de León, were the precursor to what would become an integral part of Florida’s identity.

Orange groves slowly spread across the state, inspiring horticultural and manufacturing ingenuity. Discover the story behind Deland’s eccentric “citrus wizard” Lue Gim Gong, the rise and fall of smuggler Jesse Fish and the silver-tongued politician William J. Howey, who made his fortune selling plots of groveland through the 1920s. Celebrate the heyday of orange tourism and the farmers who weathered freezes, floods and citrus greening. Join author Erin Thursby as she explores the history of the Sunshine State’s most famous crop.

Sort outlandish fiction from no-less-outrageous fact in this wild ride with the West’s Gentleman Gunfighter.

Robert Andrew Clay Allison was a jumble of contradictions. Mentally unstable and mean as a rattlesnake, he was also a fierce defender of the innocent.  A hard drinker but a quiet-spoken man. A hell raiser who was an impromptu preacher. He was as feared for his prowess with pistol and Bowie knife as he was famous for loving whiskey and dancing. Largely forgotten today, his legend once sprawled across the frontier from Cimarron to Mobeetie, where he was known to careen drunkenly through the streets wearing only his gunbelt and his boots. Donna Blake Birchell places one of New Mexico’s most fascinating figures back among his more well-chronicled peers.

Arizona has stories as peculiar as its stunning landscapes, full of colorful characters, peculiar places and eccentric events.

The Lost Dutchman's rumored cache of gold sparked a legendary feud. Kidnapping victim Larcena Pennington Page survived two weeks alone in the wilderness, and her first request upon rescue was for a chaw of tobacco. Discover how the town of Why got its name, how the government built a lake that needed mowing and how wild camels ended up in North America. Author Marshall Trimble unearths these and other amusing anomalies, outstanding obscurities and compelling curiosities in the state's history.

The Story of the Railroad Visionary Who Put San Angelo on the Map.

Over 100 years ago, Arthur Stilwell built 2,300 miles of railroad, founded 40 cities, and added $1 billion to the US economy. He was a visionary. He was controversial. He picked San Angelo for a main depot on his Kansas City, Mexico and Orient railway line. But he hadn’t counted on the Mexican Revolution and challenging characters like the revolutionista general, Pancho Villa. Meanwhile, San Angelo wrestled with neighboring Texas town Sweetwater for the right to host the depot. Dr. Linda Thorsen Bond sorted through scores of sources to piece together the fascinating fragments of Stilwell’s dream of steam.

Dust for Blood

During World War II, a group of potato farmers opened the first migrant labor camp in Suffolk County to house farmworkers from Jamaica. Over the next twenty years, more than one hundred camps of various sizes would be built throughout the region. Thousands of migrant workers lured by promises of good wages and decent housing flocked to Eastern Long Island, where they were often cheated out of pay and housed in deadly slum-like conditions. Preyed on by corrupt camp operators and entrapped in a feudal system that left them mired in debt, laborers struggled and, in some cases, perished in the shadow of New York’s affluence. Author Mark A. Torres reveals the dreadful history of Long Island’s migrant labor camps from their inception to their peak in 1960 and their steady decline in the following decades.

Winner of the Joseph F. Meany Award by the Association of Public Historians of New York State.

Travel the Old Dominion and visit the museums and historic homes that tell the stories of Virginia’s presidents.

George Washington. Thomas Jefferson. James Madison. James Monroe. William Henry Harrison. John Tyler. Zachary Taylor. Woodrow Wilson. More US Presidents were born in Virginia than in any other state in the union. From Mount Vernon, Monticello and Montpelier to the Wilson Presidential Library, read the stories of the sites that shaped the lives of presidents.

Historian and author Heather S. Cole is a guide to the places they called home.

Join author Richard Gazarik as he reveals the wicked history of the Steel City.

Muckraking journalist Walter Liggett dubbed Pittsburgh the Metropolis of Corruption in 1930 when he reported the city had more vice per square foot than New York, Detroit, Cleveland or Boston. Decades earlier, the Magee-Flinn political machine ruled public officials, and crooked police helped racketeers protect brothels and gambling dens. Mayor (later Governor) David Lawrence was indicted several times for graft but acquitted each time. Even Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney Sr. colluded with gangsters, according to FBI reports.

Settled in the 1640s and originally a part of Charlestown, Malden grew over two centuries into a thriving residential and manufacturing city.

Meet fiery revolutionary Peter Thacher and Malden industrialist and philanthropist Elisha Converse. Explore the details of the first bank robbery homicide in the United States. Learn about Malden's instructions for independence, which predated the Declaration of Independence. Delve into the suspicion and intrigue surrounding the infamous murder of Frank Converse. Author Frank Russell brings to life the first 250 years of Malden history.

After this survey of Rochester's super natural history and tradition, the Flour City will never look the same!

Avenging specters, demon-tortured roads, holy miracles, weird psychic events, prehistoric power sites, ancient curses, Native American shamans, active battlefields, ghost ships, black dogs, haunted monuments and the phantoms of Rochester's famous—all are part of the legacy of Rochester and the lower Genesee. Supernatural historian Mason Winfield and the research team from Haunted History Ghost Walks, Inc., take us on a spiritual safari through the Seneca homeland of the Sweet River Valley and the modern city in its place. After their survey of Rochester's super natural history and tradition, the Flour City will never look the same.

The Santa Clara Valley, with its rich soil and sunny weather, has been home to great diversity and great innovation long before it became known as Silicon Valley.

California’s first immigrants from Mexico were astonished by its beauty. “The land is moist and the hills have an abundance of rosemary and herbs, sunflowers in bloom, vines as plentiful as a vineyard,” wrote one. From the movie stars of Hollywood’s golden era who once came to play to billionaires who grew apricots for pleasure, the valley has hosted orchards, electric railroads, Army camps and even a love-struck poet.

Join author and historian Robin Chapman as she uncovers the true tales of this ever-changing place.

“San Francisco is forty-nine square miles surrounded by reality.” -Paul Kantner, founder of San Francisco rock band Jefferson Airplane.

Surging from hamlet to boomtown overnight, San Francisco is the most meteoric “instant city” in history. Over the decades, residents have offered unique perspectives through journals, letters, and newspapers, their words bringing another time to life. Discover San Francisco through the eyes of miners and “ladies of the night.” Relive the experiences of robber barons and beatniks who flourished in this tiny corner of the world with fewer than one million souls. From the Gold Rush to the Tech Rush, the city by the bay been the site of daring innovations, counterculture upheavals, and social rebellions that shaped generations.

With commentary, background and extraordinary images, historians Terry Hamburg and Richard Hansen guide you through these colorful quotes, showing San Francisco as it once was, and what it aspired to be.

“An in-depth look at the 1971 trial of a serial killer who’s been mostly forgotten — except to those who were forever impacted.”-The Seattle Times

In 1969, the body of a young woman was discovered in the woods of Renton, rocking the communities along Puget Sound.Three more brutal murders followed, drawing the attention of multiple police agencies as they tried to piece together the meager clues left behind.The seemingly unrelated cases challenged detectives, who struggled to realize they were all connected to one man: Gary Gene Grant.Before the term “serial killer” was even coined, Grant stalked his prey, destroying lives and families while walking unseen among the masses.Decades later, his crimes have all but been forgotten.

Join author and homicide investigator Cloyd Steiger as he uncovers the story of the murderer who slipped through the cracks of history.

The Old Pueblo's history is full of colorful characters and fascinating folktales!.

Tucson was originally settled in 1775, and the Gadsden Purchase brought the tiny settlement on the Santa Cruz River into the United States in 1854. In the decades leading up to Arizona's statehood in 1912, the territory's largest city was rife with excitement. A seven-headed, four-hundred-foot-long sea serpent prophesied to the townsfolk. Lady bicyclists caused an uproar with their "divided skirts.'? The new railroad brought three presidents to town. From the city's brief time in the Confederacy to its crusades against drinking and gambling, from bullfighting rings to sanitariums, author Dave Devine relates stories of the little-known, sometimes lighthearted and often unusual events and personalities of Tucson.

This first comprehensive history of the Jews of Florida from colonial times to the present is a sweeping tapestry of voices.

Despite not being officially allowed to live in Florida until 1763, Jewish immigrants escaping expulsions and exclusions were among the earliest settlers. They have been integral to every facet of Florida's growth, from tilling the land and developing early communities to boosting tourism and ultimately pushing mankind into space. The Sunshine State's Jews, working for the common good, have been Olympians, Nobel Prize winners, computer pioneers, educators, politicians, leaders in business and the arts and more, while maintaining their heritage to help ensure Jewish continuity for future generations. This rich narrative - accompanied by 700 images, most rarely seen - is the result of three-plus decades of grassroots research by author Marcia Jo Zerivitz, giving readers an incomparable look at the long and crucial history of Jews in Florida.

See the Conch Republic through Hemingway’s eyes.

For a dozen years, perhaps the prime of his writing life, Ernest Hemingway resided in Key West, producing a consistent stream of important work that elevated his literary fame and cleared a path for the arrival and refinement of the Hemingway Myth. Travel in his footsteps and bask in the island magnetism that fueled the author while he wrote classics such as Death in the Afternoon and “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” Tour through more than seventy island locations that paint the perfect portrait of Papa’s consequential time on the island with author Mark Allen Baker as your guide. Step back in time to Hemingway’s Key West and stroll the town like an honorary member of the famed Hemingway Mob.

The author of Steel tells the story of strikes and violent unrest amid the mines and mills of twentieth-century Pennsylvania and Ohio—includes photos.

As the twentieth century dawned on western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, the region’s steel industry faced a struggle for unionism. The industry was plagued by disasters that killed and maimed countless workers, many of them impoverished immigrants from Ireland, Hungary, and other nations—in 1906 alone, more than four hundred workers died in steel plant accidents.

In response, unionists like Philip Murray, John L. Lewis, Samuel Gompers, and Gus Hall began to battle for fair wages, hours, and working conditions. Managers like Judge Elbert Gary and Tom Girdler opposed their every move. Tensions from issues of immigration, class, skill, and race erupted throughout the industry.

The tribulations led to widespread steel strikes directed by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers and the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, and a war that killed scores and injured thousands. In this book, industrial relations expert Dale Richard Perelman charts the struggle and decline of the nation’s most prominent regional steel industry.

Explore America's Dairyland and the American Spirit

At the dawn of World War II, Wisconsin was home to nearly 200,000 dairy farms. Today, barely 6,000 remain. The ghosts of the missing can still be seen in withering old farms along lonely highways, some restored, many abandoned or decayed, but all with a story to tell. Immigrants dreamed of owning their own farms, only to be fleeced by the promotion of "cutover'? lands in the Northwoods. Freedmen and women arrived in southwestern Wisconsin and became farmers and renowned barn-builders in one of the earliest integrated communities in the nation.

Through hundreds of hours of site visits, interviews, and research, historian and photographer, Scott Wittman extracts the forgotten truths from legend to tell the real stories of those who created The Dairy State.

Delve into San Antonio’s wicked past, from the lawless lore of the Spanish settlement through the criminal misdeeds of the modern metropolis.

Residents of the Alamo City tolerated scores of cockfighting pits, gambling joints, opium dens, around-the-clock saloons and other places of ill-repute. Some disturbers of San Antonio’s peace, like Judge Roy Bean, left town to achieve greater notoriety elsewhere. Others, like the thief who stole the McFarlin diamond, seemed to vanish into thin air. But all of them left a page-turning story behind. Mike Cox catalogues San Antonio’s most infamous incidents and miscreants.

“Offers a glimpse into Salem’s complex, haunted history—murders, hangings, corruption—and provides a handful of ghostly tales.” —Statesman Journal

Salem’s haunted tales date back to the 1830s, when indigenous tribes, trappers and homesteaders shared the lush Willamette Valley. Murders, hangings and dark underground passageways defined the city’s early days as the Willamette River moved old stern-wheelers up to the city’s docks.

Today, the sounds of those phantom vessels can be heard plying along the river late at night. Oregon’s capital city has long been the site of mental hospitals, prisons and other notorious institutions, famously depicted in the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The residual effects of decades of torture and depravity cling to the old facilities in both sight and sound.

Author Tim King examines many of these chilling encounters along with eyewitness accounts of spirits that refuse to be quiet.

This book sheds new light on John Sevier, founding father of the state of Tennessee.

A celebrated soldier, admired politician and founding father of the state of Tennessee, John Sevier led an adventurous life. He commanded a frontier militia into battle against British Loyalists at Kings Mountain. He waged a relentless war against the Cherokees in his effort to claim America's first frontier. He forged the state of Franklin from the western lands of North Carolina and later became Tennessee's first governor. Following his death, Sevier's accomplishments faded from public memory, but years later, writers resurrected his image through romanticized accounts of his exploits, relying heavily on folk tales and recollections from aging pioneers. Thus, life and legend intertwined. Join authors Gordon T. Belt and Traci Nichols-Belt as they examine John Sevier's extraordinary life through the lens of history and memory, shedding new light on this remarkable Tennessee figure.

The sports landscape changed in the spring of 1994 when the Cleveland Indiansmoved into their new stadium at the corner of Carnegieand Ontario.

No longer the joke of the league, The Jakemade the Cleveland Indiansthe jewel of baseball and helped revitalize a city and a fan base. For the first time ever, these interviews and stories from the players, managers and front office personnel give the inside scoop on what happened on the field, in the dugout and behind the scenes of this exciting time in Cleveland sports history.

Vince McKee is the author of Heroand Cleveland's Finest. Cleveland sports icon Joe Tait called Cleveland's Finest one of the best Cleveland sports books ever written. Get the best seat in the house for the most recent addition to the Tribe'scelebrated legacy.

Lovers of theater in Cleveland and beyond are sure to enjoy this story of grand ambition and determined perseverance

Cleveland was one of the largest cities in America when Playhouse Square opened as a testament to the city's splendor. In 1921, Loew's State, Loew's Ohio, the Hanna Theatre and the Allen opened their doors, and Keith's Palace Theater, then the world's finest theater, greeted patrons in 1922. For fifty years these theaters prospered before falling on hard times. Three even faced demolition. But through visionary planning, hard work and civic pride these magnificent show palaces survived and thrive today, and Playhouse Square Center is once again the largest theater center outside of New York's Lincoln Center.

Playhouse Square volunteer Redcoat and tour guide Michael R. Routa celebrates the people who made and saved theater in Cleveland.

Trace the rustic roots and regal rafters of Preston Hollow’s past for a fascinating profile of this distinctive Dallas neighborhood.

It takes only a brief drive past the stately homes that line Preston Hollow’s winding tree-lined streets to understand the neighborhood’s appeal. Glimpse the rich farmland that stunned Ira DeLoache on his fortuitous 1922 flight over the countryside. Revisit the early days of the pre-annexation town, when citizens relied on septic tanks and a volunteer fire department. Stop by institutions like Lobello’s Bar-B-Que or the Northwest Hi-Way Drive-In Theatre and attend Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church’s first service. From the architectural legacy of Charles Dilbeck to the destructive path left by the 2019 tornado, author Jack Walker Drake relates the heritage of a premier Dallas neighborhood.

Go inside the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry that is Auburn-Georgia.

The rivalry between Auburn University and the University of Georgia began in 1892 and has largely been a competition more brotherly than bitter. According to one legend, Auburn's War Eagle battle cry originated at the first game between the two schools. The first overtime game in SEC history occurred in 1996, when Georgia topped the heavily favored Tigers, 56-49, in four extra periods. Renowned UGA coach Vince Dooley graduated from Auburn, while Auburn coach Pat Dye was an All-American at UGA. Join award-winning journalist and Athens, Georgia, native Doug Stutsman, who was raised by Auburn graduates, as he recounts the unforgettable games, moments and personalities on the 125th anniversary of the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry.

The civil rights movement in South Carolina has an epic and tumultuous history, beginning with the very first statewide meeting of the NAACP in 1939.

With stories of sit-ins, movements and the integration of state universities, this is the first comprehensive history of South Carolina's civil rights struggles. And behind every achievement are the major legal rulings that protected them, interspersed with the familiar names of Thurgood Marshall, Matthew Perry, Ernest A. Finney and Judge Waties Waring. Join former South Carolina NAACP president and activist James L. Felder as he recounts the epic struggle African Americans have faced, from fighting for the right to vote to the desegregation of public spaces and all the efforts in between.