Name: Hoosier Vigilantes
Brand: Robert Bowling
SKU: 9781467157223
Price: 24.99 USD
Availability: InStock

Hoosier Vigilantes

9781467157223

$24.99

The story of the intersection between vigilantism and law enforcement

In frontier Indiana, vigilantism was a grim necessity. Beginning with the vigilance committees of the 1860s that lynched the Reno Gang and the Knights of the Golden Circle, who plotted to assassinate Governor Morton, the Hoosier State was a hotbed for citizens taking the law into their own hands. Later groups such as the White Caps enforced their own moral code, while the state legislature sanctioned the Horse Thief Detective Association and the Banking Vigilantes.

Chronicling the vigilante groups that operated in Indiana, author Robert Bowling explores the evolution of law enforcement from the lone marshal on the frontier to the birth of the modern police department and the Indiana State Police.

Cover image for Hoosier Vigilantes, isbn: 9781467157223

Wicked Muncie

9781467136655

$21.99

Explore the notorious and unusual side of Muncie's history.

Muncie is the classic small American city. But for much of the past two centuries, the city fell victim to murder, corruption and the bizarre. Mayor Rollin Bunch went to prison for mail fraud, while his police commissioner faced a murder rap. Viola Babe Swartz ran a brothel out of a truck stop that was raided by police at least a dozen times but ran for sheriff in the 1974 primary election. June Holland, of the locally famous Holland triplets, killed her neighbor for refusing to sell her house.

Cover image for Wicked Muncie, isbn: 9781467136655

Wanted in Indiana

9781467147309

$21.99

To most Hoosiers, John Dillinger is the very picture of an Indiana fugitive, but the state has seen many fascinating criminal characters on the run. In Tippecanoe County, two Lafayette youths murdered the sheriff's deputies transporting them to prison. The gun-toting "Elwood gun girl" walked from the headlines into legend. One fugitive passed himself off as a small-town cop while on the run, and a well-spoken Indiana killer became the first fugitive captured as a direct result of the TV show America's Most Wanted. Veteran true crime author Andrew E. Stoner examines not only the trail of destruction criminals have left in their wake but also their lives on the run.

Front cover of Wanted in Indiana featuring mugshots and a collage of fugitives with a bold red WANTED INDIANA title.

Wicked Terre Haute

9781467140744

$21.99

Join local historian Tim Crumrin as he reveals the blackguards, rogues and swindlers of Terre Haute’s rough and rowdy past.

For more than a century, Terre Haute earned its reputation as a sin city. One of the most notorious red-light districts in the Midwest, the West End, housed sixty brothels and nearly one thousand prostitutes at its height in the 1920s. Across this sordid scene strode the stylish and indomitable Edith Brown, the city’s most famous madam. When Prohibition made the city bootlegger central, violence erupted as rival gangs vied for turf. Gamblers flooded in from all corners of the country, making Terre Haute’s Wire Room second only to Las Vegas. Through it all, corrupt politicians like Mayor Donn Roberts profited handsomely from grift and deception.

Cover image for Wicked Terre Haute, isbn: 9781467140744

Wicked New Albany

9781609494629

$21.99

Join local historian Gregg Seidl on this deliciously wicked romp with New Albany's most heinous--the treacherous, greedy, drunken, insane and plain unfortunate.

Catch a whiff of rum and candor when Jacob Ritter sits to write one morning in 1861. His opening line: "I have killed my wife because she is a witch." When the trains roar through this New Albany, they are quite likely meeting flesh. The men in the saloons are armed and irritated. And the murderous can be most industrious, like the man who was sentenced to death, sold his body to New Albany's first physician, collected the cash, reneged on the contract and then tried to sell his corpse again. Millions have roamed these broad avenues during New Albany's nearly two hundred years. Most have been honest sorts. Others, well…

Cover image for Wicked New Albany, isbn: 9781609494629

Wicked Fishers

9781467144629

$21.99

Present-day Fishers, Indiana, is one of the safest places to live in the U.S., but this respectable city has a rough and rowdy past.

Starting off as a small railroad community, Fishers attracted its fair share of drifters, and the whiskey flowed like water. It may have been small, but the lawless town made national headlines on more than one occasion. A two-day bar brawl led to one death and dozens of injuries and required the Sheriff to restore order. A sensational trial exposed mass grave robberies and led to legislative changes. James Redwine became the town's first homicide victim over a Christmas turkey shootout. Author Robert Bowling explores the history of this once small town and the misdeeds that thrust it into the national spotlight.

Collage style cover of Wicked Fishers by Robert Bowling with historic portraits

Wicked Indianapolis

9781609492052

$21.99

These are not the aspects of Indianapolis history you'll see flaunted in visitors' brochures.

These are the abhorrent, the grim, the can't-look-away misdeeds and miscreants of this city's past, when bicycle messenger boys peddled through the night to link prostitutes with johns and when the bigoted masses tightened their grip on the city behind mayor and Klansman John Duvall. From the unseemly to the deviant to the disastrous, Hoosier Andrew E. Stoner brings you lives as out of control as the worst wreck at the Indy 500 with a history as regrettable as it is riveting.