Perched on the banks of the Cumberland River, Nashville is best known for its role in the civil rights movement, world-class education and, of course, country music. In this unique collection of columns, longtime journalist and Tennessee native George Zepp illuminates a less familiar side of the city. Learn the secrets of Timothy Demonbreun, one of the city s first residents who lived with his family in a cliff-top cave; Cortelia Clark, the blind bluesman who continued to perform on street corners after winning a Grammy award; and Nashville s own Cinderella story, which involved legendary...

Though there are more automobiles than harvesters on the roads these days, folks in Wythe County, Virginia, keep their memories and traditions preserved in these conversations with the local twentieth-century farmers who spent their entire lives working this land. Visit with James Kegley, a fourth-generation farmer discussing his family's cattle and poultry drives to the train in Wytheville, and Agnes Eades as she shares stories about the night before butchering day for the hogs; join Fred Etter as he remembers the first tractor he ever saw and June Huffard as she talks about her dairy farm....

Since its founding in 1751, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, has been at the crossroads of history as the site of Washington's headquarters during the Whiskey Rebellion, a city shelled and occupied by Confederate forces and the home to Dickinson College and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. With lively vignettes and firsthand accounts, Joseph David Cress recounts the remarkable history of the borough. Tales of the McClintock Slave Riot of 1847 and the courthouse fire of 1845 stand alongside the legendary figures of Molly Pitcher and all-American athlete Jim Thorpe. Cress chronicles Carlisle's...

Surprising tales and unexpected anecdotes color Rhode Island s legacy, from the accounts of its three brave Titanic survivors to the whirlwind Revolutionary War romance between a Smithfield girl and a French viscount. Rhode Island historian Glenn Laxton uncovers the exceptional citizens whom history has forgotten, like Robert the Hermit, a man who endured three escapes from slavery before finding liberty and peace in Rumford; the illustrious Lippitt family, who spearheaded advancements in deaf education; and Christiana Bannister, a Narragansett tribe member, nineteenth-century entrepreneur...

Orange County is one of the best-known, yet least understood, counties in California. The popular image of beautiful people in beach cities is certainly accurate. But the Orange County that is often overlooked includes workaday lives in Anaheim, the barrios of Santa Ana, townhouse living in Brea and the diverse communities of Little Saigon, Little Texas, Los Rios, La Habra and Silverado Canyon. Modern Orange County offers very little sense of history, and it sometimes seems as if the urbanization of the 1960s is all that defines the place. Orange County historian Phil Brigandi fills in the...

Since its establishment in 1683, Perth Amboy has been a progressive and welcoming community. Residents have consistently made a stand for equality--in the 1920s, riots at a local KKK meeting ousted the Klan for good, and the nation's first African American vote was cast here by Thomas Mundy Peterson. Another Perth Amboy first was Dr. Solomon Andrews's flight over the town in 1863. Since 1853, the Eagleswood School has hosted lectures from figures like Henry David Thoreau. In 1968, the Perth Amboy basketball team swept the state championship. These and Perth Amboy's other fascinating stories...

Central Texas is an area as diverse culturally as it is geographically. Bordered by Hill Country in the west, green farmland in the east and Waco and New Braunfels in the north and south, this area has drawn settlers from around the globe for over two centuries, leaving their mark and their stories along the way. From a surprising story of nineteenth-century psych ops at Fort Mason and what really happened to Bevo, the UT longhorn, in 1920 to Mrs. Ross's Croghan Cobbler recipe and rumors of a Lone Star visit by old Abe himself, historian Mike Cox regales readers with over fifty stories about...

Roger Williams purchased the fertile Aquidneck Island from the Narragansett tribe in 1637. It was here that Anne Hutchinson, along with William Coddington and other colonists who had been banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, found shelter from persecution. The intrepid dissenters of Rhode Island Colony saw their community flourish with the founding of Portsmouth and Newport townships. The Battle of Rhode Island was the only clash between American colonials and the British on Rhode Island soil during the Revolutionary War. From the mercantile success of the Atlantic triangle trade...

The geographic center of Colorado, Park County has long served as a recreational area for Denver and Colorado Springs residents looking to get away. The scene has not always been so idyllic. Marshal Cook was shot while investigating a loud party in Como in 1894, and rumors spread by the Michigan Creek School Board sent Benjamin Ratcliff on a killing spree in 1895. But the county's hardscrabble heritage includes triumphs as well as tragedies. In 1873, county seat Fairplay lost every business on Front Street to a horrific fire. But by 1878, they had rebuilt it all. It still stands today, a true...

1940: It's the year Nazis rain bombs on London and goose-step into Paris, when President Roosevelt wins an unprecedented third term and Kansas Citians finally run the corrupt Pendergast political machine out of power. The new reform-minded city government is bent on cleaning up the sinful "Paris of the Plains" and streamlining its future with wide, new miles of trafficways. Notorious nightclubs have closed. The City Market opens. Glenn Miller swings, Bojangles taps and "Gone with the Wind" premieres. Old buildings make way for parking lots. A dying meteor lights up the night sky above a...