Shortly after 5:00 P.M. On Wednesday, May 27, 1896, a Herculean tornado shattered the St. Louis Area. Within twenty minutes, 137 people had perished in St. Louis, with 118 dead across the river in East St. Louis. Along a ten-mile swath of devastation, the tornado destroyed 311 buildings, heavily damaged 7,200 others and caused significant harm to 1,300 more. Even today, that powerful cyclone of a century ago "remains the single deadliest incident to befall the St. Louis area," according to Tim O'Neil of the St.Louis Post-Dispatch, who wrote the foreword for this historic...
Shortly after 5:00 P.M. On Wednesday, May 27, 1896, a Herculean tornado shattered the St. Louis Area. Within twenty minutes, 137 people had perished i...
One journalist curious about life in the taverns along the stagecoach lines in Wisconsin and northern Illinois from the early 1800s until the 1880s was Harry Ellsworth Cole. While he could not sample strong ales at all of the taverns he wrote about, Cole did study newspaper accounts, wrote hundreds of letters to families of tavern owners, read widely in regional history, and traveled extensively throughout the territory. The result, according to Brunet, is a "nostalgic, sometimes romantic, well-written, and easily digested social history."
At Cole s death, historian Louise Phelps Kellogg...
One journalist curious about life in the taverns along the stagecoach lines in Wisconsin and northern Illinois from the early 1800s until the 1880s...
The story of John A. Logan s famed 31st Regiment Illinois Volunteers, told by three veterans, follows the regiment from the battles of Belmont, Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, Kenesaw Mountain, and Atlanta through the March to the Sea and into North Carolina. "Few regiments," notes historian John Y. Simon in the foreword, "fought longer or more fiercely, suffered more casualties, or won more victories."
Logan proved a valiant and valuable Union commander, yet when the Civil War first began, it was far from clear whether he would lead Union or Confederate troops. In dramatic fashion, however,...
The story of John A. Logan s famed 31st Regiment Illinois Volunteers, told by three veterans, follows the regiment from the battles of Belmont, For...
This text is a sampler of informative stories and descriptions of the kaleidoscopic life of the Mississippi before Mark Twain travelled the river. It includes discussions of the crafts that plied the river, life on the river and descriptions of famous towns along the river.
This text is a sampler of informative stories and descriptions of the kaleidoscopic life of the Mississippi before Mark Twain travelled the river. It ...
In 1913, Charlie Birger began his career as a bootlegger, supplying Southern Illinois with whiskey and beer. Drawing on a cast of the living, the dead and the soon-to-be-dead, DeNeal recreates Prohibition-era Illinois, depicting shoot-outs, gang wars, arrests, trials and convictions.
In 1913, Charlie Birger began his career as a bootlegger, supplying Southern Illinois with whiskey and beer. Drawing on a cast of the living, the dead...
Originally published in 1962, this story of the English Settlement in pioneer Illinois is compiled from the eyewitness accounts of the participants. The founders, Morris Birkbeck and George Flower, as well as their associates and the many visitors to their prairie settlement, wrote mainly for immediate and sometimes controversial ends. Charles Boewe has selected excerpts from letters, descriptions, diaries, histories, and periodicals within a chronological framework to emphasize the implicit drama of the settlers' deeds as they searched for a suitable site, founded their colony, and...
Originally published in 1962, this story of the English Settlement in pioneer Illinois is compiled from the eyewitness accounts of the participants...
This work is a sequel and tells John Logan's postwar story. It covers topics such as reconstruction, regional and national Republican party politics, military policies, developing tariff policies, and the 1884 presidential race.
This work is a sequel and tells John Logan's postwar story. It covers topics such as reconstruction, regional and national Republican party politics, ...
The Illinois frontier offered abundant opportunity, noted English traveler William Oliver after his journey to America in 1841-42, but life there was hard. Accordingly, Oliver advised the wealthy and comfortable to remain in England and counseled the unprosperous to seek their fortunes in America. Written for the poor who would migrate and published in 1843, his Eight Months in Illinois: With Information to Immigrants sought only to provide pertinent, valid, and practical information about what people might encounter in the frontier state. What Oliver actually accomplished, however,...
The Illinois frontier offered abundant opportunity, noted English traveler William Oliver after his journey to America in 1841-42, but life there was ...
The Illinois Habitant, writes Natalia Maree Belting, was a gay soul; he seemed shockingly carefree to later, self-righteous puritans from the American colonies. He danced on Sunday after mass, was passionately attached to faro and half a dozen other card games, and played billiards at all hours. He gossiped long over a friendly pipe and congenial mug of brandy in the half-dusk of his porch or in the noisy tavern. First published in 1948, "Kaskaskia under the French Regime" is a social and economic history of French Kaskaskia from 1703 to 1765. Using a readable, journalistic style, Belting...
The Illinois Habitant, writes Natalia Maree Belting, was a gay soul; he seemed shockingly carefree to later, self-righteous puritans from the American...
"Autobiography of Silas Thompson Trowbridge M.D." is a remarkable account of nineteenth-century medicine, politics, and personal life that recovers the captivating experiences of a Civil Warera regimental surgeon who was also a president of the Illinois State Medical Society and a United States consul in Mexico. First published in 1872 by Trowbridge s family and even printed on a family-owned press, only a handful of copies of the initial publication survive. In this first paperback edition, Trowbridge s memoirs are reprinted as they originally appeared.Indiana-born Trowbridge moved to...
"Autobiography of Silas Thompson Trowbridge M.D." is a remarkable account of nineteenth-century medicine, politics, and personal life that recovers th...