A young boy walks into a hotel to meet a great man and it changes his life forever. The man: Father Flanagan of Boys Town - and the boy, one of the 30,000 citizens of that "City of Little Men," tells is own story of Boys Town and Father Flanagan.

The Irish lad who stepped off the S.S. Celtic in June of 1904 was to leave an indelible mark on the American dream, a story told in the movie "Boys Town" in 1938. Butthe story is richer and more astonishing than a movie could dramatize and in this memoir the range and scope of Father Flannagan's achievement is seen against the background of the...