While trying to solve a family mystery, Dave Dyer uncovered a massive stock market scandal that had been forgotten by history. His great uncle Clayton Pickard vanished in 1923, and, in the process of researching him, the author found a collection of thousands of original documents and photos from Clayton s employer, the L. R. Steel Company. The documents, unopened since 1923, told the fascinating story of a visionary entrepreneur operating in the boom-town environment of Buffalo.

Steel s is about the rise and fall of the retail empire created by Leonard Rambler Steel. Like a Silicon...