Download or read book Betting Booze and Brothels written by Wanda A. Landry and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the turn of the twentieth century, Beaumont, Texas had acquired a reputation as a rough place. Situated in the oil-soaked chaos of Spindletop, Jefferson County was a hotbed of vice. For decades, gambling and prostitution thrived as elected officials either looked the other way or took money to keep quiet. That is, until 1960 when a swashbuckling young state legislator blew into town and spearheaded an intensive investigation into the rampant vice and governmental corruption that supported it. And, at a time when such things were virtually unheard of, he and his committee played it out on live television. When the dust finally cleared, the local governments of Jefferson County were turned inside out.
Download or read book Satan s Playground written by Paul J Vanderwood and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-09 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Satan’s Playground chronicles the rise and fall of the tumultuous and lucrative gambling industry that developed just south of the U.S.-Mexico border in the early twentieth century. As prohibitions against liquor, horse racing, gambling, and prostitution swept the United States, the vice industry flourished in and around Tijuana, to the extent that reformers came to call the town “Satan’s Playground,” unintentionally increasing its licentious allure. The area was dominated by Agua Caliente, a large, elegant gaming resort opened by four entrepreneurial Border Barons (three Americans and one Mexican) in 1928. Diplomats, royalty, film stars, sports celebrities, politicians, patricians, and nouveau-riche capitalists flocked to Agua Caliente’s luxurious complex of casinos, hotels, cabarets, and sports extravaganzas, and to its world-renowned thoroughbred racetrack. Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Louis B. Mayer, the Marx Brothers, Bing Crosby, Charlie Chaplin, Gloria Swanson, and the boxer Jack Dempsey were among the regular visitors. So were mobsters such as Bugsy Siegel, who later cited Agua Caliente as his inspiration for building the first such resort on what became the Las Vegas Strip. Less than a year after Agua Caliente opened, gangsters held up its money-car in transit to a bank in San Diego, killing the courier and a guard and stealing the company money pouch. Paul J. Vanderwood weaves the story of this heist gone wrong, the search for the killers, and their sensational trial into the overall history of the often-chaotic development of Agua Caliente, Tijuana, and Southern California. Drawing on newspaper accounts, police files, court records, personal memoirs, oral histories, and “true detective” magazines, he presents a fascinating portrait of vice and society in the Jazz Age, and he makes a significant contribution to the history of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Download or read book If the Devil Had a Wife written by Frank Mills and published by Booksurge Publishing. This book was released on 2010-02-02 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What began innocently as a family history now possessed all the elements of a Texas-size mystery. All the evidence was there of a deception by the most unlikely of partners.
Download or read book Governing New York City written by Wallace Sayre and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 1960-12-31 with total page 836 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This widely acclaimed study of political power in a metropolitan community portrays the political system in its entirety and in balance—and retains much of the drama, the excitement, and the special style of New York City. It discusses the stakes and rules of the city's politics, and the individuals, groups, and official agencies influencing government action.
Download or read book Traveling the Shore of the Spanish Sea written by Geoff Winningham and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2010-02-15 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a work of sweeping breadth and beauty, Geoff Winningham has created a profusely illustrated, contemplative travel journal that showcases his talent as both a photographer and a writer and reveals his affection and respect for the two countries he calls home. In 2003, photographer Geoff Winningham saw for the first time both the southern coast of Veracruz, with its volcanoes, rain forests, and steep mountains, and the Texas coast near High Island, where the land seems to stretch endlessly, covered by a sea of salt grass. He decided that these two visually striking areas could be the beginning and end points of a photographic study that would also engage the two cultures in which he had lived for twenty years, the U.S. and Mexico. Now, seven years and more than a hundred trips later, Traveling the Shore of the Spanish Sea: The Gulf Coast of Texas and Mexico is the result. In this beautifully illustrated and engagingly written book, Winningham also considers the role that the Gulf of Mexico played in the discovery and exploration of the New World. Winningham's journey begins east of High Island, in Port Arthur, where the images suggest a cautionary tale relating to the oil industry and the land. It ends twelve hundred miles down the coast at the end of an old, stone road in tropical terrain of almost indescribable beauty, overlooking the sea. In between, more than two hundred photographs include natural landscapes (ranging from unspoiled to completely despoiled), roadside architecture and signage, and images of people Winningham met. As he attempts to come to terms with the disturbing changes he witnessed to the coastal environment, the book also contains elements of a poignant, personal lament for what is being lost. Traveling the Shore of the Spanish Sea: The Gulf Coast of Texas and Mexico will delight and enchant readers with its deeply felt personal narrative and the power and beauty of its images.
Download or read book The Booze Route written by John E. Main and published by . This book was released on 1907 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Man the Anzacs Revered written by Daniel Reynaud and published by . This book was released on 2015-02-01 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did a wowser become an Anzac legend? And how did a legend become a virtual unknown today? This is the first biography of Fighting Mac to sort the facts from the fiction and present McKenzie as the Christian champion that he was. William McKenzie was once one of the most famous of the Anzacs, a legend for his work on Gallipoli and France. For two decades after the war he was literally mobbed by adoring soldiers and their families. For the Anzacs, he became the man who best represented the Anzac ideal. What makes Fighting Mac's legendary reputation incredible is that he embodied almost everything that the typical digger of the Anzac legend loved to hate. McKenzie was a Salvation Army Chaplain, a species of non-combatant officer usually held in low esteem. He railed against booze, brothels, betting and bad language, and he ran frequent evangelistic campaigns for the Anzacs where he forcefully appealed to them to become Christians. Despite these apparent disadvantages he was worshipped and revered by the soldiers. Yet today, McKenzie's name is almost completely unknown outside certain religious circles. However, legends continue to be invented about him, adding to the inaccuracies told about him almost from the beginning. But his story needs no embroidering, and the exaggerations diminish the truth of his astonishing real-life achievements. This book captures McKenzie in all of his charismatic and energetic complexity with particular focus on his war years: a devout man of God who became enshrined in the hearts of thousands of men who showed little other commitment to things religious. If the original Anzacs revered him, then we who revere them should pay attention to his story.
Download or read book The Train Stopped in Orange written by Carrie Joiner Woliver and published by Createspace Independent Pub. This book was released on 2012-10-01 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The loud wail of the train whistle pierced the night at my grandmother's house. The enormous steam locomotive rattled the windows as it thundered past only a hundred feet away. Exciting thoughts of adventure far beyond my hometown of Orange, Texas, bubbled in my mind. This is more than a memoir, it is a portrait of Americana.Train depots were bustling centers of activity, but even more so early in the 29th century when my grandparents were raising their family.I discovered four valuable diaries from 1917-18 written by my grandparents after the death of my mother. These journals held such a rich treasure trove of history that I knew I had to share them with others.Will and Pearl Joiner lived in Orange in 1917 when it was a lively community with a large lumber and shipbuilding industry. Will was a banker and Pearl was a homemaker. Their diaries provide first hand account of family life and daily life including outings, theater visits, illnesses, and many fishing trips. Life was simpler then. Says Pearl in her diary, "In the afternoon we took a long walk, took the buggy to Mama and Papa's and let them have a nice ride." But their lives were not without challenge. Will became ill with Spanish influenza in the winter of 1918, at the same time millions of people across the globe died in this pandemic. Will, luckily, survived to provide for his young family.Their personalities emerge from the excerpts printed in these pages. "I caught fever today...car fever, not typhoid," Will writes and the next day he bought his first car: $875 of his "hard-earned cash." Pearl, a nurturing, loving mother, was always talking about her large family, the Cottles, many who congregated on their front porch to chat. Will constantly checked the weather for perfect fishing conditions, and brought home a string of freshly caught fish every week for their maid to fry up.My childhood memories of growing up near my grandparents are part of the narrative. The 1950s with poodle skirt and tons of petticoats are truths of my life. The record player spun songs by The Platters, Sam Cooke, Johnny Mathis, and, of course, Elvis Presley. Girls' slumber parties were popular in high school when the only mischief was puffing on an occasional cigarette or gossiping about classmates.In the fifties, "making out" referred to how you did on your school exam. "Grass" was what you mowed, "coke" was what you ordered at Zack's drive in, and "pot" was something your mother cooked carrots in.Many family photos, historical Orange photos, and weathered clippings found within the pages of the old diaries are peppered throughout the book. The saying of the Joiner's favorite humorist, Will Rogers, are featured at the beginning of every chapter.The diaries of the Joiners are an honest, unembellished key to our understanding of the past, providing valuable clues about how people lived in a small town in Texas in 1917-18. Readers will enjoy this simpler, yet colorful slice of history and my cherished memories of time gone by.
Download or read book The Saint the Sinner s and Eddie written by Christina Ledbetter and published by . This book was released on 2018-06-26 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Eddie Love took a 23andMe DNA test, he thought the results would tell him whether he had Irish or French or German roots. What he didn't realize is that he'd find out that the man who he thought was his father was not his father. Thus began a multi-year caper to find out not only who Eddie's real father was, but what happened (besides, you know, the obvious).Eventually, Eddie lassoed his friend Christina into helping him solve the mystery and document their journey. Their adventure took them deep into Orange, Texas, where elderly residents eventually came clean with secrets they'd been keeping for decades.Told through narrative, emails and interviews, "The Saint, The Sinner(s) and Eddie" is a quirky, true story about family, lies and friendships (plus a handful of dogs, countless bowls of gumbo, one pawnshop wedding and more half siblings than you can count).
Download or read book Sin in the Second City written by Karen Abbott and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2008-06-10 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Step into the perfumed parlors of the Everleigh Club, the most famous brothel in American history–and the catalyst for a culture war that rocked the nation. Operating in Chicago’s notorious Levee district at the dawn of the last century, the Club’s proprietors, two aristocratic sisters named Minna and Ada Everleigh, welcomed moguls and actors, senators and athletes, foreign dignitaries and literary icons, into their stately double mansion, where thirty stunning Everleigh “butterflies” awaited their arrival. Courtesans named Doll, Suzy Poon Tang, and Brick Top devoured raw meat to the delight of Prince Henry of Prussia and recited poetry for Theodore Dreiser. Whereas lesser madams pocketed most of a harlot’s earnings and kept a “whipper” on staff to mete out discipline, the Everleighs made sure their girls dined on gourmet food, were examined by an honest physician, and even tutored in the literature of Balzac. Not everyone appreciated the sisters’ attempts to elevate the industry. Rival Levee madams hatched numerous schemes to ruin the Everleighs, including an attempt to frame them for the death of department store heir Marshall Field, Jr. But the sisters’ most daunting foes were the Progressive Era reformers, who sent the entire country into a frenzy with lurid tales of “white slavery”——the allegedly rampant practice of kidnapping young girls and forcing them into brothels. This furor shaped America’s sexual culture and had repercussions all the way to the White House, including the formation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. With a cast of characters that includes Jack Johnson, John Barrymore, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., William Howard Taft, “Hinky Dink” Kenna, and Al Capone, Sin in the Second City is Karen Abbott’s colorful, nuanced portrait of the iconic Everleigh sisters, their world-famous Club, and the perennial clash between our nation’s hedonistic impulses and Puritanical roots. Culminating in a dramatic last stand between brothel keepers and crusading reformers, Sin in the Second City offers a vivid snapshot of America’s journey from Victorian-era propriety to twentieth-century modernity. Visit www.sininthesecondcity.com to learn more! “Delicious… Abbott describes the Levee’s characters in such detail that it’s easy to mistake this meticulously researched history for literary fiction.” —— New York Times Book Review “ Described with scrupulous concern for historical accuracy…an immensely readable book.” —— Joseph Epstein, The Wall Street Journal “Assiduously researched… even this book’s minutiae makes for good storytelling.” —— Janet Maslin, The New York Times “Karen Abbott has pioneered sizzle history in this satisfyingly lurid tale. Change the hemlines, add 100 years, and the book could be filed under current affairs.” —— USA Today “A rousingly racy yarn.” –Chicago Tribune “A colorful history of old Chicago that reads like a novel… a compelling and eloquent story.” —— The Atlanta Journal-Constitution “Gorgeously detailed” —— New York Daily News “At last, a history book you can bring to the beach.” —— The Philadelphia Inquirer “Once upon a time, Chicago had a world class bordello called The Everleigh Club. Author Karen Abbott brings the opulent place and its raunchy era alive in a book that just might become this years “The Devil In the White City.” —— Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine (cover story) “As Abbott’s delicious and exhaustively researched book makes vividly clear, the Everleigh Club was the Taj Mahal of bordellos.” —— Chicago Sun Times “The book is rich with details about a fast-and-loose Chicago of the early 20th century… Sin explores this world with gusto, throwing light on a booming city and exposing its shadows.” —— Time Out Chicago “[Abbott’s] research enables the kind of vivid description à la fellow journalist Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City that make what could be a dry historic account an intriguing read." – Seattle Times “Abbott tells her story with just the right mix of relish and restraint, providing a piquant guide to a world of sexuality” —— The Atlantic “A rollicking tale from a more vibrant time: history to a ragtime beat.” – Kirkus Reviews “With gleaming prose and authoritative knowledge Abbott elucidates one of the most colorful periods in American history, and the result reads like the very best fiction. Sex, opulence, murder — What's not to love?” —— Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants “A detailed and intimate portrait of the Ritz of brothels, the famed Everleigh Club of turn-of-the-century Chicago. Sisters Minna and Ada attracted the elites of the world to such glamorous chambers as the Room of 1,000 Mirrors, complete with a reflective floor. And isn’t Minna’s advice to her resident prostitutes worthy advice for us all: “Give, but give interestingly and with mystery.”’ —— Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City “Karen Abbott has combined bodice-ripping salaciousness with top-notch scholarship to produce a work more vivid than a Hollywood movie.” —— Melissa Fay Greene, author of There is No Me Without You “Sin in the Second City is a masterful history lesson, a harrowing biography, and - best of all - a superfun read. The Everleigh story closely follows the turns of American history like a little sister. I can't recommend this book loudly enough.” —— Darin Strauss, author of Chang and Eng “This is a story of debauchery and corruption, but it is also a story of sisterhood, and unerring devotion. Meticulously researched, and beautifully crafted, Sin in the Second City is an utterly captivating piece of history.” —— Julian Rubinstein, author of Ballad of the Whiskey Robber
Download or read book Run for the Border written by Steven Bender and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2012-05-13 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arguing for immigration reform based on negotiation and cross-border accord, offers an historical analysis of border crossings, both Mexico to the United States and the United States to Mexico, revealing the symbiotic relationship between the two countries and their shared economic and cultural legacy.
Download or read book Pioneers of the Colorado Parks written by Richard C. Barth and published by Caxton Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for Caxton Press The exciting frontier history of the Colorado mountains can be found in these true stories from the North, Middle, and South Parks of Colorado. Native Americans, trappers, miners, settlers, lawmen and criminals are all found in these true stories that represent the history of the settlement of Colorado.
Download or read book Galveston written by Gary Cartwright and published by TCU Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Number eighteen: The TCU Press Chisholm Trail Series of significant books dealing with Texas, its life and history.
Download or read book City of Champions written by Stefan Szymanski and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2020-10-13 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The changing fortunes of Detroit, told through the lens of the city's major sporting events, by the bestselling author of Soccernomics, and a prizewinning cultural critic From Ty Cobb and Hank Greenberg to the Bad Boys, from Joe Louis and Gordie Howe to the Malice at the Palace, City of Champions explores the history of Detroit through the stories of its most gifted athletes and most celebrated teams, linking iconic events in the history of Motown sports to the city's shifting fortunes. In an era when many teams have left rustbelt cities to relocate elsewhere, Detroit has held on to its franchises, and there is currently great hope in the revival of the city focused on its downtown sports complexes—but to whose benefit? Szymanski and Weineck show how the fate of the teams in Detroit's stadiums, gyms, and fields is echoed in the rise and fall of the car industry, political upheavals ushered in by the depression, World War II, the 1967 uprising, and its recent bankruptcy and renewal. Driven by the conviction that sports not only mirror society but also have a special power to create both community and enduring narratives that help define a city's sense of self, City of Champions is a unique history of the most American of cities.
Download or read book The Dope The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade written by Benjamin T. Smith and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2021-08-10 with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A myth-busting, 100-year history of the Mexican drug trade that reveals how an industry founded by farmers and village healers became dominated by cartels and kingpins. The Mexican drug trade has inspired prejudiced narratives of a war between north and south, white and brown; between noble cops and vicious kingpins, corrupt politicians and powerful cartels. In this first comprehensive history of the trade, historian Benjamin T. Smith tells the real story of how and why this one-peaceful industry turned violent. He uncovers its origins and explains how this illicit business essentially built modern Mexico, affecting everything from agriculture to medicine to economics—and the country’s all-important relationship with the United States. Drawing on unprecedented archival research; leaked DEA, Mexican law enforcement, and cartel documents; and dozens of harrowing interviews, Smith tells a thrilling story brimming with vivid characters—from Ignacia “La Nacha” Jasso, “queen pin” of Ciudad Juárez, to Dr. Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra, the crusading physician who argued that marijuana was harmless and tried to decriminalize morphine, to Harry Anslinger, the Machiavellian founder of the American Federal Bureau of Narcotics, who drummed up racist drug panics to increase his budget. Smith also profiles everyday agricultural workers, whose stories reveal both the economic benefits and the human cost of the trade. The Dope contains many surprising conclusions about drug use and the failure of drug enforcement, all backed by new research and data. Smith explains the complicated dynamics that drive the current drug war violence, probes the U.S.-backed policies that have inflamed the carnage, and explores corruption on both sides of the border. A dark morality tale about the American hunger for intoxication and the necessities of human survival, The Dope is essential for understanding the violence in the drug war and how decades-old myths shape Mexico in the American imagination today.
Download or read book The Bohemians written by Ben Tarnoff and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-02-24 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An extraordinary portrait of a fast-changing America—and the Western writers who gave voice to its emerging identity At once an intimate portrait of an unforgettable group of writers and a history of a cultural revolution in America, The Bohemians reveals how a brief moment on the far western frontier changed our culture forever. Beginning with Mark Twain’s arrival in San Francisco in 1863, this group biography introduces readers to the other young eccentric writers seeking to create a new American voice at the country’s edge—literary golden boy Bret Harte; struggling gay poet Charles Warren Stoddard; and beautiful, haunted Ina Coolbrith, poet and protector of the group. Ben Tarnoff’s elegant, atmospheric history reveals how these four pioneering writers helped spread the Bohemian movement throughout the world, transforming American literature along the way. “Tarnoff’s book sings with the humor and expansiveness of his subjects’ prose, capturing the intoxicating atmosphere of possibility that defined, for a time, America’s frontier.” -- The New Yorker “Rich hauls of historical research, deeply excavated but lightly borne.... Mr. Tarnoff’s ultimate thesis is a strong one, strongly expressed: that together these writers ‘helped pry American literature away from its provincial origins in New England and push it into a broader current’.” -- Wall Street Journal
Download or read book Prince Rescue Me s Ride to Ruin written by Lynne Tapper and published by Troubador Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2014-02-28 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It Is What It Is…Someone once said, ‘All the world’s a stage’, and never was a truer word spoken than in the squiffy Kingdom of It Is What It Is, where happily-ever-after has become nothing more than a fictional tale. Looking for love in all the wrong places, the fairy tale has turned into a nightmare for a charmless prince, named Rescue Me, who seeks ‘happily-ever-after’ within his crummy cracker addiction. As he battles his crummy cravings the law of addled attraction ensures that he encounters other desperados dealing with their own addictions- from the sublime to the ridiculous. Join us for a riotous ride you’re not likely to forget and laugh with us as we observe that in the Kingdom of It Is What It Is, people have definitely lost the plot!
