Download or read book Desperadoes of the Ozarks written by Larry Wood and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2011-09-29 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The award-winning author of The Two Civil War Battles of Newtonia “mine[s] the rich vein of bad men—and succeeds because of solid research.” —Fred Pfitser, editor, Ozarks Mountaineer This collection of events carries readers through an era of bootlegging, highway robbery, and vigilante courts. From the cow town of Baxter Springs, Kansas, to the booming mining camp of Granby, Missouri, the Ozarks were a magnet for lawlessness. Though some stories contain gory details, the author’s intention in narrating these events is not to pay tribute to the likes of the Tri-State Terror, Bloody Britton, or the Missouri Kid. Instead Larry Wood aspires to come to terms with the region’s violent past, learn from it, and move forward. Among tales of desperate characters and brutal murders is a strengthening of law and order. As the area’s criminals wreak havoc, the Ozarks become the staging area for the last public hanging in the United States and the FBI’s first killing of a criminal. Each chapter is filled with the grisly excitement of flying bullets and mob lynchings as vengeance is dealt by the betrayed, but the book also captures the changes made to protect law-abiding citizens. “Full of damnable acts, but they make for some darn interesting reading.” —HistoryNet

Download or read book The Big Book of Missouri Ghost Stories written by Troy Taylor and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-07-17 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hauntings lurk and spirits linger in the Show Me State Reader, beware! Turn these pages and enter the world of the paranormal, where ghosts and ghouls alike creep just out of sight. Author Troy Taylor shines a light in the dark corners of Missouri and scares those spirits out of hiding in this thrilling collection. From a headless ghost who stalks the aptly named “Murder Rocks”, to a large hairy monster that roams the banks of the Missouri River, there’s no shortage of bone-chilling tales to keep you up at night. It’s even rumored that the devil himself came to St. Louis in 1949, but nobody knows for sure if he ever left. Around the campfire or tucked away on a dark and stormy night, this big book of ghost stories is a hauntingly good read.

Download or read book Ozarks Gunfights and Other Notorious Incidents written by Larry Wood and published by Pelican Publishing. This book was released on 2010-02-08 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A vivid portrayal of the time when western Missouri was part of the Wild West. Larry Wood has enhanced his careful historical research with graphic details and meaningful commentary. His account of these little-known bad men and women gives a true picture of the wild and brutal side of the era." -Ellen Gray Massey, author, The Bittersweet Ozarks at a Glance The battle between the Blue and Gray had ended, but the Ozarks were still witnessing a war. Divided loyalties gave rise to rampant lawlessness and debauchery, plaguing this region with robberies, shootouts, and showdowns. In twenty-five compelling chapters, Larry Wood meticulously compiles his research from the shocking incidents that took place in the Ozarks during the late 1860s through the 1950s. The author includes haunting portraits of the corrupt criminals, snapshots of Western towns where the events took place, and excerpts from previously published magazine articles. Wood recalls the notorious Springfield, Missouri, showdown between Davis Tutt and Wild Bill Hickok, which ushered in the era of the Wild West. He remembers the biggest railroad-settler dispute in Kansas history and the Roscoe shootout that resulted in the murder of a Younger brother. The author also mentions the not-as-well-known, but equally as scandalous crimes, such as the bank holdup by female bandit Cora Hubbard and the bloody Benders' massacre. Bonnie and Clyde, Bill Cook, Henry Starr, and other infamous outlaws make an appearance in this revealing volume. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Larry Wood is an award-winning author who has published several books on the Civil War and the Ozarks. He is an instructor for the Long Ridge Writers Group of West Redding, Connecticut, as well as a member of the Joplin Writers' Guild, the Missouri Writers' Guild, the Ozarks Writers League, and the Joplin Genealogy Society. Wood earned his B.A. and M.A. in English from Missouri State University and served two years in the U.S. Army. He resides in Joplin, Missouri.

Download or read book Missouri Outlaws written by Paul Kirkman and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2018-03-05 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether seen as a common criminal or Robin Hood with a six-shooter, the Missouri outlaw left an indelible mark on American culture. In the nineteenth century, Missouri was known as the "Outlaw State" and offered a list of lawbreakers like Jesse James, Bloody Bill Anderson, Belle Starr and Cole Younger. These notorious criminals became folk legends in countless books, movies and television shows. Author Paul Kirkman traces the succession of Missouri's first few generations and how each contributed to the making of some of the most notorious outlaws and lawmen in American history.

Download or read book Ghost of the Ozarks written by Brooks Blevins and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2012-03-15 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1929, in a remote county of the Arkansas Ozarks, the gruesome murder of harmonica-playing drifter Connie Franklin and the brutal rape of his teenaged fiancée captured the attention of a nation on the cusp of the Great Depression. National press from coast to coast ran stories of the sensational exploits of night-riding moonshiners, powerful "Barons of the Hills," and a world of feudal oppression in the isolation of the rugged Ozarks. The ensuing arrest of five local men for both crimes and the confusion and superstition surrounding the trial and conviction gave Stone County a dubious and short-lived notoriety. Closely examining how the story and its regional setting were interpreted by the media, Brooks Blevins recounts the gripping events of the murder investigation and trial, where a man claiming to be the murder victim--the "Ghost" of the Ozarks--appeared to testify. Local conditions in Stone County, which had no electricity and only one long-distance telephone line, frustrated the dozen or more reporters who found their way to the rural Ozarks, and the developments following the arrests often prompted reporters' caricatures of the region: accusations of imposture and insanity, revelations of hidden pasts and assumed names, and threats of widespread violence. Locating the past squarely within the major currents of American history, Ghost of the Ozarks: Murder and Memory in the Upland South paints a convincing backdrop to a story that, more than 80 years later, remains riddled with mystery.

Download or read book Faces Like Devils written by Matthew J. Hernando and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2015-04-07 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the twenty-first century, the word vigilante usually conjures up images of cinematic heroes like Batman, Zorro, the Lone Ranger, or Clint Eastwood in just about any film he’s ever been in. But in the nineteenth century, vigilantes roamed the country long before they ever made their way onto the silver screen. In Faces Like Devils, Matthew J. Hernando closely examines one of the most famous of these vigilante groups—the Bald Knobbers. Hernando sifts through the folklore and myth surrounding the Bald Knobbers to produce an authentic history of the rise and fall of Missouri’s most famous vigilantes. He details the differences between the modernizing Bald Knobbers of Taney County and the anti-progressive Bald Knobbers of Christian County, while also stressing the importance of Civil War-era violence with respect to the foundation of these vigilante groups. Despite being one of America’s largest and most famous vigilante groups during the nineteenth century, the Bald Knobbers have not previously been examined in depth. Hernando’s exhaustive research, which includes a plethora of state and federal court records, newspaper articles, and firsthand accounts, remedies that lack. This account of the Bald Knobbers is vital to anyone not wanting to miss out on a major part of Missouri’s history.

Download or read book Buried Treasures of the Ozarks written by W. C. Jameson and published by august house. This book was released on 1990 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Relates local legends from Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma about abandoned mines, hidden stashes of plunder, and lost fortunes

Download or read book Desperadoes written by Ron Hansen and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2013-05-28 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIVRon Hansen’s engrossing novel of the violent life and criminal exploits of the Dalton gang, as remembered by its last surviving member/divDIV From his home in Los Angeles, an aging Emmett Dalton reminisces about his glory days in America’s Wild West. Now sixty-five years old, and a Hollywood fixture, he makes a comfortable living selling stories of his earlier exploits to movie studios. But years before, he rode with his two brothers—charming, handsome, charismatic Bob, and the cold-eyed killer Grat, so wild and unpredictable that even his own family was afraid of him—committing brazen acts of robbery, bootlegging, and murder. As the last surviving member of the infamous Dalton gang, it’s Emmett’s responsibility to keep their legend alive. He has resolved to tell the full truth about the fabled career of the three criminal brothers and Eugenia Moore, the former schoolmarm who was an indispensable partner in their crimes, even if that truth turns out to be a darker, more painful, and less heroic picture than Hollywood’s moguls would make it out to be./divDIV /divDIVThe critically acclaimed debut novel by bestselling author Ron Hansen, Desperadoes is a masterwork of historical fiction that brings a fabled era of American outlaws and violence to breathtaking life./div

Download or read book Insiders Guide to Branson and the Ozark Mountains written by Fred Pfister and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2009-08-25 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by a local author, this guide is filled to the brim with insider information on everything from the top fishing sites to seasonal festivals and the best places to eat, sleep, and play.

Download or read book A History of the Ozarks Volume 2 written by Brooks Blevins and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2019-09-30 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ozarks of the mid-1800s was a land of divisions. The uplands and its people inhabited a geographic and cultural borderland straddling Midwest and west, North and South, frontier and civilization, and secessionist and Unionist. As civil war raged across the region, neighbor turned against neighbor, unleashing a generation of animus and violence that lasted long after 1865. The second volume of Brooks Blevins's history begins with the region's distinctive relationship to slavery. Largely unsuitable for plantation farming, the Ozarks used enslaved persons on a smaller scale or, in some places, not at all. Blevins moves on to the devastating Civil War years where the dehumanizing, personal nature of Ozark conflict was made uglier by the predations of marching armies and criminal gangs. Blending personal stories with a wide narrative scope, he examines how civilians and soldiers alike experienced the war, from brutal partisan warfare to ill-advised refugee policies to women's struggles to safeguard farms and stay alive in an atmosphere of constant danger. The war stunted the region's growth, delaying the development of Ozarks society and the processes of physical, economic, and social reconstruction. More and more, striving uplanders dedicated to modernization fought an image of the Ozarks as a land of mountaineers and hillbillies hostile to the idea of progress. Yet the dawn of the twentieth century saw the uplands emerge as an increasingly uniform culture forged, for better and worse, in the tumult of a conflicted era.

Download or read book Paths of Resistance written by David R. Thelen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1986-01-23 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The years between 1865 and 1920 were eventful ones for the sake of Missouri. It was not only the time of Jesse James, Scott Joplin, and Mark Twain, of progressive governors Joseph Folk and Herbert Hadley, of the first general strike in St. Louis and some especially vicious vigilante activity, it was also the time when Missouri, like many other states, was being transformed by the tides of industrialism and economic growth. This social history examines the social and economic forces that resisted economic development in Missouri. Here, Thelen explores the various ways that people attempted to maintain their values and dignity in the face of overwhelming new economic, cultural, and political pressures, and analyzes the grassroots patterns that emerged in response to rapid social change. Thelen, who is one of the leading historians of the Progressive period in America, contends that people found their strength not in class solidarity or other Marxist responses but in what he calls "the resistance of folk memories", which allowed them to call upon the best elements of their collective past to help them cope with the new situation.

Download or read book Paths of Resistance written by David Paul Thelen and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1986 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book looks at economic development and social change in one specific state, Missouri, between the Civil War and the First World War.

Download or read book A History of the Ozarks Volume 3 written by Brooks Blevins and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2021-12-14 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the world wars, America embraced an image of the Ozarks as a remote land of hills and hollers. The popular imagination stereotyped Ozarkers as ridge runners, hillbillies, and pioneers—a cast of colorful throwbacks hostile to change. But the real Ozarks reflected a more complex reality. Brooks Blevins tells the cultural history of the Ozarks as a regional variation of an American story. As he shows, the experiences of the Ozarkers have not diverged from the currents of mainstream life as sharply or consistently as the mythmakers would have it. If much of the region seemed to trail behind by a generation, the time lag was rooted more in poverty and geographic barriers than a conscious rejection of the modern world and its progressive spirit. In fact, the minority who clung to the old days seemed exotic largely because their anachronistic ways clashed against the backdrop of the evolving region around them. Blevins explores how these people’s disproportionate influence affected the creation of the idea of the Ozarks, and reveals the truer idea that exists at the intersection of myth and reality. The conclusion to the acclaimed trilogy, The History of the Ozarks, Volume 3: The Ozarkers offers an authoritative appraisal of the modern Ozarks and its people.

Download or read book A History of the Ozarks Volume 1 written by Brooks Blevins and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2018-06-30 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Geologic forces raised the Ozarks. Myth enshrouds these hills. Human beings shaped them and were shaped by them. The Ozarks reflect the epic tableau of the American people—the native Osage and would-be colonial conquerors, the determined settlers and on-the-make speculators, the endless labors of hardscrabble farmers and capitalism of visionary entrepreneurs. The Old Ozarks is the first volume of a monumental three-part history of the region and its inhabitants. Brooks Blevins begins in deep prehistory, charting how these highlands of granite, dolomite, and limestone came to exist. From there he turns to the political and economic motivations behind the eagerness of many peoples to possess the Ozarks. Blevins places these early proto-Ozarkers within the context of larger American history and the economic, social, and political forces that drove it forward. But he also tells the varied and colorful human stories that fill the region's storied past—and contribute to the powerful myths and misunderstandings that even today distort our views of the Ozarks' places and people. A sweeping history in the grand tradition, A History of the Ozarks, Volume 1: The Old Ozarks is essential reading for anyone who cares about the highland heart of America.

Download or read book A Daughter of the Ozarks written by Alanson Mason Haswell and published by . This book was released on 1921 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks written by Frank Gee Patchin and published by 1st World Publishing. This book was released on 2005-10 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - "Boys! B-o-y-s!" There was no response to the imperative summons. Professor Zepplin sat up in his cot, listening intently. Something had awakened him suddenly, but just what he was unable to decide. "Be quiet over there, young men," he admonished, adding in a lower tone, "I'm sure I heard some one moving about."

Download or read book Blood in the Ozarks Expanded Second Edition written by Clint Lacy and published by Foothills Media LLC. This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deep in the Ozarks of Southeast Missouri a battle still raises about a massacre committed on Christmas Day, 1863 in Ripley County, Missouri by members of the 3'rd Missouri State Militia Cavalry led by Major James Wilson. While naysayers state that the "massacre" was nothing more than a rescue mission to free Union troops captured days before by Colonel Timothy Reeves and his 15th Missouri Cavalry, CSA, local historical documents, newspaper articles and military records prove bias on their part, painting a picture of a government cover up and the needless slaughter of men, women and children along with Confederate soldiers on the holiest day of the year. In this Expanded Second Edition the reader will find more photos, newspaper archives and other sources of information that paints a clearer picture of this tragedy.