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 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 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 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 The Two Civil War Battles of Newtonia Fierce and Furious written by Larry Wood and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2010-06-04 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though the First and Second Battles of Newtonia did not match epic Civil War battles like Antietam, where over thirty-five hundred soldiers were killed in a single day, and Gettysburg, where twice that number died in three days of fighting, such smaller engagements were just as important to the men who lived through them. The ones who didn't were just as dead, and for a brief time at least, the combat often raged just as violently. With the approach of the sesquicentennial of the war, some of the lesser-known battles are finally getting their due. Join local resident and historian Larry Wood as he expertly chronicles both Battles of Newtonia, the first of which, in 1862, was the Confederacy's first attempt to reestablish a significant presence in Missouri and the only Civil War battle in which American Indians took opposing sides, fighting in units of regimental strength. The second battle--a fight that was "fierce and furious" while it lasted--stands as the last important engagement of the Civil War in the state.
Download or read book Missouri s Wicked Route 66 written by Lisa Livingston-Martin and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2013-04-16 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tracing Route 66 through Missouri represents one of America's favorite exercises in nostalgia, but a discerning glance among the roadside weeds reveals the kind of sordid history that doesn't appear on postcards. Along with vintage cars and picnic baskets, Route 66 was a conduit humming with contraband and crackling with the gunplay of folks like Bonnie and Clyde, Jesse James and the Young brothers. It was also the preferred byway of lynch mobs, murderous hitchhikers and mad scientists. Stop in at places like the Devil's Elbow and the Steffleback Bordello on this trip through the more treacherous twists of the Mother Road.
Download or read book The Last Ride of the James Younger Gang written by Sean McLachlan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-10-20 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It was the beginning of the end for the James gang. In the past ten years Frank and Jesse James had gone from unknown ex-Confederate guerrillas to the most famous outlaws in the world. A string of daring robberies of banks, trains, and stagecoaches had brought them fame, admiration, hatred, and a surprisingly small amount of wealth. In 1876 they planned their most daring raid yet-to ride hundreds of miles from their home state of Missouri to rob the First National Bank at Northfield, Minnesota. This book will tell the story of one of the most daring bank jobs in American history. With most of the gang being former bushwhackers, they used many guerrilla tactics in the planning and execution of the raid, yet failed because of poor discipline and their own fame, which meant that every town in the Midwest had their guns loaded waiting to fight off bandits.
Download or read book Forgotten Tales of Kansas City written by Paul Kirkman and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2012-10-23 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meet the folks who slip out of history books like they're playing the Kansas City shuffle. In this fascinating collection of stories, Paul Kirkman has dug up all sorts of head-scratchers: how did Jesse James rob a bank with John F. Kennedy, and how could a Beatles concert in the 1960s fail to make money? Watch a cow explode in a kitchen, frogs rain down from the sky and dogs pay for a public library system. Learn how Harry Houdini was trapped in a phone booth, why Clark Gable haunted street corners in a clown outfit and what kept Kansas City in Missouri.
Download or read book Missouri Historical Review written by and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Kansas History written by and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
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 2018-06-28 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Missouri History Book Award, from the State Historical Society of Missouri Winner of the Arkansiana Award, from the Arkansas Library Association 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 Wicked Joplin written by Larry Wood and published by Wicked. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A strange sort of pride tends to embellish infamy, like the notion that Frank and Jesse James robbed every bank in Missouri. But the citizens of Joplin need not exaggerate their community's unsavory past. Founded in the 1870s as a booming lead-mining camp, Joplin was a wide-open town from the start, and its wild reputation persisted into the mid-twentieth century. A neighboring town's newspaper aptly described Joplin as a naughty place."? Join author Larry Wood on a colorful tour of the city's raucous past."
Download or read book Alias Soapy Smith written by Jeff Smith and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 628 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Pioneer Mother Monuments written by Cynthia Culver Prescott and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2019-04-04 with total page 543 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than a century, American communities erected monuments to western pioneers. Although many of these statues receive little attention today, the images they depict—sturdy white men, saintly mothers, and wholesome pioneer families—enshrine prevailing notions of American exceptionalism, race relations, and gender identity. Pioneer Mother Monuments is the first book to delve into the long and complex history of remembering, forgetting, and rediscovering pioneer monuments. In this book, historian Cynthia Culver Prescott combines visual analysis with a close reading of primary-source documents. Examining some two hundred monuments erected in the United States from the late nineteenth century to the present, Prescott begins her survey by focusing on the earliest pioneer statues, which celebrated the strong white men who settled—and conquered—the West. By the 1930s, she explains, when gender roles began shifting, new monuments came forth to honor the Pioneer Mother. The angelic woman in a sunbonnet, armed with a rifle or a Bible as she carried civilization forward—an iconic figure—resonated particularly with Mormon audiences. While interest in these traditional monuments began to wane in the postwar period, according to Prescott, a new wave of pioneer monuments emerged in smaller communities during the late twentieth century. Inspired by rural nostalgia, these statues helped promote heritage tourism. In recent years, Americans have engaged in heated debates about Confederate Civil War monuments and their implicit racism. Should these statues be removed or reinterpreted? Far less attention, however, has been paid to pioneer monuments, which, Prescott argues, also enshrine white cultural superiority—as well as gender stereotypes. Only a few western communities have reexamined these values and erected statues with more inclusive imagery. Blending western history, visual culture, and memory studies, Prescott’s pathbreaking analysis is enhanced by a rich selection of color and black-and-white photographs depicting the statues along with detailed maps that chronologically chart the emergence of pioneer monuments.
Download or read book John Dillinger Slept Here written by Paul Maccabee and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the history of crime in St. Paul, Minnesota, from 1920 to 1936, describing specific incidents, profiling criminals, victims, and law enforcement officials, and looking at places where criminal activity occurred.
Download or read book Jim Bridger written by Jerry Enzler and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2021-04-29 with total page 511 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even among iconic frontiersmen like John C. Frémont, Kit Carson, and Jedediah Smith, Jim Bridger stands out. A mountain man of the American West, straddling the fur trade era and the age of exploration, he lived the life legends are made of. His adventures are fit for remaking into the tall tales Bridger himself liked to tell. Here, in a biography that finally gives this outsize character his due, Jerry Enzler takes this frontiersman’s full measure for the first time—and tells a story that would do Jim Bridger proud. Born in 1804 and orphaned at thirteen, Bridger made his first western foray in 1822, traveling up the Missouri River with Mike Fink and a hundred enterprising young men to trap beaver. At twenty he “discovered” the Great Salt Lake. At twenty-one he was the first to paddle the Bighorn River’s Bad Pass. At twenty-two he explored the wonders of Yellowstone. In the following years, he led trapping brigades into Blackfeet territory; guided expeditions of Smithsonian scientists, topographical engineers, and army leaders; and, though he could neither read nor write, mapped the tribal boundaries for the Great Indian Treaty of 1851. Enzler charts Bridger’s path from the fort he built on the Oregon Trail to the route he blazed for Montana gold miners to avert war with Red Cloud and his Lakota coalition. Along the way he married into the Flathead, Ute, and Shoshone tribes and produced seven children. Tapping sources uncovered in the six decades since the last documented Bridger biography, Enzler’s book fully conveys the drama and details of the larger-than-life history of the “King of the Mountain Men.” This is the definitive story of an extraordinary life.
Download or read book From Precambrian Rift Volcanoes to the Mississippian Shelf Margin written by Kevin R. Evans and published by Geological Society of America. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Despite a long history of geologic investigations in the Ozarks, new studies and analyses continue to elucidate our understanding of the complex interconnection between the basement, extensive carbonate platforms, structural overprinting, mineralization, karstification, and hydrology. This guidebook volume highlights a few of these aspects as well as the connection to culture, history, and economic development of the Ozarks region."--Publisher's description.
