Download or read book Night Riders of Reelfoot Lake written by Paul Vanderwood and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2003-06-23 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A notable and tragic case of the struggle between legal and social justice Reelfoot Lake has been a hunting and fishing paradise from the time of its creation in 1812, when the New Madrid earthquake caused the Mississippi River to flow backward into low-lying lands. Situated in the northwestern corner of the state of Tennessee, it attracted westward-moving pioneers, enticing some to settle permanently on its shores. Threatened in 1908 with the loss of their homes and livelihoods to aggressive, outsider capitalists, rural folk whose families had lived for generations on the bountiful lake donned hoods and gowns and engaged in “night riding,” spreading mayhem and death throughout the region as they sought vigilante justice. They had come to regard the lake as their own, by “squatters’ rights,” but now a group of entrepreneurs from St. Louis had bought the titles to the land beneath the shallow lake and were laying legal claim to Reelfoot in its entirety. People were hanged, beaten, and threatened and property destroyed before the state militia finally quelled the uprising. A compromise that made the lake public property did not entirely heal the wounds which continue to this day. Paul Vanderwood reconstructs these harrowing events from newspapers and other accounts of the time. He also obtained personal interviews with participants and family members who earlier had remained mum, still fearing prosecution. The Journal of American History declares his book “the complete and authentic treatment” of the horrific dispute and its troubled aftermath.
Download or read book Reelfoot Lake written by Shirley Applewhite Moore and published by . This book was released on 2008-02-01 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book tells the story of Sammy D, who takes his nine-year- old grandson, Ricky, on a camping/fishing trip on Reelfoot Lake, where his ancestors settled in the late 1800's. He tells Ricky the story about how the settlers had to fight the West Tennessee Land Company in order to keep control of their land and fishing rights. After all legal means were exausted, they organized a vigilante group they called The Night Riders. The Night Rider's attempt at showing their power goes a few steps too far when they kill the lawyer who they believe betrayed them, and it condemns a number of them to prison and even to a death sentence. A candid look into this author's father, Sammy D and grandfather, Sam Applewhite accused of being a Night Rider, arrested for the murder of Captain Quenton Rankin, tried, convicted and sentenced to hang. This book will astound readers as to the authenticity of the events and keep them glued to the pages. Shown with actual pictures taken from the headlines, and archives of many well known national newspapers and articles. A tale of guilt, betrayal and murder. Reelfoot Lake will leave readers entertained as they embark on a journey alongside the historic Tennessee Night Riders on their mission to protect and preserve this beautiful paradise. This story is shocking and captivating and will compell readers to finish the book without wanting to put it down. It truly is a page turner.
Download or read book Reelfoot Lake written by Jim W. Johnson and published by Univ. of Tennessee Press. This book was released on 2023-07-14 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each year nearly a quarter million visitors come to Reelfoot Lake, also known as “The Earthquake Lake,” to enjoy its natural splendor. With its twenty-five thousand acres of shimmering water, haunting cypress swamps, and two-hundred-year-old lily marshes, the lake is rich in natural beauty and natural history. Yet, despite being one of the most unique lakes in the country—this natural body of water formed during the New Madrid earthquakes in the early nineteenth century—it is relatively understudied. Biologist and environmentalist Jim W. Johnson grew up on the lake and experienced its natural and cultural history firsthand. As a wildlife biologist, he spent much of his career managing Reelfoot and its surrounding area. Reelfoot Lake: Oasis on the Mississippi is part personal remembrance, part guidebook, and part cautionary tale on river and wetland ecology, conservation, and land management, written by an author intimately knowledgeable about the lake and life on it. By exploring Reelfoot’s ancient and recent history, Johnson illuminates the lives of generations of people who lived and thrived in the floodplain. For those looking to navigate the waters of the lake, this book will make travel through the bayous and canals much easier and more pleasurable. And its discussions about the lake’s ecology will bolster voices calling for the protection and preservation of Reelfoot and other wetlands like it. Accompanied by stunning photography, Johnson’s book is sure to become a useful outdoor guide to Reelfoot Lake and will increase readers’ appreciation for wetlands.
Download or read book The Lost History of the New Madrid Earthquakes written by Conevery Bolton Valencius and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-09-25 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From December 1811 to February 1812, massive earthquakes shook the middle Mississippi Valley, collapsing homes, snapping large trees midtrunk, and briefly but dramatically reversing the flow of the continent’s mightiest river. For decades, people puzzled over the causes of the quakes, but by the time the nation began to recover from the Civil War, the New Madrid earthquakes had been essentially forgotten. In The Lost History of the New Madrid Earthquakes, Conevery Bolton Valencius remembers this major environmental disaster, demonstrating how events that have been long forgotten, even denied and ridiculed as tall tales, were in fact enormously important at the time of their occurrence, and continue to affect us today. Valencius weaves together scientific and historical evidence to demonstrate the vast role the New Madrid earthquakes played in the United States in the early nineteenth century, shaping the settlement patterns of early western Cherokees and other Indians, heightening the credibility of Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa for their Indian League in the War of 1812, giving force to frontier religious revival, and spreading scientific inquiry. Moving into the present, Valencius explores the intertwined reasons—environmental, scientific, social, and economic—why something as consequential as major earthquakes can be lost from public knowledge, offering a cautionary tale in a world struggling to respond to global climate change amid widespread willful denial. Engagingly written and ambitiously researched—both in the scientific literature and the writings of the time—The Lost History of the New Madrid Earthquakes will be an important resource in environmental history, geology, and seismology, as well as history of science and medicine and early American and Native American history.
Download or read book The New Madrid Earthquake written by Myron L. Fuller and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Rivers Under Siege written by Jim W. Johnson and published by Univ. of Tennessee Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rivers under Siege is a wrenching firsthand account of how human interventions, often well intentioned, have wreaked havoc on West Tennessee's fragile wetlands. For more than a century, farmers and developers tried to tame the rivers as they became clogged with sand and debris, thereby increasing flooding. Building levees and changing the course of the rivers from meandering streams to straight-line channels, developers only made matters worse. Yet the response to failure was always to try to subdue nature, to dig even bigger channels and construct even more levees-an effort that reached its sorry culmination in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' massive West Tennessee Tributaries Project during the 1960s. As a result, the rivers' natural hydrology descended into chaos, devastating the plant and animal ecology of the region's wetlands. Crops and trees died from summer flooding, as much of the land turned into useless, stagnant swamps. The author was one of a small group of state waterfowl managers who saw it all happen, most sadly within the Obion-Forked Deer river system and at Reelfoot Lake. After much trial and error, Johnson and his colleagues in the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency began by the 1980s to abandon their old methods, resorting to management procedures more in line with the natural contours of the floodplains and the natural behavior of rivers. Preaching their new stewardship philosophy to anyone who might listen-their supervisors, duck hunters, conservationists, politicians, federal agencies-they were often ignored. The campaign dragged on for twenty years before an innovative and rational plan came from the Governor's Office and gained wide support. But then, too, that plan fell prey to politics, legal wrangling, self-interest, hardheadedness, and tradition. Yet, despite such heartbreaking setbacks, the author points to hopeful signs that West Tennessee's historic wetlands might yet be recovered for the benefit of all who use them and recognize their vital importance. Jim W. Johnson, now retired, was for many years a lands management biologist with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. He was responsible for the overall supervision and coordination of thirteen wildlife management areas and refuges, primarily for waterfowl, in northwest Tennessee.
Download or read book Reelfoot Lake written by Jim W. Johnson and published by Univ. of Tennessee Press. This book was released on 2023 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book explores the cultural and environmental history of Tennessee's only natural lake, Reelfoot Lake. Jim W. Johnson, a longtime west Tennessean and environmentalist, guides readers through the ancient and recent history of the lake, provides a section for visitors, campers, and tourists interested in visiting Reelfoot Lake, and discusses the past, present, and future conservation issues facing this important body of water"--
Download or read book Fishhead written by Irvin S. Cobb and published by . This book was released on 2016-08-01 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During his lifetime Irvin S. Cobb was one of the most celebrated writers in American literature, though nowadays he is almost forgotten, apart perhaps from his Lovecraft connection. Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb was born in Paducah, Kentucky on the 23rd June, 1876. His father, unable to cope with the death of his own father, succumbed to alcoholism when Cobb was only sixteen. As a result, Cobb's education came to an end and he started work, first on the Paducah Daily News, then the Louisville Evening Post. By 1904 Cobb's career in journalism was doing so well that he moved to New York, where he would go on to spend the rest of his life, starting work at the Evening Sun, though it wasn't long before an assignment to cover the Russian-Japanese peace conference in Portsmouth, New Hampshire so impressed Joseph Pulitzer that he offered Cobb a job at the New York World, where he became the highest-paid staff reporter in the United States. In 1911 Cobb moved to the Saturday Evening Post. Three years later he was asked to cover the Great War. Amongst the many stories he wrote while there were the exploits of the Harlem Hellfighters, a unit of black American soldiers who had gone on to earn distinction for their courage and discipline, which Cobb celebrated in his book The Glory of the Coming. Besides his prolific work as a journalist, Cobb's fame largely came from his humorous stories, which were published in the leading magazines of his day, and collected in numerous books during his lifetime. But, though he was best known as a humourist, he did have a darker side, exemplified by the tales collected in this volume. Two of the most famous succeeded in catching the attention of H. P. Lovecraft. It is claimed that Fishhead influenced Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth. And there is certainly no doubt that Lovecraft was favourably impressed with this tale. In his groundbreaking essay, Supernatural Horror in Literature, Lovecraft wrote: "Fishhead, an early achievement, is banefully effective in its portrayal of unnatural affinities between a hybrid idiot and the strange fish of an isolated lake..." The Unbroken Chain gave Lovecraft the key idea behind The Rats in the Walls, though in all other respects the two tales are totally different. Besides writing and journalism, Cobb's career extended to Hollywood, where legendary director, John Ford, made two films based on his books: Judge Priest (1934) and The Sun Shines Bright (1953). Other films included Peck's Bad Boy (1921), starring Jackie Coogan, and The Woman Accused (1933), with a young Cary Grant. Cobb also did a stint at acting himself, appearing in ten movies altogether, including Pepper, Everybody's Old Man (1936), Steamboat Round the Bend (1935) and Hawaii Calls (1938). It's a sign of the prominence he had achieved that in 1935 he was invited to host the 7th Academy Awards. Other than the tales that inspired Lovecraft, Cobb also wrote some brilliantly dark stories that culminate in a kind of sadistic irony. They are some of the finest conte cruel ever written. Amongst the best of these is the final story in this collection: Faith, Hope, and Charity, whose protagonists, as is often the case in Cobb's stories, struggle against fates that are not only pre-ordained but are horrendously appropriate! It must be added his hapless victims are far from blameless. What fates await them under Cobb's pen have most definitely been brought upon them by themselves! Through most of the tales there is a wry sense of humour, so wry, in fact, that it never detracts from the impact at the end; indeed, it often adds to and embellishes it! I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I did and share with me the conviction that it is high time they were revived.
Download or read book Roadside Geology of Tennessee written by Marcy B. Davis and published by Roadside Geology. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tennessee, extending 500 diagonal miles between Bristol and Memphis, cuts across numerous rock types, from the deformed gneiss of the Blue Ridge along the North Carolina border to the young sediments exposed in the Chickasaw Bluffs that rise 100 feet above the Mississippi River floodplain. The state�s more than 1 billion years of geologic history includes continental collisions that built enormous mountains and rifting forces that almost split the ancient continent apart. The geologic processes are still at work in Tennessee, with sinkholes claiming land in areas of limestone, rivers eroding sediment and shifting channels, and some of North America�s largest earthquakes occurring every 500 years on the ancient rift faults near Reelfoot Lake. Learn about unusual meteor impact sites on the Highland Rim of Middle Tennessee, the world-famous fossils in the Coon Creek Formation, and the source of saltpeter used for gunpowder in the Civil War. An extensive section on Great Smoky Mountains National Park includes guides to nine roads, some extending in to North Carolina. With Roadside Geology of Tennessee as your guide, explore the geologic significance of many of the stat�s natural and historic sties such as Cumberland Gap National Historic Park, Harpeth River State Park, Dunbar Cave State Natural Area, and Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park.
Download or read book The Hallo Wiener written by Dav Pilkey and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2016-08-30 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Dav Pilkey, creator of the New York Times bestselling Dog Man and Captain Underpants series, comes Oscar, a little dog with a big bullying problem. Oscar is a little dog with a big problem -- he gets more tricks than treats because other dogs tease him all the time. But one brave act on Halloween makes Oscar a Grade-A hero, proving that a little wiener can be a real winner!
Download or read book The New Madrid Earthquakes written by James L. Penick and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 1981 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Previously published as: The New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-1812.
Download or read book The Legend of Zoey written by Candie Moonshower and published by Yearling. This book was released on 2007-12-11 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zoey's family has a strange feeling about the two-tailed comet in the sky. But that doesn’t mean Zoey will let them chaperone her class field trip to Reelfoot Lake, Tennessee—especially since Grandma Cope grew up near there. What if Grandma tells everyone about being a Native American? Zoey has no interest in her family’s past. All she wants is for her parents to get back together, and for herself to fit in at school. She doesn’t know what’s hit her when, during the bus ride to Reelfoot, she’s propelled back in time to 1811, when the lake was formed! Now Zoey’s cell phone doesn’t work, there’s no fast food in sight, and massive earthquakes keep rattling the land. Prim, proper Prudence Charity and her way-too-pregnant mother are the first people Zoey sees, but they don’t believe her story—until they meet up with Chickasaw Chief Kalopin and his beautiful Choctaw bride. Kalopin is convinced that the Great Spirit has cursed him for stealing Laughing Eyes from Chief Copiah, and that soon, the river will swallow up his village and everyone in it. Zoey knows they’re headed for disaster, but can she find the courage to save them?
Download or read book Prehistory of the Central Mississippi Valley written by Charles H. McNutt and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 1996-05-30 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experts throughout the Central Mississippi Valley present current views of the regional cultural sequences supported by data concerning recent surveys and excavations.
Download or read book Tennessee written by Tracy Barrett and published by Marshall Cavendish. This book was released on 2007 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surveys the geography, history, people, and customs of the state of Tennessee.
Download or read book The Rift written by Walter Jon Williams and published by Walter Jon Williams. This book was released on 2015-05-02 with total page 1048 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Rift would be a very good beach book, if you could put it down long enough to get into the water." —— The San Diego Union Tribune FRACTURE LINES PERMEATE THE CENTRAL UNITED STATES. Some comprise the New Madrid fault, the most dangerous earthquake zone in the world. Other fracture lines are social—— economic, religious, racial, and ethnic. What happens when they all crack at once? Caught in the disaster as cities burn and bridges tumble, young Jason Adams finds himself adrift on the Mississippi with African-American engineer Nick Ruford. A modern-day Huck and Jim, they spin helplessly down the river and into the widening faults in American society, encountering violence and hope, compassion and despair, and the primal wilderness that threatens to engulf not only them, but all they love... " A breakout book that you'll swear the author lived" —— SF Age "I don't like disaster novels. I would not have even glanced at The Rift if it weren't backed by Walter Jon Williams' reputation for excellence. And I definitely would not have kept reading if Williams hadn't demonstrated on every page that he deserves his reputation. The result? I was so engrossed in—— and engaged by ——The Rift that I forgot that I don't like disaster novels. This book is an impressive achievement.” —— Stephen R. Donaldson, New York Times bestselling author of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant "The Rift is bloody wonderful! Williams brings an historic disaster back for an encore and metaphorically flattens it again. This is the stuff for which sleep is lost--and awards are made." —— Dean Ing "The Rift shakes up the world like it's never been shaken before." —— Fred Saberhagen "[For fans of the disaster novel] Williams delivers the requisite thrills and setpieces—— but he also, to paraphrase Conrad, offers a bit of that truth for which they forgot to ask." —— Locus
Download or read book Lake Co TN written by and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 1993-02 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book When the Mississippi Ran Backwards written by Jay Feldman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-11-01 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Jay Feldmen comes an enlightening work about how the most powerful earthquakes in the history of America united the Indians in one last desperate rebellion, reversed the Mississippi River, revealed a seamy murder in the Jefferson family, and altered the course of the War of 1812. On December 15, 1811, two of Thomas Jefferson's nephews murdered a slave in cold blood and put his body parts into a roaring fire. The evidence would have been destroyed but for a rare act of God—or, as some believed, of the Indian chief Tecumseh. That same day, the Mississippi River's first steamboat, piloted by Nicholas Roosevelt, powered itself toward New Orleans on its maiden voyage. The sky grew hazy and red, and jolts of electricity flashed in the air. A prophecy by Tecumseh was about to be fulfilled. He had warned reluctant warrior-tribes that he would stamp his feet and bring down their houses. Sure enough, between December 16, 1811, and late April 1812, a catastrophic series of earthquakes shook the Mississippi River Valley. Of the more than 2,000 tremors that rumbled across the land during this time, three would have measured nearly or greater than 8.0 on the not-yet-devised Richter Scale. Centered in what is now the bootheel region of Missouri, the New Madrid earthquakes were felt as far away as Canada; New York; New Orleans; Washington, DC; and the western part of the Missouri River. A million and a half square miles were affected as the earth's surface remained in a state of constant motion for nearly four months. Towns were destroyed, an eighteen-mile-long by five-mile-wide lake was created, and even the Mississippi River temporarily ran backwards. The quakes uncovered Jefferson's nephews' cruelty and changed the course of the War of 1812 as well as the future of the new republic. In When the Mississippi Ran Backwards, Jay Feldman expertly weaves together the story of the slave murder, the steamboat, Tecumseh, and the war, and brings a forgotten period back to vivid life. Tecumseh's widely believed prophecy, seemingly fulfilled, hastened an unprecedented alliance among southern and northern tribes, who joined the British in a disastrous fight against the U.S. government. By the end of the war, the continental United States was secure against Britain, France, and Spain; the Indians had lost many lives and much land; and Jefferson's nephews were exposed as murderers. The steamboat, which survived the earthquake, was sunk. When the Mississippi Ran Backwards sheds light on this now-obscure yet pivotal period between the Revolutionary and Civil wars, uncovering the era's dramatic geophysical, political, and military upheavals. Feldman paints a vivid picture of how these powerful earthquakes made an impact on every aspect of frontier life—and why similar catastrophic quakes are guaranteed to recur. When the Mississippi Ran Backwards is popular history at its best.
