In 1788, Adam and Elizabeth Peck followed the Holston River from Virginia into east Tennessee and settled in what would become Mossy Creek. Utilizing the waterway, the Pecks' gristmill thrived within a growing community. The outbreak of the Civil War brought the Battle of Mossy Creek on December 29, 1863. During the next century, zinc mining, the establishment of Mossy Creek Missionary Baptist Seminary (now Carson-Newman University), and the town's inclusion as a stop on the new railroad ushered a steady flow of people to this picturesque region of promise. In 1901, Mossy Creek joined the Carsonville and Frame Addition communities to be incorporated as Jefferson City. The Tennessee Valley Authority began work in 1940 on nearby Cherokee Dam, generating both jobs and tourism.
A true crime account of a mass shooting by gangster brothers which resulted in the deaths of six police officers in Depression-era Missouri. “In all the annals of preservation of the peace there is no story that runs more gallantly than this.” —Springfield Leader, January 4, 1932 As dusk fell on a bitterly cold night during the Great Depression, a posse of ten local lawmen approached two brothers holed up in an isolated Missouri farmhouse. Minutes later, six officers were dead, three were wounded, and the outlaws had escaped. After a wild car chase through Oklahoma and across Texas, police finally surrounded Harry and Jennings Young in their Houston hideout. The brutal killings attracted the national press (at first Pretty Boy Floyd was rumored to be involved) and the “carnival of carnage” that became known as the Young Brothers Massacre represented the highest number of law enforcement officers killed on a single day until September 11, 2001. Even in the hardscrabble Ozarks, a region historically known for frontier justice and vigilante activity, these crimes caused a sensation, and the Young brothers briefly joined the ranks of infamy with Bonnie and Clyde and other famous outlaws. Author Bruce Davis, a third-generation Methodist minister from Springfield, Missouri, became fascinated with this forgotten case after noticing a memorial to the six fallen police officers in his local police station. He has devoted this account, his first book, to telling the whole story and honoring the brave lawmen who died in their attempts to exact justice.
On January 2, 1932, near Springfield, Missouri, ten poorly armed law enforcement officers set out to arrest two local farm boys for auto theft. A few minutes later, six of the officers lay dead and three were wounded, setting a record that stands to this day for the greatest number of police officers killed in one incident in the history of the United States. This is the story of how it happened and of the unlikely people whose lives were forever changed. The two killers, Jennings and Harry Young, were from a peaceful, tiny community named Brookline in central Greene County, Missouri. The "massacre" itself took place at the quiet orderly farm home of the J. D. Young family. Paul and Mary Barrett trace the personalities of those involved in the incident, describe the events of the fateful day, and examine the aftermath of the killings, detailing what was called "the greatest man hunt in the history of Texas," which culminated in the brothers' deaths in Houston.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER Veteran sports journalist George Vecsey finally gives this twenty-time All-Star and St. Louis Cardinals icon the biographical treatment he deserves. Stan Musial is the definitive portrait of one of the game’s best-loved but most unappreciated legends—told through the remembrances of those who played beside, worked with, and covered “Stan the Man” over the course of his nearly seventy years in the national spotlight. Away from the diamond, Musial proved a savvy businessman and a model of humility and graciousness toward his many fans in St. Louis and around the world. From Keith Hernandez’s boyhood memories of Musial leaving tickets for him when the Cardinals were in San Francisco to the little-known story of Musial’s friendship with novelist James Michener, Vecsey weaves an intimate oral history around one of the great gentlemen of baseball’s Greatest Generation.
Broad in scope and deep in analysis, this biography of Stan Musial details not only the personality and the accomplishments of the man, but artfully examines his life against the backdrop of the Great Depression, which the already-impoverished Musial family endured. It looks at Stan’s support racial integration in baseball, as well as the tragedy that struck his hometown of Donora, Pennsylvania, and claimed many lives, including his father’s. The slew of never-before-published material and revealing anecdotes gained through numerous exclusive interviews with former classmates, relatives, friends, teammates, and contemporaries allow this book to shed fresh light on the legendary Musial while making the book a must-read for all baseball fans. This updated, paperback edition includes a new, commemorative section written after Musial’s passing.
With some 6,000 entries, A Bibliography of Tennessee History will prove to be an invaluable resource for anyone--students, historians, librarians, genealogists--engaged in researching Tennessee's rich and colorful past. A sequel to Sam B. Smith's invaluable 1973 work, Tennessee History: A Bibliography, this book follows a similar format and includes published books and essays, as well as many unpublished theses and dissertations, that have become available during the intervening years. The volume begins with sections on Reference, Natural History, and Native Americans. Its divisions then follow the major periods of the state's history: Before Statehood, State Development, Civil War, Late Nineteenth Century, Early Twentieth Century, and Late Twentieth Century. Sections on Literature and County Histories round out the book. Included is a helpful subject index that points the reader to particular persons, places, incidents, or topics. Substantial sections in this index highlight women's history and African American history, two areas in which scholarship has proliferated during the past two decades. The history of entertainment in Tennessee is also well represented in this volume, including, for example, hundreds of citations for writings about Elvis Presley and for works that treat Nashville and Memphis as major show business centers. The Literature section, meanwhile, includes citations for fiction and poetry relating to Tennessee history as well as for critical works about Tennessee writers. Throughout, the editors have strived to achieve a balance between comprehensive coverage and the need to be selective. The result is a volume that will benefit researchers for years to come. The Editors: W. Calvin Dickinson is professor of history at Tennessee Technological University. Eloise R. Hitchcock is head reference librarian at the University of the South.
