On the morning of April 14, 1926, the Inland Steel payroll delivery was hijacked in Indiana Harbor. Later that afternoon, Will County deputy sheriff and Mokena resident Walter Fisher died in a hail of gunfire just outside Orland Park. That night, the bullet-riddled body of Santo Calabrese turned up on a Broadview road. The exact sequence of events remains uncertain, but a jury was able to trace enough of the day's violent trajectory to send Daniel Hesly on the path to Alcatraz. Matthew Galik leaps into a drama of high-speed pursuit and mistaken identity that shocked the jaded sensibilities of Prohibition-era Chicago and plunged the town of Mokena into mourning.
The true story behind a Jazz Age crime that shook the Chicago region and shaped the fates of three very different men. On the morning of April 14, 1926, the Inland Steel payroll delivery was hijacked in Indiana Harbor. Later that afternoon, Will County deputy sheriff and Mokena resident Walter Fisher died in a hail of gunfire just outside Orland Park. That night, the bullet-riddled body of Santo Calabrese turned up on a Broadview road. The exact sequence of events remains uncertain, but a jury was able to trace enough of the day’s violent trajectory to send Daniel Hesly on the path to Alcatraz. Matthew Galik leaps into a drama of high-speed pursuit and mistaken identity that shocked the jaded sensibilities of Prohibition-era Chicago and plunged the town of Mokena into mourning.
Founded in 1852 by Allen Denny, a War of 1812 veteran and operator on the Underground Railroad, Mokena has for over 150 years been a center of commerce and a transportation hub. Meaning "turtle" in the ancient Algonquin tongue that was fluently spoken in this region for centuries, Mokena rose to prominence with the completion of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad in 1852 and would bustle in the post-Civil War era. Home to such unique industries as the Mokena Mineral Springs and the Mitchel Brewery in the 20th century, the village is today a renowned suburb of Chicago.
From Chicago historian Adam Selzer, expert on all of the Windy City’s quirks and oddities, comes a compelling heavily researched anthology of the stories behind its most fascinating unsolved mysteries. To create this unique volume, Selzer has collected forty unsolved mysteries from the 1800s to modern day. He has poured through all newspaper, magazine, and book references to them, and consulted expert historians. Topics covered include who really started the great Chicago fire, who was the first “automobile murderer,” and even if there was actually a vampire slaying at Rose Hill cemetery. The result is both a colorful read to get lost in, a window to a world of curiosity and wonder, as well as a volume that separates fact from fiction—true crime from urban legend. Complementing the gripping stories Selzer presents are original images of the crime and its suspects as developed by its original investigators. Readers will marvel at how each character and crime were presented, and happily journey with Selzer as he presents all facts and theories presented at the time of the “crime” and uses modern hindsight to assemble the pieces.
In its third edition, this massive reference work lists the final resting places of more than 14,000 people from a wide range of fields, including politics, the military, the arts, crime, sports and popular culture. Many entries are new to this edition. Each listing provides birth and death dates, a brief summary of the subject's claim to fame and their burial site location or as much as is known. Grave location within a cemetery is provided in many cases, as well as places of cremation and sites where ashes were scattered. Source information is provided.
Short-listed for the 2007 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Non-Fiction They were among Canada's most desperate criminals, yet their names have been all but forgotten in the annals of history - until now! In their day these lawless men made headline news. Author Ed Butts has rescued their stories from dusty newspaper pages and polished them up for today's readers in this fascinating volume. The Markham Gang introduced Canada West to organized crime long before anyone had heard of the Mafia. Lew Bevis took on the whole Halifax Police Department in a blazing gun battle. The wild Macdonald cousins went to Michigan, where they ended their violent careers as victims of a savage lynching. Reid and Davis, the notorious Border Bandits of the Roaring Twenties, were the nightmare of every banker from Manitoba to the state of Washington. This rogues' gallery of killers, robbers, and men of mystery shocked the nation, challenged the forces of law and order, and sometimes even got away with it.
On the morning of January 23, 1870, troops of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry attacked a Piegan Indian village on the Marias River in Montana Territory, killing many more than the army’s count of 173, most of them women, children, and old men. The village was afflicted with smallpox. Worse, it was the wrong encampment. Intended as a retaliation against Mountain Chief’s renegade band, the massacre sparked public outrage when news sources revealed that the battalion had attacked Heavy Runner’s innocent village—and that guides had told its inebriated commander, Major Eugene Baker, he was on the wrong trail, but he struck anyway. Remembered as one of the most heinous incidents of the Indian Wars, the Baker Massacre has often been overshadowed by the better-known Battle of the Little Bighorn and has never received full treatment until now. Author Paul R. Wylie plumbs the history of Euro-American involvement with the Piegans, who were members of the Blackfeet Confederacy. His research shows the tribe was trading furs for whiskey with the Hudson’s Bay Company before Meriwether Lewis encountered them in 1806. As American fur traders and trappers moved into the region, the U.S. government soon followed, making treaties it did not honor. When the gold rush started in the 1860s and the U.S. Army arrived, pressure from Montana citizens to control the Piegans and make the territory safe led Generals William Tecumseh Sherman and Philip H. Sheridan to send Baker and the 2nd Cavalry, with tragic consequences. Although these generals sought to dictate press coverage thereafter, news of the cruelty of the killings appeared in the New York Times, which called the massacre “a more shocking affair than the sacking of Black Kettle’s camp on the Washita” two years earlier. While other scholars have written about the Baker Massacre in related contexts, Blood on the Marias gives this infamous event the definitive treatment it deserves. Baker’s inept command lit the spark of violence, but decades of tension between Piegans and whites set the stage for a brutal and too-often-forgotten incident.
A comprehensive encyclopedia of the unexplained, with incredible eyewitness accounts of strange creatures from around the globe. Including: Angles and Demons; The Mothman; Dinosaurs that still roam the earth; Bigfoot, the Abominable Snowman, and other hairy monsters; A real-life land of the giants; The Loch Ness monster, the Silver Lake Sea Serpent, and other lake creatures; Dragons; Giant Flying Snakes; Carnivorous Plants from outer space; Unidentified submarine objects; Aliens, bedroom invaders, and cattle rustlers from the skies; The Grinning Man; Green men, Leprechauns, and other little people;Vampires and Werewolves and much more....
