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The Tragedy at the Loomis Street Crossing

Author: Chuck Spinner

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Published: 2012-05-02

Total Pages: 138

ISBN-13: 1468555936

The Tragedy at the Loomis Street Crossing After five years of intense research, Author Chuck Spinner has written the definitive story of the Naperville Train Wreck of April 25, 1946. He has uncovered the histories of the 45 victims of the tragedy, interviewed two surviving eye witnesses of the event, and talked with survivors and helpers at the scene. His family lived just a block from the crossing where the accident occurred. Spinner was born at St. Charles Hospital in Aurora, Illinois on October 22, 1946. Thomas Chaney, severely injured in the train wreck, was released from this same hospital on December 18th, 1946. Perhaps, during his recovery, Thomas may have viewed John and Louise Spinner's infant son in the nursery. If so, Chaney would have never imagined that he was viewing the person, who 66 years later would write the story that he had just lived! It came fast. I watched it horrified. The train came on bigger and bigger. I saw a man climbing down from the engine cab, and start down the ladder. That's all I saw. I turned and ran yelling warnings toward the front of my coach. The next second it hit. - Raymond Jake Jaeger When the crash came I was thrown to the top of the car, turned a somersault and came down. A pile of people fell on me. I kicked out a window and climbed out. I think a woman behind me was killed. - Sol Greenbaum I didn't think I'd make it through the war. ...I went through all that in the Pacific only to come home and have this happen. We were in the rear car and our seats faced forward. I got up to put my coat in the (overhead) rack and looked back to see the other train coming. - Henry Faber It was worse than anything I ever saw in war! - George Whitney That was some wreck. I wonder how many people who live in Naperville now even know the wreck happened. - Rosie Hodel Image Caption: Chuck Spinner and his wife Patrice are pictured with their son Scott, Scotts wife, Ellen and their two grandchildren Caleb (left) and Joshua.

Chicago River Bridges

Author: Patrick T. McBriarty

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2013-09-23

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 0252097254

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Chicago River Bridges presents the untold history and development of Chicago's iconic bridges, from the first wood footbridge built by a tavern owner in 1832 to the fantastic marvels of steel, concrete, and machinery of today. It is the story of Chicago as seen through its bridges, for it has been the bridges that proved critical in connecting and reconnecting the people, industry, and neighborhoods of a city that is constantly remaking itself. In this book, author Patrick T. McBriarty shows how generations of Chicagoans built (and rebuilt) the thriving city trisected by the Chicago River and linked by its many crossings. The first comprehensive guidebook of these remarkable features of Chicago's urban landscape, Chicago River Bridges chronicles more than 175 bridges spanning 55 locations along the Main Channel, South Branch, and North Branch of the Chicago River. With new full-color photography of the existing bridges by Kevin Keeley and Laura Banick and more than one hundred black and white images of bridges past, the book unearths the rich history of Chicago's downtown bridges from the Michigan Avenue Bridge to the often forgotten bridges that once connected thoroughfares such as Rush, Erie, Taylor, and Polk Streets. Throughout, McBriarty delivers new research into the bridges' architectural designs, engineering innovations, and their impact on Chicagoans' daily lives. Describing the structure and mechanics of various kinds of moveable bridges (including vertical-lift, Scherer rolling lift, and Strauss heel trunnion mechanisms) in a manner that is accessible and still satisfying to the bridge aficionado, he explains how the dominance of the "Chicago-style" bascule drawbridge influenced the style and mechanics of bridges worldwide. Interspersed throughout are the human dramas that played out on and around the bridges, such as the floods of 1849 and 1992, the cattle crossing collapse of the Rush Street Bridge, or Vincent "The Schemer" Drucci's Michigan Avenue Bridge jump. A confluence of Chicago history, urban design, and engineering lore, Chicago River Bridges illustrates Chicago's significant contribution to drawbridge innovation and the city's emergence as the drawbridge capital of the world. It is perfect for any reader interested in learning more about the history and function of Chicago's many and varied bridges. The introduction won The Henry N. Barkhausen Award for original research in the field of Great Lakes maritime history sponsored by the Association for Great Lakes Maritime History.

The Lost Continent

Author: Bill Bryson

Publisher: VNR AG

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 9780060161583

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"I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to." And, as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he left. Des Moines couldn't hold him, but it did lure him back. After ten years in England he returned to the land of his youth, and drove almost 14,000 miles in search of a mythical small town called Amalgam, the kind of smiling village where the movies from his youth were set. Instead he drove through a series of horrific burgs, which he renamed Smellville, Fartville, Coleslaw, Coma, and Doldrum. At best his search led him to Anywhere, USA, a lookalike strip of gas stations, motels and hamburger outlets populated by obese and slow-witted hicks with a partiality for synthetic fibres. He discovered a continent that was doubly lost: lost to itself because he found it blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; lost to him because he had become a foreigner in his own country.

The Book of the Damned

Author: Charles Fort

Publisher: Library of Alexandria

Published: 2020-09-28

Total Pages: 442

ISBN-13: 1613106424

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"Time travel, UFOs, mysterious planets, stigmata, rock-throwing poltergeists, huge footprints, bizarre rains of fish and frogs-nearly a century after Charles Fort's Book of the Damned was originally published, the strange phenomenon presented in this book remains largely unexplained by modern science. Through painstaking research and a witty, sarcastic style, Fort captures the imagination while exposing the flaws of popular scientific explanations. Virtually all of his material was compiled and documented from reports published in reputable journals, newspapers and periodicals because he was an avid collector. Charles Fort was somewhat of a recluse who spent most of his spare time researching these strange events and collected these reports from publications sent to him from around the globe. This was the first of a series of books he created on unusual and unexplained events and to this day it remains the most popular. If you agree that truth is often stranger than fiction, then this book is for you"--Taken from Good Reads website.