Catalog Search Results
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
In the early 1900s, Sacramento became a battleground in a statewide struggle. On one side were Progressive political reformers and suffragettes. Opposing them were bars, dance halls, brothels and powerful business interests. Caught in the middle was the city's West End, a place where Grant "Skewball" Cross hosted jazz dances that often attracted police attention and Charmion performed her infamous trapeze striptease act before becoming a movie star....
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
For more than a century, Terre Haute earned its reputation as a sin city. One of the most notorious red-light districts in the Midwest, the West End, housed sixty brothels and nearly one thousand prostitutes at its height in the 1920s. Across this sordid scene strode the stylish and indomitable Edith Brown, the city's most famous madam. When Prohibition made the city bootlegger central, violence erupted as rival gangs vied for turf. Gamblers flooded...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Swindlers, confidence men and outlaws-the mountain shadows and Ponderosa pines surrounding Prescott conceal their grim histories and crooked ways. The small hamlet turned mining town became Arizona's first capital in 1864, and with wealth and power came every type of vice and crime. One block west of the famed Whiskey Row, the roaring red-light district attracted ladies of easy virtue, who often became victims of crimes of passion and coldblooded...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Thieves, rumrunners and rapscallions all color the unsavory side of Litchfield County history. Townspeople accused women of witchcraft simply for not bearing enough children in the early days of the region. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Owen Sullivan and William Stuart took advantage of the county's isolated stretches and a currency shortage to build counterfeiting empires. In 1780, Barnett Davenport's brutal actions earned him infamy...
5) Wicked Omaha
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
In old Omaha, the scent of opium wafted through saloon doors, while prostitutes openly solicited customers. When the St. Elmo Theater ran short of the usual entertainment, the residents could always fall back on robbing strangers. Tenants of the Burnt District squirmed under the extorting thumb of a furniture dealer dubbed the Man-Landlady. The games of chance and confidence and outright municipal graft all played a part in a wicked city where gambler...
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
Kansans like to think of their state as a land of industrious, law-abiding and friendly people, and for the most part they are correct. But its history has many tales of murders, cons, extra judicial killings and other crimes. Its restive frontier attracted menacing characters, such as a cowboy who murdered a man for snoring, the serial-killing Bender family and the train-robbing James-Younger Gang. Although the area was eventually settled, the scandals...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Spokane's early years were marked by an unchecked underworld of greed and sinister dealings.
Houses of ill-repute and homebrewed whiskey abounded, and hidden tunnels beneath the streets helped to stoke the lawlessness. Famous cowgirl Calamity Jane loved to deal faro when visiting the city and it's rumored that outlaw Butch Cassidy¬¬, after a bit of plastic surgery, chose the city to live out the rest of his life in relative peace. A corrupt police...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Victorian Boston was more than just stately brownstones and elite society that graced neighborhoods like Beacon Hill. As the population grew, the city developed a seedy underbelly just below its surface. Illegal saloons, prostitution, and sports gambling challenged the image of the Puritan City. Daughters of the Boston Brahmins posed for nude photographs. The grandson of President John Adams was roped into an elaborate confidence game. Reverend William...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
The Cream City of yesteryear was a dingy haven for scofflaws and villains. Red-light districts peppered downtown's landscape, but none had the enduring allure of River Street, where Kitty Williams and Mary Kingsley operated high-class brothels. Chinese opium dens flourished in the backrooms of laundries. The demise of the Whiskey Ring brought down local distillers in a nationwide scandal that nearly reached the Oval Office. As a result, Police Chief...
10) Wicked Muncie
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Muncie is the classic small American city. But for much of the past two centuries, the city fell victim to murder, corruption and the bizarre. Mayor Rollin Bunch went to prison for mail fraud, while his police commissioner faced a murder rap. Viola "Babe" Swartz ran a brothel out of a truck stop that was raided by police at least a dozen times but ran for sheriff in the 1974 primary election. June Holland, of the locally famous Holland triplets, killed...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Ridgefield is no stranger to life's shadier characters. The history of this idyllic community includes cunning crooks, suburban embezzlers, bungling burglars and wandering scallywags. In 1894, a group of bank robbers literally blew it in a heist at the Saving Bank-the explosion attracted witnesses to see the gang miss out on a grand haul of fifty dollars. Half a decade later, in 1940, a skeleton whose origins still befuddle experts was unearthed in...
Didn't find it?
Can't find what you are looking for? Suggest a purchase. Submit Request