From City Hall to the Pabst Theater, reminders of the past are part of the fabric of Milwaukee. Yet many historic treasures have been lost to time. An overgrown stretch of the Milwaukee River was once a famous beer garden. Blocks of homes and apartments replaced the Wonderland Amusement Park. A quiet bike path now stretches where some of fastest trains in the world previously thundered. Today's Estabrook Park was a vast mining operation, and Marquette University covers the old fairgrounds where Abraham Lincoln spoke. Author Carl Swanson recounts these stories and other tales of bygone days.

The North Point Milwaukee Lighthouse, neatly nestled in beautifully landscaped Lake Park on Milwaukee's east side, is a local maritime jewel. Incorporated as part of legendary landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted's grand design for this scenic urban park, North Point rests far atop a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan, making it one of the highest light stations on the Great Lakes. Three distinctly different lighthouses have been located here, each with its own unique story. Notable keepers include Georgia Stebbins, who came to North Point as a sickly young woman and was transformed by fresh air and hard work into a feisty, dedicated lightkeeper and served with distinction for over 30 years. Abandoned and boarded up for many years, North Point has been resurrected from near ruin. Today, the North Point Lighthouse Friends see to it that this historic sentinel is preserved for future generations.

From the inception of the Milwaukee County Zoo at West Park in 1892, the citizens of Milwaukee have worked diligently to make it one of the finest zoos in the country. Their tireless effort and faith were rewarded. The zoo experienced many firsts, including the first polar bear born in captivity in North America, and was home to Samson, one of the largest gorillas in captivity. Throughout its history, the zoo also gained fame for innovative exhibit design. The zoo has flourished through the cooperation of Milwaukee County and the Zoological Society of Milwaukee. This public-private relationship has existed successfully since 1910.

The Great Lakes, with the rivers, canals, and channels that connect them, form one of the busiest waterways in the world. Lighthouses were needed to secure the safety of ships over these freshwater seas. But over the hundreds of years since the first lighthouse was established on the Great Lakes in 1781, these structures have come to represent something beyond their initial navigational function. Often situated on remote and beautiful shorelines, lighthouses hold a special fascination for people, serving as symbols of courage, perseverance, safety, and comfort. B is for Beacon: A Great Lakes Lighthouse Alphabet uses poetry and expository text in this alphabetical exploration of the history of lighthouses on the Great Lakes, detailing famous structures, local lore, as well as notable moments in Great Lakes history.

The tale begins over three-hundred years ago, when the Fair People—the goblins, fairies, dragons, and other fabled and fantastic creatures of a dozen lands—fled the Old World for the New, seeking haven from the ways of Man. With them came their precious jewels: diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls... But then the Fair People vanished, taking with them their twelve fabulous treasures. And they remained hidden until now... Across North America, these twelve treasures, over ten-thousand dollars in precious jewels, are buried. The key to finding each can be found within the twelve full color paintings and verses of The Secret. Yet The Secret is much more than that. At long last, you can learn not only the whereabouts of the Fair People's treasure, but also the modern forms and hiding places of their descendants: the Toll Trolls, Maitre D'eamons, Elf Alphas, Tupperwerewolves, Freudian Sylphs, Culture Vultures, West Ghosts and other delightful creatures in the world around us. The Secret is a field guide to them all. Many "armchair treasure hunt" books have been published over the years, most notably Masquerade (1979) by British artist Kit Williams. Masquerade promised a jewel-encrusted golden hare to the first person to unravel the riddle that Williams cleverly hid in his art. In 1982, while everyone in Britain was still madly digging up hedgerows and pastures in search of the golden hare, The Secret: A Treasure Hunt was published in America. The previous year, author and publisher Byron Preiss had traveled to 12 locations in the continental U.S. (and possibly Canada) to secretly bury a dozen ceramic casques. Each casque contained a small key that could be redeemed for one of 12 jewels Preiss kept in a safe deposit box in New York. The key to finding the casques was to match one of 12 paintings to one of 12 poetic verses, solve the resulting riddle, and start digging. Since 1982, only two of the 12 casques have been recovered. The first was located in Grant Park, Chicago, in 1984 by a group of students. The second was unearthed in 2004 in Cleveland by two members of the Quest4Treasure forum. Preiss was killed in an auto accident in the summer of 2005, but the hunt for his casques continues.

Submerged stories from the inland seas The newest addition to Globe Pequot’s Shipwrecks series covers the sensational wrecks and maritime disasters from each of the five Great Lakes. It is estimated that over 30,000 sailors have lost their lives in Great Lakes wrecks. For many, these icy, inland seas have become their final resting place, but their last moments live on as a part of maritime history. The tales, all true and well-documented, feature some of the most notable tragedies on each of the lakes. Included in many of these tales are legends of ghost ship sighting, ghostly shipwreck victims still struggling to get to shore, and other chilling lore. Sailors are a superstitious group, and the stories are sprinkled with omens and maritime protocols that guide decisions made on the water.

A true epic: a love story that spans sixty years, generations’ worth of feuds, and secrets withheld and revealed. One day, elderly, demented Harry Eide steps out of his sickbed and disappears into the brutal, unforgiving Minnesota wilderness that surrounds his hometown of Gunflint. It's not the first time Harry has vanished. Thirty-odd years earlier, in 1963, he'd fled his marriage with his eighteen-year-old-son Gustav in tow. He'd promised Gustav a rambunctious adventure, two men taking on the woods in winter. With Harry gone for the second (and last) time, unable to survive the woods he'd once braved, his son Gus, now grown, sets out to relate the story of their first disappearance--bears and ice floes and all--to Berit Lovig, an old woman who shares a special, if turbulent, bond with Harry. Wintering is a thrilling adventure story wrapped in the deep, dark history of a rural town.