What really happened on the circus train in 1918? Read the story of this tragedy for the entertainment industry of the time. In the cool, pre-dawn hours on a June night in 1918, a train engineer closed his cab window as he chugged toward Hammond, Indiana. He drifted to sleep, and his train bore down on the idle Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus Train. Soon after, the sleeping engineer's locomotive plowed into the circus train. In the subsequent wreckage and blaze, more than two hundred circus performers were injured and eighty-six were killed, most of whom were interred in a mass grave in the Showmen's Rest section of Chicago's Woodlawn Cemetery. Join local historian Richard Lytle as he recounts, in the fullest retelling to date, the details of this tragedy and its role in the overall evolution and demise of a unique entertainment industry.

Through firsthand accounts, interviews with survivors and a gripping collection of vintage photographs, author Michael Skidgell attempts to make sense of one of Hartford's worst tragedies. Almost 7,000 fans eagerly packed into the Ringling Brothers big top on July 6, 1944. With a single careless act, an afternoon at the "Greatest Show on Earth" quickly became one of terror and tragedy as the paraffin-coated circus tent caught fire. Panicked crowds rushed for the few exits, but in minutes, the tent collapsed on those still struggling to escape below. A total of 168 lives were lost, many of them children, with many more injured and forever scarred by the events. Hartford and the surrounding communities reeled in the aftermath as investigators searched for the source of the fire and the responsible parties.

Boilermakers Beware: There's a dark and secret side to Lafayette's history that is sure to send shivers down the spine. From storied specters and urban legends, like Amelia Earhart's tragic figure haunting hangar number one at Purdue University Airport and sightings of the ever-elusive Bigfoot, to haunted houses and battlefi elds, with a guillotine suicide in the Lahr Hotel and the Trail of Death, authors Dorothy Salvo Davis and W.C. Madden leave no stone unturned as they examine the tragic past and the haunted present of Lafayette. With stories focusing on West Lafayette and White, Carroll and Warren Counties, Haunted Lafayette is a chilling read that no ghost enthusiast should miss.

The cause and aftermath of the horrific railway disaster, examined by an award-winning historian. With Fast Mail train No. 97 an hour behind schedule, locomotive engineer Steve Broady, according to legend, swore to “put her in Spencer on time” or “put her in Hell.” Through eyewitness reports and court testimonies, historian Larry Aaron expertly pieces together the events of September 27, 1903, at Danville, Virginia, when the Old 97 plummeted off a forty-five-foot trestle into the ravine below. With more twists and turns than the railroad tracks on which the Old 97 ran, this book chronicles the story of one of the most famous train wrecks in American history, as well as the controversy surrounding “The Wreck of the Old 97,” that most famous ballad, which secured the Old 97 a place within the annals of American folklore.

From the jail cell that once held John Dillinger to quaint shops with dark beginnings, the restless spirits of Crown Point purportedly result from a century-old hex. Legend had it that a caravan of gypsies found themselves unfairly exiled from town. Forced to leave their beloved dead behind in unmarked graves, they invoked a venomous curse on the townspeople and vowed that no ancestor would be allowed eternal peace. Paranormal researcher Judith Tometczak exposes evidence of this deceptively quiet town's dark side.

People are drawn to legendary disaster stories such as that of the Titanic, seeking hope and heroism among the wreckage. The Day The Whistles Cried is a true disaster tale, filled with real people and their lives. Reading about America's worst train wreck is opening a window into Time. Two steam locomotives collide head-on in a cornfield at the edge of Nashville on July 9, 1918, taking the lives of more than a hundred people and injuring at least 300 others. This tragic tale, set against a backdrop of wartime urgency and human error, unfolds in the midst of the racial and societal divisions of the early twentieth century. Segregation and cultural mores helped decide who would perish and who would survive this cataclysmic event, resulting in a book that is more than fact: a riveting story of decided historical impact. The Day the Whistles Cried reveals the railroad system in action in its heyday. Romance and adventure, systems and rules, architecture and machinery. Its sub-culture was intrinsic to America's economy and people.