Explore the facts and mysteries surrounding the history and collapse of Richmond, Virginia's Church Hill Tunnel. A must for fans of railroad and Richmond history. Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, was in shambles after the Civil War. The bulk of Reconstruction became dependent on the railways, and one of the most important links in the system was the Church Hill Tunnel. The tunnel was eventually rendered obsolete by an alternative path over a viaduct, and it was closed for regular operation in 1902. However, the city still used it infrequently to transport supplies, and it was maintained with regular safety inspections. The city decided to reopen the tunnel in 1925 due to overcrowding on the viaduct, but the tunnel needed to be strengthened and enlarged. On October 2, 1925, 190 ft. of the tunnel unexpectedly caved in, trapping construction workers and an entire locomotive inside. In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in the tunnel and the mystery surrounding its collapse. There were cave-ins and sink holes above the surface for decades after the tunnel was sealed up, and in 1998, a reporter from the Richmond Times-Dispatch did an investigation, trying to determine the current condition of the tunnel. In 2006, the Virginia Historical Society announced its efforts to try and excavate the locomotive and remaining bodies.

The author, a literary critic and historian, uses over 100 of his own photographs to recall his life-long love of trains.

Richmond has had its share of man-made and natural calamities throughout its illustrious history. In 1811, fire destroyed the Richmond Theatre on Broad Street, tragically claiming seventy-two lives in one of the worst urban disasters in American history. As Union forces approached Richmond in the final months of the Civil War, Confederate troops ignited the city in flames, leaving scars still visible today. The international Spanish flu epidemic did not spare the city in the early twentieth century. The worst airplane crash in Virginia history occurred near Byrd Airport in 1961. Local author Walter S. Griggs tells these stories and more as he traces the harrowing history of Richmond's most famous disasters.

Fifty Five Years at Sea is the story of the author's great-great-grandfather, Captain William Sewall Nickels ((1836-1920). For fifty-five years, he had no fixed address. He was one of the hundreds of nineteenth century master mariners from Prospect, now Searsport, Maine. Captain Nickels spent fifty-five years of his life on merchant sailing vessels, forty-five of them as commander. His wife followed him to sea, and his daughters were raised on his ships.In words and pictures, it covers seven generations of Captain Nickels' family from the time his great-grandparents first settled on the shores of Penobscot Bay, before the American Revolution. It follows his early years on a farm in Prospect (now Searsport), Maine; his fifty-five years as a merchant mariner; his retirement to Sailors' Snug Harbor in Staten Island, New York; the fates of his children and grandchildren, and the births of his great-grandchildren in the years before his death. It is a memorial to a simple man, an uncelebrated mariner, who lived long, worked hard, loved deeply, and spent fifty-five years at sea.

Lower Richland County encompasses approximately 360 square miles in the heart of South Carolina's geographic center. The Wateree River cradles it to the east, and the Congaree River borders the south and southwest. Virginia settlers discovered this rich land over 250 years ago. They became wealthy planters and accumulated large land tracts, creating plantation systems that sustained the economy. From 1783 until 1820, cotton was the principal cash crop, and the slave population increased tremendously and played a vital role in the development of agriculture and the economy in the area.