Hidden gems from Chicago’s past Tales of Forgotten Chicago contains twenty-one fascinating, little-known stories about a great city and its people. Richard C. Lindberg has dug deeply to reveal lost historical events and hidden gems from Chicago’s past. Spanning the Civil War through the 1960s, the volume showcases forgotten crimes, punishments, and consequences: poisoned soup that nearly killed three hundred leading citizens, politicians, and business and religious leaders; a woman in showbiz and her street-thug husband whose checkered lives inspired a 1955 James Cagney movie; and the first police woman in Chicago, hired as a result of the senseless killing of a young factory girl in a racially tinged case of the 1880s. Also included are tales of industry and invention, such as America’s first automobile race, the haunting of a wealthy Gilded Age manufacturer’s mansion, and the identity of the telephone’s rightful inventor. Chapters on the history of early city landmarks spotlight the fight to save Lakefront Park and how “Lucky” Charlie Weeghman’s north side baseball park became Wrigley Field. Other chapters explore civic, cultural, and political happenings: the great Railroad Fairs of 1948 and 1949; Richard J. Daley’s revival of the St. Patrick’s Day parade; political disrupter Lar “America First” Daly; and the founding of the Special Olympics in Chicago by Anne Burke and others. Finally, some are just wonderful tales, such asa touching story about the sinking of Chicago's beloved Christmas tree ship. Engrossing and imaginative, this collection opens new windows into the past of the Windy City.

Hidden gems from Chicago’s past Tales of Forgotten Chicago contains twenty-one fascinating, little-known stories about a great city and its people. Richard C. Lindberg has dug deeply to reveal lost historical events and hidden gems from Chicago’s past. Spanning the Civil War through the 1960s, the volume showcases forgotten crimes, punishments, and consequences: poisoned soup that nearly killed three hundred leading citizens, politicians, and business and religious leaders; a woman in showbiz and her street-thug husband whose checkered lives inspired a 1955 James Cagney movie; and the first police woman in Chicago, hired as a result of the senseless killing of a young factory girl in a racially tinged case of the 1880s. Also included are tales of industry and invention, such as America’s first automobile race, the haunting of a wealthy Gilded Age manufacturer’s mansion, and the identity of the telephone’s rightful inventor. Chapters on the history of early city landmarks spotlight the fight to save Lakefront Park and how “Lucky” Charlie Weeghman’s north side baseball park became Wrigley Field. Other chapters explore civic, cultural, and political happenings: the great Railroad Fairs of 1948 and 1949; Richard J. Daley’s revival of the St. Patrick’s Day parade; political disrupter Lar “America First” Daly; and the founding of the Special Olympics in Chicago by Anne Burke and others. Finally, some are just wonderful tales, such asa touching story about the sinking of Chicago's beloved Christmas tree ship. Engrossing and imaginative, this collection opens new windows into the past of the Windy City.

To book a ride on the "World's Shortest Airline" or learn aerial stunts from the redheaded widow of Lawrence Avenue, you've got to go through the airports buried beneath the housing developments and shopping malls of Chicagoland. Many of these airports sprang up after World War I, when training killed more pilots than combat, and the aviation pioneers who developed Chicago's flying fields played a critical role in getting the nation ready to dare the skies in World War II. Author Nick Selig has rolled wheels on his fair share of Chicago's landing strips but faces an entirely new challenge in touching down in places being swallowed by a city and forgotten by history.

Chicago author, Greg Borzo, recalls the city's celebrated lost restaurants. Many of Chicago's greatest or most unusual restaurants are no longer taking reservations, but they're definitely not forgotten. From steakhouses to delis, these dining destinations attracted movie stars, fed the hungry, launched nationwide trends and created a smorgasbord of culinary choices. Stretching across almost two centuries of memorable service and adventurous menus, this book revisits the institutions entrusted with the city's special occasions. Noted author Greg Borzo dishes out course after course of fondly remembered fare, from Maxim's to Charlie Trotter's and Trader Vic's to the Blackhawk.

In this provocative, bitingly funny debut collection, people attempt to use technology to escape their uncontrollable feelings of grief or rage or despair, only to reveal their most flawed and human selves An architect draws questionable inspiration from her daughter’s birth defect. A content moderator for “the world’s biggest search engine,” who spends her days culling videos of beheadings and suicides, turns from stalking her rapist online to following him in real life. At a camp for recovering internet trolls, a sensitive misfit goes missing. A wounded mother raises the second incarnation of her child. In You Will Never Be Forgotten, Mary South explores how technology can both collapse our relationships from within and provide opportunities for genuine connection. Formally inventive, darkly absurdist, savagely critical of the increasingly fraught cultural climates we inhabit, these ten stories also find hope in fleeting interactions and moments of tenderness. They reveal our grotesque selfishness and our intense need for love and acceptance, and the psychic pain that either shuts us off or allows us to discover our deepest reaches of empathy. This incendiary debut marks the arrival of a perceptive, idiosyncratic, instantly recognizable voice in fiction—one that could only belong to Mary South.

The disappearing history of Chicago's Jewish past can be found in the religious architecture of its stately synagogues and communal buildings. Whether modest or majestic, wood or stone, the buildings reflected their members' views on faith and their commitment to the neighborhoods where they lived in a time when individuals and the community were inseparable from their neighborhood synagogues, temples, and shuls. From Chicago's oldest Jewish congregation, Kehilath Anshe Maariv Temple (Pilgrim Baptist), to Ohave Sholom (St. Basils Greek Orthodox), to Kehilath Anshe Maariv's last independent building (Operation Push), come and explore Chicago's forgotten synagogues and communal buildings. Nearly 150 years of Chicago history unfolds in Chicago's Forgotten Synagogues as the photographs and accompanying stories tell of the synagogues' past greatness and their present and uncertain future.

If you were a Confederate prisoner during the Civil War, you might have ended up in this infamous military prison in Chicago. More Confederate soldiers died in Chicago's Camp Douglas than on any Civil War battlefield. Originally constructed in 1861 to train forty thousand Union soldiers from the northern third of Illinois, it was converted to a prison camp in 1862. Nearly thirty thousand Confederate prisoners were housed there until it was shut down in 1865. Today, the history of the camp ranges from unknown to deeply misunderstood. David Keller offers a modern perspective of Camp Douglas and a key piece of scholarship in reckoning with the legacy of other military prisons.

Brief stories of Kansas City history, from the Beatles to Jesse James and Harry Houdini.

A poignant, multigenerational tale of the Swedish-American experience for two disparate Chicago families

Martin Preib is an officer in the Chicago Police Department—a beat cop whose first assignment as a rookie policeman was working on the wagon that picks up the dead. Inspired by Preib’s daily life on the job, The Wagon and Other Stories from the City chronicles the outer and inner lives of both a Chicago cop and the city itself. The book follows Preib as he transports body bags, forges an unlikely connection with his female partner, trains a younger officer, and finds himself among people long forgotten—or rendered invisible—by the rest of society. Preib recounts how he navigates the tenuous labyrinths of race and class in the urban metropolis, such as a domestic disturbance call involving a gang member and his abused girlfriend or a run-in with a group of drunk yuppies. As he encounters the real and imagined geographies of Chicago, the city reveals itself to be not just a backdrop, but a central force in his narrative of life and death. Preib’s accounts, all told in his breathtaking prose, come alive in ways that readers will long remember.