I’d like to introduce one of my favorite voices among anyone I’ve ever interviewed. Parker's Crossroads, Tennessee is a small town of about 284 people, but it has a big history. This place factored in the life of one of the m...
When you think of Ancient Greece, what images pop into your head? You probably think of the Olympics and philosophers like Plato and Socrates. You might think of stories like the Odyssey and the Iliad that you were forced to ...
That’s the voice of Dewey Phillips hosting his radio show called “Red, Hot & Blue,” on WHBQ, a Memphis station. In the 1950s, more than 100,000 people listened to his primetime slot every day. If you couldn’t make out what De...
In 2015, musical artist Jack White paid $300,000 for a 78-rpm record at auction. The record was of Elvis Presley singing the songs “My Happiness” and “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin.” It was the first record Elvis ever mad...
You’re hearing the song “Rocket 88,” widely considered to be the first rock and roll song ever recorded. It was recorded here, at Sun Studio, by Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats. The Delta Cats included Ike Turner, just one...
In December 1864, Confederate troops were moving toward Nashville with a plan. Union troops had occupied this southern city for the last two years, and Lieutenant General John Bell Hood wanted to take it back. Luckily, the Un...
Those are a few lines from a song called “Beale Street Blues.” The most famous performance of that song came from Louis Armstrong, but it was written by a man named W.C. Handy, who called himself the “Father of the Blues.” Be...
It was raining on the day of the execution. As Fletcher described it, The rain during the forenoon had the effect of making the streets and almost every other place exceedingly sloppy and muddy. The ground having recently bee...
Before it was called Richvalley, the community the French family was living in was known as Keller Station. Isaac Keller and his brother owned large tracts of land in this area, as well a popular Inn and Tavern that was the s...
Aaron French moved in from Cincinnati. He had only been here approximately 6 Months. So he himself was a transient character, he had attempted to be a businessman in Cincinnati, involved in the meat packing industry and went ...
I remember the first time I tried to visit the French family grave, just outside of Wabash, Indiana. It was a Sunday, in the middle of the winter, one day before the mini-blizzard that closed county schools and buried every c...
The sky to the west of the small town of Peshtigo (PESH-ti-go [not pesh-TEE-go]), Wisconsin glowed red before the sunrise, on the morning of October 8th, 1871. It was Sunday, and when the local priest stepped out of his churc...
The day after leaving Copper County, I took the obligatory cruise of the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. It might be the one thing up here that people from outside the UP are likely to have heard of. And these open cliff f...
That sound you hear in the background is the hoist control of the Quincy Mine just outside Hancock, Michigan, where we’re heading today. Quincy is sort of the Madison Square Garden of the northern Michigan ghost mining world....
So, the motel that I stayed at in Eagle Harbor, Fletchy's Otter Belly Lodge, formerly the Shoreline Motel, was apparently the location of well-known feud between a local doctor and the president of the most powerful mine in M...
One of the things I’d heard about my next stop, Phoenix, Michigan, was that it was home to a well-known bridge troll – but instead of a bridge, it was a 148-year-old general store, and instead of a troll, it was an 87-year wo...
The following morning, my first real stop across the canal, apart from gawking at random pieces of rotting machinery, was the ghost town of Gregoryville – which is of a very different sort than the one at Fayette. As far as I...
The first mining boom in American history was not the California Gold Rush, the Klondike Gold Rush, or any other gold rush. The first mining boom in American history was the copper rush of the uppermost part of the Upper Peni...
The distinctive sound of the Mackinaw Bridge is due to the grating in the two center lanes, one going each way. This grating allows air to pass through the bridge rather than pushing against it. Part of the reason for this te...
No, there’s nothing wrong with your audio. That sound is the gateway to the best place to live in the year 2100, at least in North America. And, depending on what you like, it may be the best place right now. Or you might hat...
This episode is focused less on the history of a hometown, than a hometown that specializes in history. Pigeon Forge, Tennessee is famous for tourist attractions and southern hospitality but it’s also a hotbed of local cultur...
I don’t know a better way to introduce this episode than by just saying the Biltmore estate is one of my favorite places in the world. It’s the largest private home in the United States and it’s simply unrivaled on this conti...
The Cherokee don’t believe in signatures. Who can blame them? In 1763, the British signed a proclamation preventing white colonization west of the Appalachian divide. It happened anyway. In 1785, the United States government ...
The Cherokee don’t believe in signatures. Who can blame them? In 1763, the British signed a proclamation preventing white colonization west of the Appalachian divide. It happened anyway. In 1785, the United States government ...
