"Chi Town" is the story of Norbert Blei's life-long love affair with a city that shaped his life and his work. From a Chicago ethnic neighborhood in the 1930s with the omnipressent El, to the bright lights of downtown, 1950s to present, Blei's Chicago people and places are as immediate as a walk down Michigan Avenue, asmemorable as the varied lives more...
Headquartered in Chicago, the Illinois Central Railroad was known as the "Main Line of Mid-America", as it was a major railroad cutting through the middle section of the United States with two major routes: the Main Line, which ran south out of Chicago and toward New Orleans, and the Western Lines, which ran west toward Iowa. The Illinois Central R more...
The Chicago Great Western Railway (CGW) was a Midwestern line that operated in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota, Kansas and Nebraska. Although this territory was served by much larger systems, the CGW was able to retain its share of passengers and freight business for 83 years through aggressive management, dedicated employees, innovations, and more...
Cream City Chronicles is a collection of lively stories about the people, the events, the landmarks, and the institutions that have made Milwaukee a unique American Community. These stories represent the best of John Gurda's popular Sunday columns that have appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel since 1994. Find yourself transport more...
In 1884. the Joliet, Aurora and Northern Railroad was formed to connect the growing industrial cities of Joliet and Aurora. This system evolved into the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway. By 1893, it encircled Chicago and Waukegan, via Joliet, to Porter Indiana. The railroad developed into a prosperous subsidiary of U.S. Steel at the beginning of t more...
With gentle humor and rare insight, Justin Isherwood transforms the mundane symbols of the countryside into a lyical tribute to Americana. Interwoven with unique, homespun philosophical nuggets, this witty and wry collection of musings will be sure to please a wide audience.
"Things began as they usually did: Someone shot someone else." So begins a chapter of Michael Lesy's disturbingly satisfying account of Chicago in the 1920s, the epicenter of murder in America. A city where daily newspapers fell over one another to cover the latest mayhem. A city where professionals and amatures alike snuffed each other out, and of more...
In the 1930s, at the height of the Great Depression, the federal government put thousands of unemployed writers to work in the Federal Writer's Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Out of their efforts came the American Guide series, the first comprehensive guidebooks to the people, resources, and traditions of each state in the unio more...