Hometown History

When you arrive at Mackinac Island, the first thing you notice is the way it sounds. You realize you've never been in civilization for this long. In towns and streets, and restaurants and post offices. Without the sound of internal combustion. Without any horns, or any amped up stereo systems, or traffic jams, or the people beside you lip-syncing obnoxiously behind the rolled-up windows of the...

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In the early 1900s, thousands of Americans joined a religious commune that promised actual eternal life, and handed over their life savings to prove their faith. When members inevitably died, they were buried in unmarked graves as punishment for their "faithlessness." This was the House of David cult of Benton Harbor, Michigan, whose bearded baseball teams toured with Satchel Paige and who...

Beaver Island, Michigan. The rate of violent deaths for kings throughout European history has been roughly 20%. The rate of violent deaths in the history of American kings, 100%. Every king in our national history has died a violent death. The rate of murder among the kings of Europe, as opposed to battlefield deaths or bloody accidents, has been roughly 15%. North America, again 100. Every Americ...

Bloomington, Indiana. The year was 1850 in the United States. American Express was founded by Henry Wells and William Fargo. Los Angeles, San Francisco are incorporated as cities in California. And in Bloomington, Illinois, the Bloomington Cemetery was founded. 170 years after its founding, as you travel slightly south of the city center, you enter the now Evergreen Memorial Cemetery on East Mille...

Wabash, Indiana, 1880. The city council was in the middle of a heated fight over gas lamps and municipal lighting costs when a Cleveland inventor named Charles Brush offered them something nobody had tried before. He would install his arc lighting system on top of the county courthouse for $1,800. The vote barely passed. On the night of March 31, 1880, four lamps capable of producing a glow equal...