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Washington Farmer Claimed He Was Drugged, Robbed and Left With Nothing
John Johnson went to the police looking for help after claiming he had been drugged and robbed at a Ritzville gambling house. According to the…
Indiana Coal Miners Went on Strike to Protect the Mine Mules
In 1902, a group of Indiana coal miners walked off the job for an unusual reason: the mules were not being treated properly. The animals…
Baby Girl Found Abandoned in Bushes Along a Vermont Road
William Dubuque was walking home near Richmond, Vermont, one August evening in 1918 when he noticed an automobile stop along the road. As he approached…
Fishing Boat Ran Wild After Lightning Knocked the Crew Unconscious
A fishing trip on the Delaware River turned deadly when a thunderstorm swept over three men laying nets off the New Jersey shore. A bolt…
British Soldiers Came to Teach the U.S. Army Military Gymnastics
In 1902, the United States Army was looking across the Atlantic for a new way to train its soldiers. After American generals watched British troops…
Doctors Said Coal Miners’ Lungs Were Black and Their Wages Too Low to Live On
At the turn of the 20th century, coal mining was not merely dangerous work. For many miners, it was a job that slowly destroyed the…
Teen Who Couldn’t Swim Drowned as 50 Bathers Looked On
Francis Laycock could not swim. That did not stop his companions from repeatedly throwing the 17-year-old into a gravel pit near Alexandria, Indiana, in the…
Washington Painter Found Dead After Rats Were Heard Inside His Locked Room
When fellow lodgers heard rats moving around inside George Goodman’s locked room, they knew something was wrong. The 54-year-old Washington, D.C., painter had only recently…
West Virginia Jail Armed With Machine Guns After Riot Threats
In the summer of 1922, tensions surrounding America’s coal mines were running dangerously high. Strikes, violence, arrests, and threats of retaliation had turned some mining…
This Civil War Soldier Claimed He Met Abraham Lincoln Twice by Accident
Charles Wesley Ellis had lived the kind of life that seemed to collect stories. Years before the Civil War, while splitting rails in Tennessee, Ellis…
