Nestled within the heart of North Carolina's Piedmont lies Lexington, a town with a history so iniquitous that few dare to tell the tales. Discover how a veritably unknown young singer named Elvis Presley wiggled and gyrated his way through town, and how the Jolly Black Widow claimed her third husband (and victim) in a string of doomed love affairs. It was here in Lexington that an obscene mail menace sent hundreds of depraved letters to wholesome families, and on a sleepy summer day, poli...

The Piedmont Triad of North Carolina has played a remarkable role in the history of the Southeast--one day at a time--for centuries. Against the backdrop of major historical events and movements, the Triad is also flecked with smaller gems of oft-overlooked history. Prolific author and Triad native Alice Sink chronicles these events, reviving a story for each day of the year. From a Civil War buried treasure to gypsy kidnappings and runaway marriages, each day brings with it an exciting, b...

Native Americans first inhabited the eastern Forsyth County area, a natural watershed and source of six rivers and creeks. About 1756, Irishman Caleb Story settled here on 400 acres of wooded land. Years later, Story sold his land to David Morrow for a purported four gallons of rum. About 1771, William Dobson purchased the original acreage and additional tracts and built an inn near what is now Mountain Street and Main Street. He named this junction Dobson�sCrossroads. On June 2, 1791, Pre...

High Point, nestled in the heart of the Piedmont Triad, has long been at the forefront of progress, attracting those entrepreneurs who were "up to something out of the ordinary"?, a place where spanking leads to tragedy, ransom notes are left in mailboxes and people are railroaded through court. When Prohibition swept the nation, High Point's first saloonist stayed in business for only eighteen hours. High Point's speed-demon racecar drivers opted to smuggle liquor in their uncatchable car...

There are many stories about the history of the Piedmont Triad area of North Carolina (including Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point) that even the natives have never heard. Join longtime Piedmont Triad resident and writer Alice E. Sink on this journey to uncover those out-of-the-ordinary historical truths that rarely appear in books. Learn about the nightclub in High Point that once hosted the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington and the famous short story writer O. Henry's co...

Hidden History of Hilton Head offers a lively array of historical tidbits and tales, focusing on people, lifeways, believe-it-or-not snippets and beloved local places.Discover the ties that Harriet Tubman and Clara Barton had to the region and learn about the lives of oyster shuckers, root doctors, debauched "Jack-ashores" and many other characters in the island's rich history. From beautiful poems written by renowned locals to the songs that guided the slaves to f...

In a town where ladies of the evening walked the streets (but were legally bound to hide their ankles) and trouble rolled through town on the famous railways, this Piedmont city has seen its fair share of iniquity. From Frank Lucas, the drug lord whose childhood in Greensboro served as the catalyst for a life of crime, to the teacher who ruled his students with a switch and a pocketknife, the tales in Wicked Greensboro capture the shady side of the Gate City's past. Travel with local autho...

The famed Piedmont Triad city of Winston-Salem has a history filled with depraved people committing untoward acts. From Libby Holman, the singer with a sultry, smoky voice accused of murdering her millionaire husband to the man caught with hundreds of gallons of beer, liquor, and a "tin lizard" whiskey still, residents of Winston-Salem were no strangers to depravity. And leave it to a band of organized tobacco thieves to break into dozens of warehouses and steal the livelihood of law-abidi...

This extraordinary New York Times bestseller reexamines a pivotal event of the civil rights movement—the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till—“and demands that we do the one vital thing we aren’t often enough asked to do with history: learn from it” (The Atlantic).* A New York Times Notable Book * A Washington Post Notable Book * Longlisted for the National Book Award * Winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award

In the tradition of Slaves in the Family, the provocative true account of the hanging of four black people by a white lynch mob in 1912—written by the great-granddaughter of the sheriff charged with protecting them.Harris County, Georgia, 1912. A white man, the beloved nephew of the county sheriff, is shot dead on the porch of a black woman. Days later, the sheriff sanctions the lynching of a black woman and three black men, all of them innocent. For Karen...

The latest in the New York Times Bestselling Notorious USA series...South Carolina, where racial strife and righteous, heavily-armed indignation leads to murder. New York Times bestselling author Caitlin Rother brings readers compilation of crime stories from this former Confederate state: the first woman in South Carolina to go to the electric chair after a vengeful feud over a dead calf turned fatal; the state’s most prolific serial killer who managed to kill a f...

Who doesnt love a good homicide? Murders, Mysteries and History pulls 150 years of forgotten crimes straight from the pages of yesterdays news and stirs them in a historical mix to produce a book like no other. Get the scoop on more than a hundred real-life murders and unsolved killings. Vics, suspects, perps. Judges and juries. Jails and penitentiaries. Hangings, electrocutions and nothing less than simply getting away with murder. Sometimes brutal, often haunting, always entertaining. Mu...