Allegany County partied like it was 1789
In 1789, Washington County gave birth to Allegany County. It had some settlements in it at the time, but by and large, the area that would become Allegany County was a frontier. The preamble of the act from the Maryland General Assembly that created Allegany County read: “Whereas, A number of the inhabitants of Washington county, by their petition to the General Assembly, have prayed that an act may pass for a division of said county by Sideling Hill Creek, and for erecting a new one out of the Western part thereof; and it appearing to this General Assembly that the erecting such a new county will conduce greatly to the due administration of justice, and the speedy settling and improving the western part thereof, and the ease and convenience of the inhabitants thereof…” It didn’t stay a frontier, though. Read more…
Win a free copy of The Rain Man!
To celebrate the release of the Kindle edition of The Rain Man, I am giving away 10 autographed copies of the paperback edition. It’s free to enter. Just visit this link and click to enter. Here’s the story: Raymond Twigg hates the rain because it gives the Rain Man power. It is a power to bring Raymond to his knees or drive him to deadly action. As the March 1936 rains bring the St. Patrick’s Day Flood, the worst flood ever seen in Cumberland, Maryland, it also unleashes the power of the Rain Man on the citizens of the city. While most of the police force is diverted trying to deal with the flooding in the city and the problems it is causing, Sergeant Jake Fairgrieve is called out to investigate a murder. Murders are unusual in Cumberland, but this Read more…
A Wonder of Natural Resources: West Virginia at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair
When Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion first enter Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz, they are awestruck by the wonders that fill the city. The scene is based on author L. Frank Baum’s memory of how he felt when he visited the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. The first World’s Fair featured innovations like the Ferris wheel, alternating current electricity, the first commercial movie theater, and a moving sidewalk. Attendees were also introduced to the hootchy-kootchy dance and a new-fangled clothing option: the zipper. Planned as a celebration of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World, the fair became an exploration of the American Spirit throughout history and into the future. Chicago won the right to host the first World’s Fair, besting New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St. Louis. New Read more…
Ancient music or modern noise?
“Suppose that 2,500 years from now all that survived of the Beatles songs were a few of the lyrics, and all that remained of Mozart and Verdi’s operas were the words and not the music,” the BBC News reported recently. Have you ever thought about how the music of an ancient culture sounds? Would you be able to recognize it as music or would it sound like noise? I mean consider how un-musical one generation’s music sounds to an older generation. Does that difference get multiplied by a factor with each additional generation’s separation? A musician and tutor at Oxford University, Armand D’Angour, believes he has been able to recreate the music of Ancient Greece, which is something that hasn’t been heard for thousands of years. Besides reconstructing the music from historical clues, you would have to be able to Read more…
Living near the entrance to Hell
The story of Centralia, PA, has always amazed me. I wonder if anyone has written a book about it. It’s hard for me to imagine that a fire has been burning underground for more than 50 years. Centralia was a coal-mining town in Pennsylvania. In 1962, a fire started in one of the mine shafts and spread throughout the network of shafts of under the town. Since it was a coal mine, the fire found plenty of fuel. If that wasn’t bad enough, the residents had to deal with poisonous gases leaking out of the mines and sinkholes appearing. Yahoo News reported, “The mine fire has transformed Centralia into a macabre tourist attraction. There’s an intact street grid with almost nothing on it, clouds of steam waft from the cracked earth, and visitors gawk at the ruins of an abandoned Read more…
1833: The night the sky fell in Gettysburg
The old Adams County jail wasn’t the most secure of prisons. Early in the morning of November 12, 1833, a convicted murderer was so scared that he broke out of the prison, according to the History of Adams County published in 1886. Though the man was free from prison, he still wore shackles. He ran to the nearest blacksmith shop and filed them off. Then, “as he forgot to come back and give himself up to be hanged, it may be inferred he is still fleeing from the ‘stars’ that do not pursue,” according to the History of Adams County. Few people probably even noticed the killer’s escape that evening. Their eyes were turned to the heavens watching the reason the man had become scared enough to break out. “The whole heavens appeared to be illuminated by countless meteors, of Read more…
$1.35 Billion in art work stolen by the Nazis recovered
I just saw an episode of “Bones” where an old Nazi was murdered in South America and in his basement they found art work, gold, pictures and other items he had been hiding. Then a real-life story of Nazi theft caught my attention. Just recently more than 1,500 paintings that haven’t been seen in 75 years were recovered. Many of them had been believed destroyed during the war. Three years ago customs officials doing a routine check on a train from Switzerland met an man from Munich, Germany, named Hildebrant Gurlitt. It turns out the Gurlitt was a fake name. Officials tracked him down in 2011 to an small apartment. “Behind “mountains of rotting food and decades-old tin cans” lay a collection of artworks thought to be worth over $1.35 billion, including paintings by Picasso, Matisse, and Renoir,” reported TheVerge.com. Read more…
White House wallpaper came from house waiting to be demolished
The White House staff darted back and forth, even busier than usual on September 20, 1961. A State dinner was to be held for Peruvian President Manuel Prado, but the Diplomatic Reception Room, the first room that President Prado and the other guests would see was filled with workmen, paint cans and drop cloths. The staff was used to preparing dinners and receptions for President John F. Kennedy and his wife, but they weren’t used to having to make the preparations while weaving in between workmen who were redecorating one of the rooms they needed to prepare. Peter Guertler of New York was in charge of redecorating the Diplomatic Reception Room with antique wallpaper acquired from the Stoner House in Thurmont. “We just sneaked out as the guests arrived,” Guertler told the Associated Press at the time. “Sitting on empty Read more…
Thurmont’s “Cat Lady” lived in an old bus
Mae Carbaugh lived the quiet life of a hermit. She rarely left her home along Route 550 close to the Western Maryland Railway tracks near Thurmont. Yet, in the months before she died in 1974, her life was national news. Carbaugh wasn’t a native of Frederick County. She was born on a farm in Delaware in 1896. Deciding that the farming life wasn’t for her, Carbaugh left home at age 16. She wound up working as a hotel restaurant waitress in Emmitsburg until the hotel closed. She married Charles Carbaugh and the couple had a daughter. Charles was an alcoholic and didn’t work much so when he died in 1953, he left his wife with nothing. Mae found work as a housekeeper for an elderly bachelor, though. “When the old bachelor died, she continued, she had no place to live. Read more…
REVIEW: Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff
I admit that Lost in Shangri-La caught by attention because of Shangri-La in the title. That is what Camp David used to be called and I live near there. However, once I read that cover copy that it was a survival story and rescue mission I was intrigued. Near the end of WWII, a plane took off from a U.S. Army camp in New Guinea. It carried two dozen people and was supposed to be flying on sightseeing trip and giving the soldiers and WACs aboard a little rest and relaxation. That was until the plane crashed in the jungle high in the mountains. Five people survived initially, though two of them died within a day. The remaining three survivors had various injuries, but they managed a three-day hike with nothing to eat but Charms candy. (This fact probably sticks Read more…
^