Altoona, PA - The World's Oldest Roller Coaster

Beyond the tilt-a-whirl, merry-go-round and salt & pepper shaker at the Larchmont Family Amusement Park is a 48-foot high, wooden roller coaster built in the classic figure eight design. It was named “Leap the Dips” by designer E. Joy Morris back when it was built in 1902. It’s 102 years old and still operating. It’s the oldest operating roller coaster in the world.

It was closed in the early 80's and partially destroyed, but preservation efforts helped to restore this coaster back to its original form. Leap The Dips reopened in 1999 in full operating capacity. It is one of the few remaining side-friction coasters in existence and a National Historic Landmark.

It’s named Leap the Dips because you leap the dips … at a top speed of 10 miles an hour. So in this era of the 70 mph, corkscrew, upright roller coaster, why do some of us still scream when riding Leap the Dips? Because it’s over 100 years old, maintained by minimum wage high school students, and held together with over 100 years worth of paint, rusty nails and heavy grease.

But that’s why people still ride this old and slow wooden roller coaster; not for the thrill of the speed or g-forces but because in the back of every person’s mind is the very likely notion that this old beast will crumble, fold and fling you to your untimely death on the very next turn.
That’s the thrill!.

Check out Bryan's Trip on the World's Oldest Roller Coaster.

Centralia, PA - Town on Fire

Just a couple of hours drive from NJ (west on I-80) is a little slice of hell: fire, brimstone, smoke, ruin. Take a moment to create a picture of hell in your head (forget about the bible and all those lost and tormented souls). Now, slap that image down on a map of eastern Pennsylvania and you’ve got a fairly accurate assessment of Centralia, PA.

Centralia is a small town located in Columbia County, the heart of mining country. As legend goes, in May 1962, a fire started in a garbage dump in an abandoned strip mine. Not a problem … until flames reached a large coal vein running under the town. The coal began to burn.

And it hasn’t stopped burning for over 40 years.

The fire crawled along coal-rich deposits below ground, venting poisonous gases up into town, up through streets, basements, yards.
Residents and the government came to realize that the fire was not going to be extinguished, or ever burn itself out. Centralia was declared “municipalis non grata” by the United States. Citizens were relocated, houses were destroyer, a new road was built to detour traffic away from the hot spots … the town was slowly killed. A town of over 500 homes now occupied by a dozen or so recalcitrant residents.

Thinking of taking a stroll around? You’ll think twice when everywhere you’ll see government postings that warn you of toxic gas, underground pockets ready to collapse underneath you, and the ubiquitous references to major injury or death.

Girardville, PA - The Molly Maguires

Between the 1840s and 1860s million of Europeans: Polish, German, Russian, Welsh; probably even your very own great grand parents entered New York harbor to be greeted by the message: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." And then there were the Irish who got a completely different message: “Irish need not apply.”

Life back in Ireland was cruel and here it wasn’t much better. The thick brogue, the religion, the poverty and illiteracy all provoked ridicule. Irish Catholics were called a "massive lump in the community, undigested, undigestible". The worst demonstration anti-Irish hatred took place in Philadelphia on May 6, 1844 when two Catholic churches were burned and 16 people lost their lives.

But they’d be welcomed by the mine owners of Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal mining region. In fact, the mine owners were only too eager to take advantage of their desperate need for work.

1860 - After a hard day in the mines, many Irishmen sat drinking the night away in the Girardville, PA lodge of the Ancient Order of Hibernians (a benevolent association founded by the alienated Irish Catholics). They would sit, and drink and argue about their unfair treatments. To the Irish working class, drunk and pissed off is not a good combination as the Irish have a rich history of vengeance, of righteous indignation. It was here that the Molly Maguires would be reborn in America. The Molly Maguires go back to the 1700's as a secret brotherhood of Irishmen intent on exacting revenge upon the English landlords who were famously cruel to their tenants: at times killing them or burning their homes so they could raise the rent on the new tenant. The “Mollies” are said to have taken their name from an elderly widow named Molly Maguire who was being cruelly evicted from her home by a wicked landlord. The people who sought to revenge the act called themselves "The Sons of Molly Maguire".

Historians would attribute 12 or more killings between 1860 and 1862 to the Mollies. Most of the victims were mine foremen. Most were beaten to death. In several cases, alleged attackers were arrested, but later freed by mobs. With all the violence in the area at the time, it was unlikely that a proper police investigation could take place.

Enter the Pinkerton Agency, a private detective agency employed mostly by former criminals (they being the best at going undetected). They were hired by mine owners to infiltrate and bring down the Mollies. The willingness of the Pinkerton Agency to resort to any means necessary to destroy the Mollie Maguires lead these undercover detective to go so far as to attack and kill people on the Molly hit list. Of course, another list was being written: a list consisting of Molly Maguires.

On February 5, 1876, Police broke into the homes of seven Mollies in the early hours of the morning. The men were shackled inside their homes and taken to the jail where they would await trial for murder.

June 21, 1877, a day remembered as “Black Thursday” or by others as the “Day of the Rope”, the reign of terror ended when the confessed leaders of the Molly Maguires were hanged.

Justified or callous? Murder or revolution? Heroes of the working class or the first American terrorists? Either way you look at the Molly Maguire, they fought for the rights of the unskilled laborer and in no small way contributed to the creation of our Labor Day Holiday.
 
Sources:
Mark Major Interview, Director, Schuylkill County Visitors Bureau
“Unsolved History: The Molly Maguire Files” by Mark Major
“Murder and Mayhem. The Molly Maguires in Tamaqua” by Historic Preservation & Tourism Task Force
Making Sense of the Molly Maguires by Kevin Kenny, Oxford University Press, 1998

Photo:
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division

What's your Favorite Snack Cake?

Twinkie? Susy Q? Devil Dogs?

In Hometown Tales Radio Show #302, we discuss your favorite snack cakes, where they are from and what story is behind them.

Ft. Riley, Kansas - Beginning of the End of the World (Almost)

Fort Riley has been home to General George Custer, the Buffalo Soldiers of the 9^th and 10^th Cavalry Regiments, Blackjack Pershing’s 1st Infantry Division (“The Big Red One”) as well as the one of the greatest natural disasters to cast a shadow over all of humanity: the Spanish Flu of 1918. Similar to the more recent 2009 Novel H1N1 (“Swine”) Flu, this pandemic strain of influenza quickly evolved and spread from a pig farm in Haskell County to Ft. Riley. Soldiers quickly became infected by this virulent and deadly strain of flu. It could have easily been discovered and contained in this small Kansas town.

However…

· One can be infected with influenza and spread the virus days before feeling ill

· World War 1 was going on in Europe

Hundreds of soldiers—dozens of them infected—were being shipped out of Ft. Riley to the green fields of France by the day. Within weeks, the flu had spread across France, Europe and on towards Asia and Africa. It didn’t actually cause significant mortality to the United States until it came back to Boston, Massachusetts in its second wave (but that’s a tale for another day).

By the middle of 1919, the Spanish flu had killed over 100,000,000 people.

Why then will it always be called the “Spanish Flu”? Historically, epidemics had been named after the region around Ground Zero. Lyme disease is from Old Lyme, Connecticut. The Hong Kong flu was from the Pearl River delta near Honk Kong. Syphilis has been called the French Disease by the British and the British Disease by the French (but that’s a tale for another day). When the great influenza of 1918 first hit the front pages of newspapers, it ran as a story of European tourists in Spain first contracting the disease. Nowadays it’s bad for tourism and the pork industry to announce “Swine Flu” or “Texas Flu” so we have a sanitized moniker like 2009 Novel H1N1 Influenza A.

So what about Kansas? After the initial wave of infections and deaths—with most of the original infected shipped out to France—the Kansas state government took action to shut down public gatherings: schools, church, movies. All together about 30,000 people were infected. Thousands died. Considering this was ground zero, Kansas was very lucky.

American Falls, ID - The Town That Moved

If you fell asleep in 1924, awoke today and went looking for American Falls, Idaho you better hold our breath. It's at the bottom of a reservoir. When constructing the American Falls Dam the U.S. "Bureau of Reclamation" relocated the entire town to a different location. The old town still resides at the bottom of the reservoir. Believe it or not, this has not been all that uncommon in U.S. history although American Falls was one of the first.

Photo courtesy of VisitIdaho.org

Fairfield, CT - Witch Dunking Pond

Fairfield, CT - Witch Dunking Pond

It's no secret the early colonization of this nation was plagued with intolerance.
Puritan society was strict, closed-minded and harsh with it's warped sense of justice. The witch trials in Salem, MA have dominated the history books and American Literature as examples of the regretful behavior of the early inhabitants of the Plymouth Rock.

But it wasn't just Salem. Connecticut had it's own witch encounters and overreactions. Early incidents in Windsor, Wethersfield and scattered throughout the state resulted in executions but Fairfield, CT clearly takes the witch cake for most fascinated cases. First in 1651 Goodwife Bassett was hung then in 1653 Goodwife Mary Knapp was accused of witchcraft and having "witch marks". Of course upon examination of this simple woman any birth mark or mole was interpreted as a mark and she was hung. It's said that her accuser admitted that Knapp was innocent at her public hanging but of course, they couldn't let that get in the way of a good ole' public execution. After all, there was a crowd to please and children to entertain.

Nearly 40 years later during the height of the Salem Witch Trials, another Fairfield woman, Mercy Disbrowe was accused of witchery. While on trial the authorities needed to perform tests to determine if she truly was an accomplice of Satan. The popular witch dunking was performed. They held her down in a pond and see if she floats. Sounds perfectly scientific. Many spectators claimed she did float so she was set for her own execution. Luckily for her, cooler heads prevailed and some outside authorities stepped in after the seeing the hysteria and carnage that ensued in Salem. They had Mercy on Mercy but she wasn't as forgiving.

Legend has it several ponds and lakes in the Fairfield area are the location of the famous witch dunking. And you guessed it, Mercy haunts the hell out of everyone of them. Of course with each pond and lake the legend varies. Some claim Mercy died during the dunking, others claim it's not even Mercy but someone else the history books seemed to have forgotten. Either way, if you are taking an evening drive in Fairfield, CT and see a small lake or pond, take a look at the water. Perhaps you'll see a vengeful wet goodwife ready to lay the evil smackdown on your WASP ass.

Sources:

OLR Research Report
The Fairfiled Mirror - The Fairfield Witch Project

Photo from TownofStratford.com

Atlanta, GA - Crypt of Civilization

Thornwell Jacobs decided to make one of the first modern era "time capsules" in the early 1930s. He was inspired by the recent openings of the Egyptian pyramids in the 1920s. So he gathered up a bunch of stuff sealed them up and now they sit waiting 6000 years to be opened.

The date of their opening will be 8113 CE. I believe that's like Star Trek-era time periods. This date was determined by the time that had passed from the creation of the capsule to the first record of human civilization. (4241 BC). That time, 6177 years, was added to the current date to determine when to open the capsule.

So there is a long wait still ahead. The crypt is about 20 feet long and 10 feet high and sealed air-tight. It contains audio recordings, films, books and even a "negro" doll and a Budweiser. To remind a future generation or alien being of our racism and drunkeness.

Over the years, the Crypt was big news and constantly in the press with marketing pushes, However, since the 1970s the buzz on the time capsule has died down significantly. It is housed in the basement of Phoebe Hearst Hall at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta. I guess we'll just have to wait 6000 years to see if anyone remembers to open it.

Preserve Greystone

I recently attended a meeting regarding the preservation of Greystone Psychiatric's historic Kirkbride Building. You've probably heard us discuss Greystone often on our show. It was once the largest structure in the nation, when you include it's underground tunnels, until the Pentagon came along. Greystone became an enormous mental health institution and it surely had it's share of tales.

Sadly, Greystone became overcrowded and tormented by abuse allegations and other questionable activity that was so prevalent in most of the mental health field at one time. Over the years it has become a shadow of it's former self. The institution has obviously reformed and even has new building for adequate treatment. However, many of the old classic abandoned buildings have been torn down. There is a growing movement to keep New Jersey from tearing down the famous and classic Kirkbride building.

Hometown Tales strongly supports this movement. Please check out PreserveGreystone.org

As well you can view some snapshots Hometown Tales took several years ago on one of our many visitors to the grounds. Unfortunately, many of the building in these photos are no longer standing.

The Earthquake

You may have heard but my hometown was hit with a 3.0 Earthquake. I know if you live in California that seems like nothing. But for me, it was pretty cool. Just a little after 10:30 at night I was getting into bed and had headphones on. All of a sudden I felt some massive bass. I looked to my wife and could immediately tell from the look on her face that she felt the "bass" too. And she didn't have headphones on.

Of course she thought it was our furnace but I was pretty sure it was something else. I grew up in Succasunna, NJ not far from where I live now (about 35 mins) and Succassunna was close to Kenvil, NJ. Kenvil, NJ used to be home to Hercules Ammunitions. Throughout their history the joint had blown up several times, once in the early 90s. It was an early morning about 5am and I could just feel the whole earth move when the place rocked the town then. That's exactly what the "earthquake" felt like.

Turns out the actual fault line, The Ramapo Fault Line, is actually in my town two. Hopefully I won't be swallowed up by the Earth someday. Until then my hometown's tale is - We were hit with an earthquake Feb 1, 2009.

Fort Wayne, IN - Johnny Appleseed

Each year the people of Fort Wayne invite visitors from throughout the nation to celebrate the pioneer spirit of John Chapman, better known as “Johnny Appleseed,” Chapman was a colorful character of the Indiana frontier in the early 1800’s.

One tale talks of a settler, living on the banks of the Ohio River, who encountered a bizarre raft coming down the river. It consisted of two canoes lashed together. The lone boatman was scantily dressed, barefoot, and he wore a tin pan for a head covering. He said his name was John Chapman and that the cargo in his canoes consisted of bags of apple seed, which he had gathered about the cider presses in New York and Pennsylvania, and that he intended to plant them and grow apple trees for the settlers. Following the streams and their tributaries he stopped and planted apple seeds wherever he found suitable ground for a nursery. He enclosed these spot with fences made of brush.

Each year he returned to care for the growing trees and to plant new nurseries. When settlers came he urged them to plant trees and advised them as to what varieties to plant. He kept ahead of the settlements and each year planted apple seeds farther west. For more than forty years he kept steadily at his work, and doubtless, there is no other region in the United States where the early settlers planted so many fruit trees as were grown in Johnny Appleseed’s territory. There still remain many orchards bearing fruit on trees taken from the Appleseed nurseries.

During the latter part of his life, Chapman traveled the countryside on foot, planting orchards in Fort Wayne and surrounding areas. In the process, he became a national folk hero and his gravesite in Fort Wayne’s Archer Park has been designated a national historic landmark.

South Bend, IN - The Phrenologist Grave Robber

Fred Auer, a farmer, finds a human jaw bone, leading to an examination of the nearby cometary where a desecrated grave is discovered. The body remains, but the head is gone from the grave.

Suspicion falls on Gordon Truesdale. Truesdale is a “handsome, broad-shouldered fellow with a fair education, but lazy and shiftless”, whose passion is phrenology, the now-discredited belief that a person’s character is revealed by the shape and bumps of one’s head. His desire to own his own skull collection is well known among his neighbors.
Truesdale has recently been to a doctor. He asked the doctor an odd question: can a man contract a disease from corpses. When the doctor answered in the affirmative, Truesdale was visibly shaken.

Shortly after his doctor visit, Truesdale complains to his wife that his nose is painful. Self-medication fails, and in a few days his face and head have swollen to twice their normal size and “lost all semblence of human shape.” His lips draw away from his teeth and his eyes are “swollen almost to bursting from their sockets” and “turned in pain”.
The doctor is called in and he makes several incisions in Truesdale’s face. The result is horrible to contemplate: “there oozed a mass of loathsome, detestable putrescence, so terrible in its stench that the attendants, save one” run out of the house. When the facial incisions are washed, the water pours out of holes in the scalp.

The doctor tells Truesdale that he doesn’t have long to live and Truesdale confesses to his wife that he is the grave robber. He says he dug to the head of the coffin, broke it open, and, taking a knife, cut around the corpse’s neck. Putting his foot on the corpse’s chest, he took the “head in his hands” and “pulled and jerked and twisted it until it came off by mere force.” He says that the corpse’s skull can be found under some straw in the barn, and it is soon returned to the family of the departed.

Truesdale’s death three days later is hideous. During his final days the odor is tremendous and can’t be washed from the attendents’ hands. His breath is so horrible that when one of the attendants holds his hands near Truesdale’s mouth it stings “like hundreds of nettles”.
Truesdale’s burial is as sickening as his death. Nobody will touch the body, so they lift him using the bedsheets, dump him into his coffin, and screw the lid tight. Before a wagon can be brought, Truesdale’s corpse swells and bursts the coffin lid. The lid is strapped on, only to burst again at the graveyard, where the whole mess is dumped into a grave and hurriedly covered over.

The stench lingers in the house for days. One of the attendants is quoted as saying, “It still seems as if you could cut the air in that house with a knife.”

Written by Bob Rogers

Chicago, IL - The Great Chicago Fire

In 1871, Chicago was growing city surrounded by a veritable shanty-town of working-class neighborhoods: tenements, cottages, wooden huts. Basically it was a tinderbox.

In September of 1871, the Chicago Tribune featured many editorials and stories on the inadequate construction of the brick and stone downtown buildings. The Trib said, if the city didn’t fall down, it was liable to burn! Plus, there had been very little rain that summer, leaving “…everything in so flammable a condition that a spark might set a fire that would sweep from end to end of the city”.

That spark, as legend has it, was Cathy O’Leary and her cow. O’Leary ran a milk business from the barn behind her home at 137 De Koven Street in Chicago’s West Division: west of the south branch of the Chicago River.

As the story goes, on October 8, 1871, O’Leary forgot her lantern in the barn, her cow kicked it over and the fire began. By 10:30, the fire was out of control. Which is bad, What’s worse was the strong wind that blew the firs towards downtown. Soon, the air was filled with cinders that was described a “red rain”.

In just over an hour, the west side of the city was in ashes and the fire showed no signs of slowing down. It even jumped the Chicago River: a river so polluted at the time that it, to, caught fire. Downtown, the fire igniting over 500 buildings. People fled, prisoners were simply sent free, buildings collapsed. Saloon keepers, hoping to save their taverns, had foolishly rolled barrels of whiskey out into the streets. So now everyone is getting drunk. As some people tried to protect their homes, many others began an odyssey of looting and violence.

On the morning of October 10, it began to rain. The fire gradually died. Over 300 people were dead and another 100,000 were homeless. The fire had cut a swath through the city that was four miles long and about two-thirds of a mile wide.

The city began anew, becoming one of the grand metropolis we know today. The night of October 8, 1871 is remembered in song, on film and in professional sports because Chicago was hip enough to name the local MLS team “Chicago Fire”.

Sources: Bales, Richard F. “Did the Cow Do It? A New Look at the Cause of the Great Chicago Fire“, 2004.

“The Great Chicago Fire“, America’s Library, 2004.

Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress

Chicago, IL - St. Valentine's Day Massacre

George ‘Bugs’ Moran was the last of the North Side Chicago gangsters. The one time horse thief, bootlegger, bank robber, Moran was a brawler (sporting a 4″ knife scar along the right side of his neck and a crooked middle finger from a badly knit broken bone) how rose up to become a famed (and much loved by the local press) Chicago gangster.

He also became Al Capone’s arch-enemy. Moran had to go.

While drinking and womanizing in Florida, the most famed gangster of all, Al Capone gave hit man “Machine Gun” McGurn the assignment of taking out Moran. McGurn created a hit team of ruthless killers: Fred “Killer” Burke, James Ray, John Scalise, Albert Anselmi, Joseph Lolordo, as well as Harry and Phil Keywell from Detroit.

McGurn hired a known bootlegger to lure the Moran gang to a garage at 2122 North Clark Street where some good whiskey was on sale at a low price. The date of the sale: February 14.

McGurn’s men would be waiting for them, dressed in stolen police uniforms and trench coats as though they were staging a raid. When the Moran gang arrived, McGurn’s “Policemen” raided the garage. The would-be bootleggers of the Moran gang put their hands over their heads and lined upp against the wall like good criminals do when busted. The “Policemen” then opened fire with two machine guns, a sawed-off shotgun and a .45. Moran’s gang was finished.

Except for Bugs Moran.

Moran, the main target, was late getting to the garage. He saw the fake policemen outside and split. He didn’t just survive the Valentine’s Day Massacre, he survived all his enemies, dying years after Al Capone. He died from a chest full of cancerous tumors, not lead.

Source: Bardsley, Marilyn, “The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre”, Court TV’s Crime Library, 2004.

Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress

Kalaupapa, HI - The Leper Colony

For decades, the names “Kalaupapa” and “Molokai” were synonymous with sorrow, banishment, disease and the living damned. Surrounded on three sides by the Pacific ocean and cut off from the rest of Molokai, the village of Kalaupapa was void of all amenities: No buildings, shelters nor potable water. It was the perfect place to hide away community of people that the rest of us feared and loathed. It was the perfect place to make them disappear and remain forgotten.

They hadn’t committed a crime, yet they were sentenced to a life of banishment. They were lepers.

Because of the deformities, the absence of treatment (until the last 60 years) and mystery of causes, Leprosy has been feared in almost every culture for centuries. Places like Kalaupapa were felt by many to be necessary.

The first shipments of leprosy victims came to Kalaupapa 1866, sometimes having to swim through the surf when the sea ran too high for a boat to land. Occasionally a strong rope was run from the anchored ship to the shore, and they pulled themselves painfully through the high, salty waves, with legs and feet dangling below like bait on a fishing line. The ship’s crew would then throw into the water whatever supplies had been sent, relying on currents to carry them ashore or the exiles swimming to retrieve them.

In 1873, Catholic missionary Father Damien arrived at Kalaupapa to help serve the leprosy patients. He built homes, churches and coffins, as well as, arranging for medical services. Damien contracted the disease and after 16 years of service died in 1889. Source: Visit Molokai.

Niihua, HI - The Forbidden Island

They call it the “Forbidden Island”. Although for a hefty price you can take a private helicopter tour, run by the islands owners, for a quick lunch on the island.

The Robinson Family has been a prominent family in Hawaiian history for decades. They own large amounts of property all throughout the Hawaiian islands. Through elite marriages, pineapple farming and sugar cane production they have acculumated vast wealth and prestige over the islands. The family purchased Niihua from the Kingdom of Hawai’i in the late 1800s.

Although the Robinson’s are very private, sometimes eccentric and often shy away from much press, they have engaged in many philanthrophic acts on the islands.
One being the forbidden island of Niihau. The island has always had a small population of residents and today only houses a little under 200 native hawaiians. All the residents still speak Native Hawaiian (the only island to do so) and maintain many original customs and traditions of Hawaii. Most of which are self-sufficient.

At one time the small population of the island were all employed by the farmlands and pastures. The Robinsons shut those farmlands down for lack of profit but have been working to find ways to employ the residents while still preserving the culture.
Keith Robinson still tends to many of the native plants and trees on the island. Often removing any plants or species that are not native to the area.

Although the future preservation of the island is in question, today it is still the most untouched, untamed and reminiscent of the ancient Hawaiian kingdom.

Andersonville, GA - The Horror of Andersonville

Still recognized as one of the vilest testaments to man’s inhumanity, Andersonville was the largest Confederate prison of the Civil War.

45,000 Union soldiers were confined here. Of these, almost 13,000 die from smallpox, typhoid, scurvy or diarrhea. Prisoners lived in huts constructed of scrap wood. When the building supplies ran out, they dug holes to live in, escaping the summer heat and humidity. Rations were not given on a daily basis. Because of this “Raiders” (lawless mobs) began to rob, beat, and kill other prisoners…feeding off the weak.

Mosby Collins of the 144th New York was leader of “Mosby’s Raiders”. His 700 raiders were armed with clubs and homemade knives. Usually they would steer newly arrived prisoners to the “best” available spots in Andersonville. That spot was in fact best of a quick mugging and a beat down.

And through it all, Confederate Captain Henry Wirz just watched the bodies pile up. He was the only confederate officer tried for war crimes. He was found guilty and hanged. Perhaps Wirz’

s one moment of human compassion came when he allowed the prisoners to put Mosby and six of his raiders on trial for terrorizing the camp. They were found guilty, hanged and buried away from the rest of the dead.

The sounds of moans and marching feet are still heard today. Apparitions of soldiers on the prison grounds have also been seen as well as the sounds of gunfire heard after dark. Local legend tells of Civil War re-enactors, wearing Union uniforms encountering fog, shadows, walking into cold spots and a feeling of dread.

Historic Re-enactor Ed Crowe and several of his colleagues were camping out at Andersonville in 1984. It was a hot August night however they would all feel uncanny chills and sudden illness throughout the night. The symptoms did not appear to be a food sickness because each had eaten different and separate items. The strange event would sent them packing early in the night as each member of the camp felt a sudden urge to leave. Hometown Tales caught up with Ed on our vidcast. Ed would also uncover the Civil War Ghost often seen by Truck Drivers along the highway in Andersonville.

Years ago a tractor trailer truck came to a screeching halt after seeing an odd figure mysteriously appear along the side of the road. A figure decked out in a Confederate Civil War uniform who appeared and disappeared from the brush. The legend has grown since and is often repeated by Andersonville Prison Rangers. Was it a lost soul of the war, a ghost from the past? Hometown Tales caught up with the legend behind the ghost. See it on the Vidcast

Dalton, GA - Carpet Capital of the World

Shag, Scatter Rugs, StainMaster®, Runners, Berber, Area Rugs and Wall to Wall: some town has to do it better than all the rest. That would be Dalton.After the Civil War, Catherine Evans Whitener revived the art of “tufting”) a way of making bedspreads, quilts, doilies) She sold tufted bedspreads for $2.50. Other women go in on the action and by the early 1920s bedspreads turned into scatter rugs. By the 50s, this small cottage business was turned into a multi-billion dollar carpet industry.Today, employing more than 30,000 people throughout the area, Dalton’s carpet industry has created over 150 manufacturing plants.

Homestead, FL - The Coral Castle

“I have discovered the secrets of the pyramids, and have found out how the Egyptians and the ancient builders in Peru, Yucatan, and Asia, with only primitive tools, raised and set in place blocks of stone weighing many tons!” - Edward Leedskalnin

Reclusive and heart-broken, Edward Leedskalnin built the Coral Castle (today on the National Register of Historic Places) with his own two hands in the 1920s. All alone he moved over 1100 tons of rock and coral harvested from his property. What he created is a vast assembly of massive 8′ high coral rock walls, multi-ton doorways that open with the slightest pressure, a rocking chair weighing thousands of pounds that can be rocked with a finger, an underground structure reached by climbing down a one-piece spiral stone staircase to a subterranean refrigerator and a five thousand pound heart-shaped coral rock table with a red blooming ixora growing from its center.He spent 28 years working on the Coral Castle. Ed was working on the Coral Castle up until his death in December of 1951.

Ed’s notebooks are laden with schematics for magnetism and electrical experiments. Although he possessed only a fourth-grade education it seems he had discovered a means to reduce the gravitational pull of the earth. He wrote a series of pamphlets which included his theories on magnetism and cosmic force that have engineers baffled even today.Why do he do it? For the love of his “Sweet Sixteen” Agnes Scuffs. Coming from his native Latvia, Agnes had promised to marry him and then changed her mind at the last minute. Ed never married and died a single man. Although she was invited several times to visit the Coral Castle, Agnes never saw Edward Leedskalnin’s great achievement dedicated to her.

Lewes, DE - Punkin' Chuckin'

If you’re ever interested in witnessing a mile-long flight of a pumpkin, come to Lewes.

The correct festival name is Punkin’ Chunkin’ and it takes place near Lewes the first Saturday and Sunday after Halloween. Different classes for competition exist for human-powered and machine-powered distance throws and target competition. Some pumpkins are blasted from machines at speeds up to 400 mph.