American Countryside

The Arkansas state license plate has a picture of a diamond on it.  That is mostly due to a famous crater that was full of the precious stones – a place with quite a past and present…

When you think of state where you can find volcanoes you probably aren’t thinking of this spot.  However, it’s this place that started a diamond rush in the early 20th century…

It remains the worth disaster in U.S. maritime history.  Add to the tragedy the fact that many of the dead were young soldiers being transported back to their homes in April 1865 at the end of the Civil War.

It was the early morning hours of April 27th, 1865.  The steamboat Sultana was overcrowded, bearing a load of souls over five times it’s capacity.  Then tragedy struck…

As the Civil War drew to a close in April of 1865, there was a massive job to return prisoners of war back to their homes.  Those trips were marked by triumph and tragedy…

In 1912 he was proclaimed the world’s greatest athlete and some of his Olympic records from that year still stood two decades later.  He was a well rounded athlete that even won the Dancing with the Stars competition of his day…

When you think of historically great collegiate football programs, names like Notre Dame, Penn State and Alabama might come to mind.  Most people don’t name the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in that list, but with this star athlete on the team, they beat the top programs of their day…

Imagine you had invented a new type of rifle that could be helpful to the U.S. military.  How would you go about selling your device?  This man simply took his rifle and ammunition and showed up at the White House…

In the 1880s, stagecoaches brought dozens of people each day to a boom town called Tombstone.  But it was a cycle of boom and bust in the wild west…

When this man set out to find his fortune he was told he’d need to dig his grave when he got there.  He decided to mock those who made fun of him with the name of his new town…