Hometown History

By Shane WatersSociety & Culture True Crime History

Hometown History episodes

March 10 Deal Beach, New Jersey: 240 Immigrants Drowned 150 Yards From Shore
Deal Beach, New Jersey. It's 6.10 on the morning of November 13th, 1854, and the gale-force winds that rattled windows all night have driven the few families of Deal Beach from their beds. Through the fog and driving rain, they see her. A massive three-masted clipper ship, full sails still set, stuck hard on the outer sandbar, just 500 yards from shore. The ship's bell. That's what woke them. The incessant staccato clatter cutting through the storm. Someone aboard is ringing that bell, desperate, rhythmic, unceasing.
TIMELINE
1878: 24 years pass before the United States Life-Saving Service is formally established in 1878.
1934: Eighty years later, in 1934, the cruise ship Moro Castle caught fire.
1999: The ship's anchor was recovered in 1999.
2020: According to a 2020 report, the grave is massively overgrown, the monument quite difficult to find.
WHY THIS MATTERS
The story of Deal Beach is a reminder that the events that shaped America didn't always happen in the biggest cities. What unfolded here left marks on the community that are still visible today. The full story is more complicated, and more human, than the version most people know.
Episode 191 | Hometown History | Hosted by Shane Waters
Hometown History explores forgotten stories from small-town America. The overlooked events, hidden triumphs, and buried tragedies that shaped the country we live in. New episodes every Tuesday. Find every episode at mythsandmalice.com/hometown-history

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
22 min
March 03 Hazardville, Connecticut: When Gunpowder Made—and Destroyed—a Town
January 14, 1913. Hazardville, Connecticut. A winter morning at the old powder mills, now operating under the Hercules Powder name for exactly 30 days. Workers Charles Blunden and Jacob Stocker went about their routines, same as they had for years. The machinery hummed. The river flowed past stone walls built to contain disasters. Then four blasts ripped through the mill in rapid succession. The sound reached Hartford, over 20 miles away.
TIMELINE
1835: The story begins in 1835, along the Scantic River in northern Connecticut.
1843: By 1843, Augustus Hazard was the principal owner.
1854: In 1854, the residents of the village held a town meeting and voted to rename their community.
1855: On April 4th, 1855, 23-year-old Horace Hazard was working at his father's powder mill when an explosion killed him instantly.
1868: Augustus Hazard was 66 years old when he died in 1868, 13 years after Horace's death.
1913: On January 14, 1913, an errant spark ignited a chain reaction.
WHY THIS MATTERS
The story of Hazardville is a reminder that the events that shaped America didn't always happen in the biggest cities. What unfolded here left marks on the community that are still visible today. The full story is more complicated, and more human, than the version most people know.
Episode 190 | Hometown History | Hosted by Shane Waters
Hometown History explores forgotten stories from small-town America. The overlooked events, hidden triumphs, and buried tragedies that shaped the country we live in. New episodes every Tuesday. Find every episode at mythsandmalice.com/hometown-history

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
17 min
February 24 Ord, Nebraska: The Teenage Teacher Who Saved 13 Children in the 1888 Blizzard
Ord, Nebraska. January 12th, 1888. Morning. A one-room schoolhouse six miles south of Ord, Nebraska. 40 degrees in January. Unseasonably warm. The morning where farm kids arrive without their heavy coats because it feels like spring decided to show up three months early. Minnie Freeman, 19 years old, is teaching her first real class. 13 students, ages 6 to 14. And there's Frankie Gibbon in the back row, not paying attention to arithmetic because he's playing with something else, a ball of twine.
WHY THIS MATTERS
The story of Ord is a reminder that the events that shaped America didn't always happen in the biggest cities. What unfolded here left marks on the community that are still visible today. The full story is more complicated, and more human, than the version most people know.
Episode 189 | Hometown History | Hosted by Shane Waters
Hometown History explores forgotten stories from small-town America. The overlooked events, hidden triumphs, and buried tragedies that shaped the country we live in. New episodes every Tuesday. Find every episode at mythsandmalice.com/hometown-history

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
18 min
February 17 Lewistown, Montana: When the Guide Became the Killer (1889)
Lewistown, Montana, 1889. Mid-June, 1889. The Judith River runs cold through central Montana Territory. The water flows down from the Little Belt Mountains, snaking through grassland where cattle ranches have only just begun to replace the buffalo herds. A rancher riding his property spots something caught against the rocks near samples crossing. At first, he thinks it's driftwood. Then, he gets closer. A body. A woman, face down. Well-dressed. Too well-dressed for drowning. Before the weekends, four more will surface.
WHY THIS MATTERS
The story of Lewistown is a reminder that the events that shaped America didn't always happen in the biggest cities. What unfolded here left marks on the community that are still visible today. The full story is more complicated, and more human, than the version most people know.
Episode 188 | Hometown History | Hosted by Shane Waters
Hometown History explores forgotten stories from small-town America. The overlooked events, hidden triumphs, and buried tragedies that shaped the country we live in. New episodes every Tuesday. Find every episode at mythsandmalice.com/hometown-history

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
20 min
February 10 Globe, Arizona: The Curse of Room 18—Two Miners, One Deadly Room
Globe, Arizona. Saturday night, November 16th, 1907. Approaching midnight in Globe, Arizona's red-light district, two Globe police officers found him lying in the dirt. A 25-year-old Finnish miner named Richard Veklund. He'd been drugged and robbed. His pockets were empty. Over a hundred dollars, gone. The officers tried to rouse him, asked where he lived. Veklund managed to open his eyes. In a voice so weak they could barely hear him, he whispered, Room 18, International. The officers froze.
TIMELINE
1900: Globe's population exploded from around 1,200 people in 1900 to somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 by 1906.
1906: The first murder began in late October, 1906, a little over a year before Veclund's death.
1907: On November 20, 1907, officers made three arrests.
WHY THIS MATTERS
The story of Globe is a reminder that the events that shaped America didn't always happen in the biggest cities. What unfolded here left marks on the community that are still visible today. The full story is more complicated, and more human, than the version most people know.
Episode 187 | Hometown History | Hosted by Shane Waters
If you liked this: Episode 80 (Grand Canyon, Arizona)
Hometown History explores forgotten stories from small-town America. The overlooked events, hidden triumphs, and buried tragedies that shaped the country we live in. New episodes every Tuesday. Find every episode at mythsandmalice.com/hometown-history

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
21 min
January 27 Taos, New Mexico: The Headless Body in the Fortress Mansion
Taos, New Mexico. On the morning of July 3rd, 1929, U.S. Deputy Marshal Jim Martinez stood outside Arthur Rothford Manphy's fortress-like mansion in the heart of Taos, New Mexico. He'd come to serve legal papers to the 70-year-old Englishman, but the moment he approached the back door, he knew something was quite wrong. Flies. Hundreds of them. Blackening the screen door, their buzzing audible from 20 feet away. Martinez scaled the high adobe wall.
TIMELINE
1848: After the Mexican-American War ended in 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo promised to protect existing Spanish land grants.
1883: Arthur Rotsford Manby arrived in New Mexico territory in 1883 at 24 years old.
1884: In 1884, while Manby was still establishing himself in New Mexico, a man named Ross Edmondson was found dead outside Taos.
1897: By 1897, Manby claimed ownership of virtually the entire Martinez Grant.
1920: By 1920, Manby's reputation was so dark that he'd effectively become a pariah.
1929: On the morning of July 3rd, 1929, U.S. Deputy Marshal Jim Martinez stood outside Arthur Rothford Manphy's fortress-like mansion in the heart of Taos, New Mexico.
WHY THIS MATTERS
The story of Taos is a reminder that the events that shaped America didn't always happen in the biggest cities. What unfolded here left marks on the community that are still visible today. The full story is more complicated, and more human, than the version most people know.
Episode 185 | Hometown History | Hosted by Shane Waters
Hometown History explores forgotten stories from small-town America. The overlooked events, hidden triumphs, and buried tragedies that shaped the country we live in. New episodes every Tuesday. Find every episode at mythsandmalice.com/hometown-history

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
20 min
January 20 East Montpelier, Vermont: The 14-Hour Marriage That Ended in Murder
East Montpelier, Vermont. September 5th, 1889, 11 o'clock in the morning. Laura Cutler Gold walked up the path to her family's farm in East Montpelier, Vermont, wearing yesterday's wedding dress. She'd been married for 14 hours. Her new husband, George, stopped at the woodshed to gather kindling for the stove. Inside the farmhouse, the elderly woman Laura had hired as a chaperone was waiting with a warning. Sherman Caswell, the hired hand who'd worked the farm since 1867, was upstairs, and he was drunk.
TIMELINE
1867: Sherman Caswell, the hired hand who'd worked the farm since 1867, was upstairs, and he was drunk.
1884: When William Cutler died in 1884 and his wife Fanny in 1888, their only daughter Laura inherited everything.
1889: September 5th, 1889, 11 o'clock in the morning.
1890: In late March 1890, six months after the murder, the state of Vermont tried James Sherman Caswell for first-degree murder.
1902: In 1902, serving 12 years, Sherman Caswell was pardoned.
1911: Laura continued living with Lucius Gold until her death on April 2, 1911.
WHY THIS MATTERS
The story of East Montpelier is a reminder that the events that shaped America didn't always happen in the biggest cities. What unfolded here left marks on the community that are still visible today. The full story is more complicated, and more human, than the version most people know.
Episode 184 | Hometown History | Hosted by Shane Waters
If you liked this: Episode 195 (Waterbury, Vermont)
Hometown History explores forgotten stories from small-town America. The overlooked events, hidden triumphs, and buried tragedies that shaped the country we live in. New episodes every Tuesday. Find every episode at mythsandmalice.com/hometown-history

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
19 min
January 13 Turtle Lake, North Dakota: The Wolf Family Murders of 1920
Turtle Lake, North Dakota. April 24th, 1920, a farmhouse three miles north of Turtle Lake, North Dakota. In a small bedroom, an eight-month-old baby girl has been crying for two days straight. She's soaked through her diaper, soiled, weakening from hunger and cold, but no one comes to feed her. In the kitchen, by all accounts, five bodies are piled in the root cellar beneath a trapdoor. The mother, the oldest daughter, three younger children, a hired boy, shotgun wounds, hatchet wounds, blood everywhere.
TIMELINE
1920: April 24th, 1920, a farmhouse three miles north of Turtle Lake, North Dakota.
1925: In June 1925, Layer developed appendicitis.
2003: Emma Wolf Hanson lived until 2003.
WHY THIS MATTERS
The story of Turtle Lake is a reminder that the events that shaped America didn't always happen in the biggest cities. What unfolded here left marks on the community that are still visible today. The full story is more complicated, and more human, than the version most people know.
Episode 183 | Hometown History | Hosted by Shane Waters
If you liked this: Episode 169 (Wahpeton, North Dakota)
Hometown History explores forgotten stories from small-town America. The overlooked events, hidden triumphs, and buried tragedies that shaped the country we live in. New episodes every Tuesday. Find every episode at mythsandmalice.com/hometown-history

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
24 min
January 06 Boise City, Oklahoma: The Night America Bombed Its Own Town
It's just past midnight on July 5th, 1943, in Boise City, Oklahoma, and Forrest Bork is sound asleep above his post office on the courthouse square when the explosion hits. The whole building shakes. Bork jolts awake, thinking one thing. Someone's cracking the safe downstairs. He creeps to his window in the dark, and there's already a group of men in the alley, staring at his garage across the way. The doors have been blown clean open. There's a crater in the dirt three and a half feet deep.
WHY THIS MATTERS
The story of Boise City is a reminder that the events that shaped America didn't always happen in the biggest cities. What unfolded here left marks on the community that are still visible today. The full story is more complicated, and more human, than the version most people know.
Episode 182 | Hometown History | Hosted by Shane Waters
If you liked this: Episode 174 (Osage County, Oklahoma)
Hometown History explores forgotten stories from small-town America. The overlooked events, hidden triumphs, and buried tragedies that shaped the country we live in. New episodes every Tuesday. Find every episode at mythsandmalice.com/hometown-history

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
20 min
January 03 Opelousas, Louisiana: The Boy Two Mothers Claimed—A 92-Year DNA Mystery
Opelousas, Louisiana. Columbia, Mississippi, April 1913. Julia Anderson walked into the sheriff's office, holding a photograph of her son Bruce. She'd been told the boy they'd found matched his description. Five years old, light hair, distinctive scars. But when they brought the child out, he looked at Julia with blank eyes. No recognition. No mama. Just fear. The sheriff asked, is this your boy? Julia Anderson studied his face. The moles didn't match her memory. The scars weren't quite right.
TIMELINE
1912: Opelousas in 1912 was a prosperous town of about 5,000 folks sitting in the heart of Cajun country.
1913: On April 12, 1913, authorities arrested Wolters in Columbia, Mississippi.
1966: Bobby Dunbar had died in 1966, but Bobby Dunbar Jr. approached his cousin, Margaret Dunbar Cutright, about DNA testing.
2004: In 2004, DNA testing proved they'd all been wrong.
WHY THIS MATTERS
The story of Opelousas is a reminder that the events that shaped America didn't always happen in the biggest cities. What unfolded here left marks on the community that are still visible today. The full story is more complicated, and more human, than the version most people know.
Episode 186 | Hometown History | Hosted by Shane Waters
Hometown History explores forgotten stories from small-town America. The overlooked events, hidden triumphs, and buried tragedies that shaped the country we live in. New episodes every Tuesday. Find every episode at mythsandmalice.com/hometown-history

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
24 min

About Hometown History

From the publisher's feed

Discover forgotten stories from small-town America that never made it into history books. Hometown History is the podcast uncovering hidden American history—overlooked events, local mysteries, and…