Hometown History

By Shane WatersSociety & Culture True Crime History

Hometown History episodes

January 03 Opelousas, Louisiana: The Boy Two Mothers Claimed—A 92-Year DNA Mystery
186: Opelousas, Louisiana: The Boy Two Mothers Claimed, A 92-Year DNA Mystery
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

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24 min
December 30, 2025 Edgefield, South Carolina: The Devil's Bargain Murder Trial of 1850
March 1849. Workers searching the woods between Edgefield and Abbeville County, South Carolina, stumbled across a shallow grave. Inside, the decomposing body of a man. The coroner arrived, examined the remains, recorded his findings in careful detail, the clinical precision that shows up in death records of the era. Cause of death, a leaden ball shot from a gun or pistol by the hands of some person or persons unknown.
TIMELINE
1740: South Carolina's Negro Act of 1740 prohibited enslaved people from giving sworn testimony in court, especially against white defendants.
1839: The courthouse still stands today, a handsome brick building completed in 1839, designed by Charles Beck, associate of South Carolina's famous architect, Robert Mills.
1847: When Matilda's father died in 1847, his estate was divided among his children, and South Carolina's coverture laws created quite the deadly incentive structure.
1849: By October 1849, the case had generated intense public interest.
1850: On February 10, 1850, roughly four months after his conviction, Martin Posey was executed by hanging in Edgefield.
WHY THIS MATTERS
The story of Edgefield 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 181 | Hometown History | Hosted by Shane Waters
If you liked this: Episode 99 (West Columbia, South Carolina)
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

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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
22 min
December 23, 2025 Hagerstown, Indiana: The Blind Engineer Who Invented Cruise Control
Hagerstown, Indiana. September 1908, Philadelphia train station. 18-year-old Ralph Teeter stands on the platform, one suitcase in hand. It contains a year's worth of clothes. He's traveled alone from Hagerstown, Indiana, a town of 2,000 people. Everyone knows him there. The streets are memorized. Every building corner echoes back his location through the click of his metal-tipped shoes. Philadelphia is chaos, unfamiliar, uncharted. Ralph is here because the University of Michigan rejected him.
TIMELINE
1896: Hagerstown, Indiana in 1896 was the kind of place where everyone knew everyone.
1902: The New York Herald ran a story about him in December 1902.
1936: President of the Society of Automotive Engineers in 1936.
1995: According to Ralph's daughter, Marjorie, who wrote her father's biography in 1995, essentially they lived their lives as if Ralph could see normally.
WHY THIS MATTERS
The story of Hagerstown 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 180 | Hometown History | Hosted by Shane Waters
If you liked this: Episode 104 (Brown County, Indiana)
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
16 min
December 16, 2025 Gay Head, Massachusetts: 103 Souls Lost Half a Mile from Shore
Gay Head, Massachusetts. At 3.45 in the morning, on January 18, 1884, the lookout aboard the passenger steamer City of Columbus screams a warning into the darkness. Devil's Bridge buoy is off the port bow. It should be starboard. Second mate Edward Harding yells, heart a port, but it's too late. The ship strikes jagged underwater rocks at full speed. The grinding crack tears through the iron hull. The sound echoes across black water like the scream of tearing metal.
WHY THIS MATTERS
The story of Gay Head 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 179 | 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
27 min
December 09, 2025 Gauley Bridge, West Virginia: America's Deadliest Industrial Cover-Up
Gauley Bridge, West Virginia. It's 1931. Dewey Flack is 17 years old when he steps off the train in Gawley Bridge, West Virginia. He came from North Carolina. One-way ticket in hand. A promise. Send home money. His parents and five younger siblings are counting on him. It's the worst year. Of the Great Depression. There are no jobs back home. The tunnel project in West Virginia. It's paying work. It's hope. Two weeks later, Dewey is dead. His lungs filled with white silica dust. So pure it turned them to stone.
TIMELINE
1910: Medical journals documented silicosis by 1910.
1927: Population in 1927, fewer than a thousand people.
1930: Official groundbreaking happens March 31, 1930, just six months after the stock market crash.
1931: By early 1931, just months after work begins, dozens of men are dying.
2012: September 7th, 2012, a historical marker is finally dedicated at Hawk's Nest.
2015: In 2015, the West Virginia Division of Culture and History begins formally documenting the mass burial sites.
WHY THIS MATTERS
The story of Gauley Bridge 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 178 | Hometown History | Hosted by Shane Waters
If you liked this: Episode 177 (Wheeling, West Virginia)
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
December 02, 2025 Wheeling, West Virginia: When Steel Workers Became Radio Stars
Wheeling, West Virginia. It's a Sunday afternoon in late 1939. 3,000 people pack into Wheeling's Capitol Theater, West Virginia's largest venue between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. But they're not here for a movie. They're not here for vaudeville. They're here to watch their neighbors perform on a national radio broadcast. The orchestra tunes up on stage. 42 musicians, machinists, crane operators, stenographers, dressed in matching uniforms. The Steel Sisters rehearse in their harmonies backstage.
TIMELINE
1930: In 1930, historian Ann O'Hare McCormick writes, The radio has been a bigger factor than the press.
1934: Membership in the Amalgamated Association jumps to more than 150,000 by February 1934.
1936: The first broadcast is scheduled for November 8th, 1936.
1937: Wheeling Steel signs a union contract with steel workers in spring 1937.
1938: By 1938, there are more than 600 licensed stations.
WHY THIS MATTERS
The story of Wheeling 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 177 | Hometown History | Hosted by Shane Waters
If you liked this: Episode 178 (Gauley Bridge, West Virginia)
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
25 min
November 25, 2025 Erie, Pennsylvania: The Wall of Water That Killed 36
August 3rd, 1915, downtown Erie, Pennsylvania, 8.45 at night. For the past five hours, an artificial lake has been growing in the middle of the city. Four city blocks flooded, water 30 feet deep in places, held back by a clogged culvert at 26th and State Streets. Fire Chief John McMahon stands at the edge, watching the reservoir rise. All day, police and firefighters have tried to clear the debris, blocking the culvert. They've used dynamite. It didn't work.
TIMELINE
1795: The downtown district was laid out back in 1795 in a Manhattan-style grid.
1835: By 1835, the creek powered four grist mills and thirteen sawmills.
1915: August 3rd, 1915, downtown Erie, Pennsylvania, 8.45 at night.
1917: Construction began in 1917 and finished in 1923.
1923: Since the Mill Creek tube was completed in 1923, Erie has not experienced another major flood from Mill Creek.
WHY THIS MATTERS
The story of Erie 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 176 | 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
23 min
November 18, 2025 Athens, Tennessee: The 1946 GI Rebellion and the Limits of Armed Reform
Athens, Tennessee. It's around 2.30 in the morning on August 2, 1946. The McMinn County Jail in Athens, Tennessee is surrounded. Armed veterans, some estimates say as many as 500, crouch behind storefronts, police cruisers, and the brick walls of the First National Bank across White Street. They've been firing rifles at the jail for six hours. Inside, 50 deputies and county officials huddle away from windows as bullets chip the brick walls. One of the men outside, a Marine named Bill White, nods to the others.
TIMELINE
1945: Approximately 3,000 McMinn County veterans returned from World War II between 1945 and early 1946.
1948: By 1948, Cantrell's political machine was essentially gone, which was a genuine victim.
1969: Bill White, the Marine who'd been there from the beginning, said in a 1969 oral history, shooting it out was not the most desirable solution to political problems.
WHY THIS MATTERS
The story of Athens 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 175 | Hometown History | Hosted by Shane Waters
If you liked this: Episode 73 (Nashville, Tennessee)
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
14 min
November 11, 2025 Osage County, Oklahoma: The Oil Murders That Created the FBI
Osage County, Oklahoma. It's around 3 in the morning on March 10, 1923. In Fairfax, Oklahoma, Rita Smith sleeps in her bedroom. Her husband, Bill, is in the adjacent room. Their teenage white servant, Nettie Brookshire, sleeps upstairs. Five gallons of nitroglycerin sits beneath the house. The explosion obliterates the structure. Neighbors three blocks away feel their windows rattle. The Smith house simply disappears. Rita and Nettie die instantly. Bill survives, barely, with massive injuries.
TIMELINE
1808: Between 1808 and 1839, the Osage ceded 96.8 million acres for approximately $166,000, less than two-tenths of a penny per acre.
1897: In October 1897, the Phoenix Oil Company drilled their first successful well along Butler Creek.
1901: Between 1901 and 1930, 319 million barrels of Oklahoma crude were pumped from Osage County ground.
1908: The Act of May 27, 1908 transferred jurisdiction over Osage minors and incompetents to local Oklahoma County probate courts.
1912: By 1912, lease auctions were held under the famous million-dollar elm tree in Pawhuska.
1923: In 1923, the Osage collectively received over $30 million annually in oil royalties.
WHY THIS MATTERS
The story of Osage County 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 174 | Hometown History | Hosted by Shane Waters
If you liked this: Episode 182 (Boise City, 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
23 min
November 04, 2025 Kalaupapa, Hawai'i: The Saint of Exiles and Hansen's Disease Colony
Kalaupapa, Hawai'i. Imagine a place of breathtaking beauty that is also a prison. Picture what are among the tallest sea cliffs on earth, a sheer wall of green and black stone plunging nearly 4,000 feet into the churning Pacific. This fortress of rock seals off a flat, leaf-shaped peninsula from the world behind it. For centuries, this was a vibrant, sacred part of Hawaii. But in 1866, its profound isolation was weaponized. The Kingdom of Hawaii chose this stunning landscape as a place of permanent exile.
WHY THIS MATTERS
The story of Kalaupapa 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 173 | 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
23 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…