The Riverlands

In the Season 1 finale, we bring you part two of the story of Reelfoot Lake. What began as a series of protests against a wealthy businessman blocking local access to drain and log the lake, quickly morphed into something much darker and violent. We hope you enjoy the story of the Nightriders of Reelfoot Lake!

In Northwest Tennessee, just across the Mississippi river from New Madrid, Missouri is a flooded cypress forest called Reelfoot lake.  Spanning 15,000 acres, this shallow, peaceful lake is a birding and fishing paradise. But despite it's placid waters, Reelfoot Lake and the region it inhabits has a grim history starting with it's violent creation as a result of the New Madrid Earthquake. In this first episode of a two part series, we tell the story of one of the largest earthquakes in recorded US history and how it changed the geography of the Riverlands.

Katherine from the Mourning Society of St. Louis returns to discuss the history of American Spiritualism and the group's upcoming event on the topic. Spiritualism was a religious movement that became popular during the Victorian era, and centered around the belief in the existence of the human spirit beyond the grave and the ability of some to communicate with these spirits. We hope you enjoy learning about spiritualism as much as we did!

In this musical episode of the Riverlands we speak to musician Stace England, a singer/song writer from Southern Illinois, about his writing process and why he chooses to tell these stories. Stace's ability to capture a story and atmosphere into song drew us to him and his music. During our discussion, we realized we were all chasing the same stories and the same monsters. We hope you enjoy this episode! Be sure to check out more of Stace's music on youtube or Spotify!

Richard joins us to share his first hand accounts of high strangeness in Western Illinois. He shares stories about the Argyle Monster, Sasquatch and something....even stranger. We hope you enjoy his stories as much as we did! Thanks for listening! The photos mentioned in this episode can be found in our show notes.

Dr. Michael Lorenzen joined us from Western Illinois University to discuss his research into the bigfoot phenomenon in Western Illinois. Dr. Lorenzen emphasizes the importance of primary sources in his research and is dedicated to documenting them. He shares his research philosophy with us, insights into good research practices and several historical accounts from Western Illinois. You can find the resources Dr. Lorenzen shared with us in our show notes.

Our story in this episode originates straight from out of the tent revivals of old, and ends with a pyramid built deep in the Ozark hills. This story has it all: UFOs. Nazis. Sex. Murder. The death of a wealthy widow at the Yahweh City Commune in Phelps County, Missouri kicked off a series of events that caused a whole scheme to unravel. A scheme of a man who promised salvation from an impeding nuclear holocaust via thousands of UFOs, if you could pay for it. Joseph Jeffers was the self proclaimed Messiah of the Yahweh cult and founder of Yahweh City. This is his story.

In this bonus episode, we sit down with Joe Tury of RedRoom Creative Media to discuss his latest documentary, Creature from Big Muddy: An Illinois Bigfoot Legend. The Creature from Big Muddy explores the legendary Big Muddy Monster that lurks around the town of Murphysboro, Illinois. The lore of the Big Muddy Monster centers around a series of alleged Sasquatch or Bigfoot sightings in and around the Murphysboro area, particularly near the Big Muddy river. You can find more information about the documentary in our show notes.

In this bonus episode, we sit down with Joe Tury of RedRoom Creative Media to discuss his latest documentary, Creature from Big Muddy: An Illinois Bigfoot Legend. The Creature from Big Muddy explores the legendary Big Muddy Monster that lurks around the town of Murphysboro, Illinois. The lore of the Big Muddy Monster centers around a series of alleged Sasquatch or Bigfoot sightings in and around the Murphysboro area, particularly near the Big Muddy river. You can find more information about the documentary in our show notes.

This episode features a discussion with Katherine from the Mourning Society of St. Louis about historical mourning, death culture and funeral customs. The Mourning Society of St. Louis is a civilian reenactment group that brings historical funerals to life as public educational events. The group hosts several events throughout the year and if you’re interested, you can find more information at mourningsociety.com or on social media. We were especially excited to learn more about the Mourning Society because they are the only reenactment group of their kind, located right here in the Riverlands. We hope you learn as much as we did!