"It's not the usual boring history read. It's a fast-paced, easy-to-read, behind the scenes look at the making of Iowa and Illinois focusing on Western Illinois and Eastern Iowa. When you're done reading it, you might even scratch your head and think--Oh, yeah! That's what Mrs. So and so was talking about back in seventh grade. And, I tell you what. We're going to skip all the boring parts, like dates, politics, and founding fathers. We're going to go straight to the fun stuff ... Indian wars. Murder. Suicide. Incest. Robberies. Killer storms. Of course, there's more ... The Black Hawk War, Jesse James in Iowa, the grasshopper plague, a short compendium of suicides, murders, and more. And, did I mention, in 1857 Iowa was at the forefront of a new lynching craze that spread across the nation. Between April and December of 1857, sixteen men met their maker at the end of a rope. Many more were whipped within an inch of their lives or given orders to move on or die. Such was life and death on the Iowa-Illinois Frontier ..."--Page 4 of cover