Remembering Ellicott City

Remembering Ellicott City
Author: Janet Kusterer
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 120
Release: 2009-02-02
Genre: Photography
ISBN: 161423289X

Abolitionists, Patriots and innovators have all carved indelible marks on the granite crags of Ellicott City. With wit and determination, they established a tightly knit community that has thrived upon the rocky banks of the Patapsco River for over two hundred years. Janet Kusterer and Victoria Goeller bring together a fascinating history of their beloved city with colorful firsthand accounts by local residents. These beguiling vignettes paint the portrait of a city and its people, from early African American inventor and author Benjamin Banneker to the "Crime Stopper Bunny." Catch a glimpse of a community that is fiercely proud of its history as Kusterer and Goeller invite their readers into the heart of historic Ellicott City.

Haunted Ellicott City

Haunted Ellicott City
Author: Shelley Davies Wygant
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2018-09-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 1439665133

In this comprehensive compilation of ghost stories and local legends, Shelley Wygant explores the history and horrors of a village that somehow lives on. Beginning with its founding in 1772, Ellicott City endured an endless procession of tragic deaths. As a result, this eighteenth-century mill town is packed with restless spirits and unexplained supernatural occurrences. A mysterious artist haunts Castle Angelo and threatens to throw residents into the river below. Many of the temporary occupants of the former Easton and Sons Funeral Home seem to have remained, and the ghost of Annie Van Derlot still inhabits the ruins of the Patapsco Female Institute.

The Enchanted Forest: Memories of Maryland's Storybook Park

The Enchanted Forest: Memories of Maryland's Storybook Park
Author: Janet Kusterer
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2013-08-13
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 1625845944

Rediscover the magic of the Enchanted Forest in this history of Maryland's Storybook Park, the first children's theme park on the East Coast. The history of the Enchanted Forest is one of magical beginnings. When it first opened in 1955, Ellicott City's storybook land became the first children's theme park on the East Coast. Young visitors could climb aboard rides like the Little Toot tugboat, Mother Goose and Ali Baba or encounter animals like peacocks and burros. Upon its closing in 1989, Marylanders who cherished memories of the Enchanted Forest were deeply disappointed. However, many of the park's beloved figures were moved to nearby Clark's Elioak Farm, where they were restored and displayed to the delight of new generations. Even today, the farm is a popular destination that evokes the whimsical spirit of the iconic park. Local author Janet Kusterer and Martha Anne Clark of Elioak Farm trace the park's history through vintage images and interviews with the Harrison family, former employees and visitors. Join Kusterer and Clark to rediscover the magic of the Enchanted Forest.

Remembering Dixie

Remembering Dixie
Author: Susan T. Falck
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 375
Release: 2019-08-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 1496824423

Nearly seventy years after the Civil War, Natchez, Mississippi, sold itself to Depression-era tourists as a place “Where the Old South Still Lives.” Tourists flocked to view the town’s decaying antebellum mansions, hoopskirted hostesses, and a pageant saturated in sentimental Lost Cause imagery. In Remembering Dixie: The Battle to Control Historical Memory in Natchez, Mississippi, 1865–1941, Susan T. Falck analyzes how the highly biased, white historical memories of what had been a wealthy southern hub originated from the experiences and hardships of the Civil War. These collective narratives eventually culminated in a heritage tourism enterprise still in business today. Additionally, the book includes new research on the African American community’s robust efforts to build historical tradition, most notably, the ways in which African Americans in Natchez worked to create a distinctive postemancipation identity that challenged the dominant white structure. Using a wide range of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century sources—many of which have never been fully mined before—Falck reveals the ways in which black and white Natchezians of all classes, male and female, embraced, reinterpreted, and contested Lost Cause ideology. These memory-making struggles resulted in emotional, internecine conflicts that shaped the cultural character of the community and impacted the national understanding of the Old South and the Confederacy as popular culture. Natchez remains relevant today as a microcosm for our nation’s modern-day struggles with Lost Cause ideology, Confederate monuments, racism, and white supremacy. Falck reveals how this remarkable story played out in one important southern community over several generations in vivid detail and richly illustrated analysis.

After the Floods

After the Floods
Author: Ken Conca
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2024-09-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0197788092

One small town, two "thousand-year floods" in the span of two years: how does a community become resilient in the face of the ever-increasing risks of climate change? Small towns across America and around the world face mounting challenges with flood risk, a result of not only climate change but also poorly adapted landscapes, sprawl, overdevelopment and poor planning. After the Floods is about Ellicott City, a small town in central Maryland that experienced two devastating flash floods just 22 months apart. Despite the town's many advantages—wealth, access to expertise, a mobilized community, and a stout identity steeped in 250 years of history—Ellicott City found itself mired in a deeply divisive argument over what to do in the aftermath. As a resident, Ken Conca bore firsthand witness to the conflict that took root when the flood waters receded. While this book is about one residential suburb, the dilemmas that it faces over how to adapt to climate change are coming soon to a small town near you. On one level a story about re-engineering a landscape, After the Floods ultimately grapples with uncertainty over local history, justice, democracy, and identity. What can we know about future risks to our communities? What is the meaning of place and history when preservation goals come into conflict with flood protection? What should we protect? Who gets to speak for the community? In Ellicott City's search for answers, we can find important lessons for other small communities that must begin preparing for future climate risks.

Lies Beneath Ellicott City

Lies Beneath Ellicott City
Author: P. J. Allen
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2019-08-31
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1728323444

Corrosive greed, public corruption, and environmental degradation intertwine in small, historic Ellicott City, on the Patapsco River that feeds into the Chesapeake Bay. Jack Tasker is a typical thirteen-year-old, save for being the nephew of a not so typical uncle, Ben Tasker, a loving surrogate dad though an irascible newspaper man. When the skeletal remains of a young girl, over a century old, surface at the reportedly haunted Patapsco Female Institute, the police are compelled to search the grounds for more bodies. Surprisingly, they find a newly murdered John Doe. Immediately Ben and Jack are also on the case. While the two pursue clues on the Institute grounds, an apparition surreptitiously leads them to discover a backpack in the hollow of a tree. Ben and Jack realize they have opened a Pandora’s box that could jeopardize forever the health and well-being of millions who rely on the Chesapeake watershed.

Perspectives on Violence and Violent Death

Perspectives on Violence and Violent Death
Author: Robert Stevenson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2017-03-02
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1351842285

This book examines violence. It looks at the nature and types of violence, the causes of violence, and the emotional wake left by violent episodes. In the twentieth century, the world experienced two world wars and countless other wars. Many millions died violent deaths from murder, death squads, purges, riots, revolutions, ethnic cleansing, rape, robbery, domestic violence, suicide, gang violence, terrorist acts, genocide, and in many other ways. As we entered the twenty-first century, we experienced 9/11, the Red Lake School deaths, suicide bombers, and more mass death brought about by the actions of governments, revolutionaries, terrorists, and still more wars. The need to better understand violence, both lethal and non-lethal, to become aware of the many forms of violence, and to learn how to survive in the aftermath of violent death are the focus of "Perspectives on Violence and Violent Death."

In the Arms of Evil

In the Arms of Evil
Author: Carlton Smith
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2010-03-30
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1429935480

Nancy Jean Siegel of Maryland became addicted to gambling during her first marriage. Sneaking off to Atlantic City—and sinking deeper and deeper into debt—she began stealing identities, conning family members, and leaving two ex-husbands buried in bills. Then she sold cemetery plots door-to-door and met Jack Watkins, a man thirty years her senior. He not only bought a grave site from the attractive younger woman, he leased a car for her, sold his house and gave her the proceeds. But Nancy wanted more... Watkins' body was found in a steamer trunk near the Appalachian Trail. Half-naked and strangled, he remained unidentified for more than six years. Meanwhile, Nancy cashed his Social Security checks and opened new lines of credit under his name. By the time the police tracked her down, she had committed bank fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, and more. New York Times bestselling author Carlton Smith takes you inside the greed, the gambling, and one gruesome murder—to question the very nature of evil...