The Continent of St. Louis

The Continent of St. Louis
Author: J. L. Reynolds
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2008-03-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 146785736X

Southern Californians had long been accustomed to the occasional jolts of small earthquakes, and for the most part had come to ignore the small jolts and considered them as more of a reminder that they lived in an area that was dissected by the great San Andreas Fault along with many other smaller fault lines. Vince Davis, the director of the Seismic Center located in San Diego, California, had been awakened from sleep at 2:00 AM the morning of August 18th, 2009 by the jolt of a small earthquake, not unlike many others he had experienced since moving to San Diego and taking over his position as director of the facility. He felt no urgency in regard to the earthquake, knowing the Seismic Center would be monitoring the quake. What he didn’t know, but would soon learn, was that the small quake was just the beginning of something more devastating and ominous. Something that he and his assistant, Jim Lewis, never imagined could happen. The two, caught up in the disaster, would band together with a group of new found and dedicated allies, forming a courageous force of defiant individuals. The government of the United States, no longer viable, crumbled and fell apart under the fury of the all-consuming disaster. Military and government officials alike deserted their posts, as Washington and the White House burned. If the group was going to survive, they would have to find their own way, and do so by their own means. In a short period of 35 days, they would find themselves in a constant struggle against nature and the enemies they would encounter along the way. He and his allies are ultimately forced to abandon their mountaintop headquarters and go to St. Louis, where they will have to make their last stand and face the power of the mighty New Madrid Fault.

Crossroads of a Continent

Crossroads of a Continent
Author: Peter A. Hansen
Publisher: Railroads Past and Present
Total Pages: 440
Release: 2022-08-09
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 9780253062369

Crossroads of a Continent: The Missouri Railroad tells the story of the state's railroads and their vital role in American history. Missouri and St. Louis, its largest city, are strategically located within the American Heartland. On July 4, 1851, when the Pacific Railroad of Missouri began construction in St. Louis, the city took its first step to becoming a major hub for railroads. By the 1920s, the state was crisscrossed with railways reaching toward all points of the compass. Authors Peter A. Hansen, Don L. Hofsommer, and Carlos Arnaldo Schwantes explore the history of Missouri railroads through personal, absorbing tales of the cutthroat competition between cities and between railroads that meant the difference between prosperity and obscurity, the ambitions and dreams of visionaries Fred Harvey and Arthur Stilwell, and the country's excitement over the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904. Beautifully illustrated with over 100 color images of historical railway ephemera, Crossroads of a Continent is an engaging history of key American railroads and of Missouri's critical contribution to the American story.

Mapping Decline

Mapping Decline
Author: Colin Gordon
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2014-09-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 0812291506

Once a thriving metropolis on the banks of the Mississippi, St. Louis, Missouri, is now a ghostly landscape of vacant houses, boarded-up storefronts, and abandoned factories. The Gateway City is, by any measure, one of the most depopulated, deindustrialized, and deeply segregated examples of American urban decay. "Not a typical city," as one observer noted in the late 1970s, "but, like a Eugene O'Neill play, it shows a general condition in a stark and dramatic form." Mapping Decline examines the causes and consequences of St. Louis's urban crisis. It traces the complicity of private real estate restrictions, local planning and zoning, and federal housing policies in the "white flight" of people and wealth from the central city. And it traces the inadequacy—and often sheer folly—of a generation of urban renewal, in which even programs and resources aimed at eradicating blight in the city ended up encouraging flight to the suburbs. The urban crisis, as this study of St. Louis makes clear, is not just a consequence of economic and demographic change; it is also the most profound political failure of our recent history. Mapping Decline is the first history of a modern American city to combine extensive local archival research with the latest geographic information system (GIS) digital mapping techniques. More than 75 full-color maps—rendered from census data, archival sources, case law, and local planning and property records—illustrate, in often stark and dramatic ways, the still-unfolding political history of our neglected cities.

The Broken Heart of America

The Broken Heart of America
Author: Walter Johnson
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 502
Release: 2020-04-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 1541646061

A searing portrait of the racial dynamics that lie inescapably at the heart of our nation, told through the turbulent history of the city of St. Louis. From Lewis and Clark's 1804 expedition to the 2014 uprising in Ferguson, American history has been made in St. Louis. And as Walter Johnson shows in this searing book, the city exemplifies how imperialism, racism, and capitalism have persistently entwined to corrupt the nation's past. St. Louis was a staging post for Indian removal and imperial expansion, and its wealth grew on the backs of its poor black residents, from slavery through redlining and urban renewal. But it was once also America's most radical city, home to anti-capitalist immigrants, the Civil War's first general emancipation, and the nation's first general strike—a legacy of resistance that endures. A blistering history of a city's rise and decline, The Broken Heart of America will forever change how we think about the United States.

St. Louis Plans

St. Louis Plans
Author: Mark Tranel
Publisher: Missouri History Museum
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2007
Genre: City planning
ISBN: 1883982618

"Reviews the history of various aspects of planning in St. Louis City and County and provides insight into planning successes and challenges"--Provided by publisher.

St. Louis

St. Louis
Author: John Aaron Wright
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780738533629

Since the founding of St. Louis, African Americans have lived in communities throughout the area. Although St. Louis' 1916 "Segregation of the Negro Ordinance" was ruled unconstitutional, African Americans were restricted to certain areas through real estate practices such as steering and red lining. Through legal efforts in the court cases of Shelley v. Kraemer in 1948, Jones v. Mayer in 1978, and others, more housing options became available and the population dispersed. Many of the communities began to decline, disappear, or experience urban renewal.

Abandoned in the Heartland

Abandoned in the Heartland
Author: Jennifer Hamer
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2011-09-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0520950178

Urban poverty, along with all of its poignant manifestations, is moving from city centers to working-class and industrial suburbs in contemporary America. Nowhere is this more evident than in East St. Louis, Illinois. Once a thriving manufacturing and transportation center, East St. Louis is now known for its unemployment, crime, and collapsing infrastructure. Abandoned in the Heartland takes us into the lives of East St. Louis’s predominantly African American residents to find out what has happened since industry abandoned the city, and jobs, quality schools, and city services disappeared, leaving people isolated and imperiled. Jennifer Hamer introduces men who search for meaning and opportunity in dead-end jobs, women who often take on caretaking responsibilities until well into old age, and parents who have the impossible task of protecting their children in this dangerous, and literally toxic, environment. Illustrated with historical and contemporary photographs showing how the city has changed over time, this book, full of stories of courage and fortitude, offers a powerful vision of the transformed circumstances of life in one American suburb.