Boomtown Columbus

"Fort Benning's history tells the story of the US infantry. For most of a century, Fort Benning's infantry school has graduated the soldiers who lead as well as the fighting foot soldiers in the dirt and mud. Founded on farm land in Georgia, it has been one of the US Army's premier installations from the days of the Doughboys to a more modern era where Rangers proudly wear their Ranger berets." "Fort Benning's long history has produced an impressive alumni list. Eisenhower coached its football team. Marshall rewrote the curriculum. Patton pushed men to prepare for battle. Bradley organized its Officer Candidate School, a source for men of rank in World War II. Powell and Schwarzkopf were honor graduates, as were Eaton and Freakley and other heroes from the sands of Iraq." "Fort Benning trained soldiers in the art of the bayonet. It prepared them to jump out of airplanes. It discovered the mobility and power of helicopters. It honed the technology of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. It has set the table for war in the trenches, war on the ground, war in the air, and war in the desert. Infantry has led the way and so has Fort Benning. It truly is the Home of the Infantry."--BOOK JACKET.

Brewing in Columbus began more than two centuries ago. The taps were only turned off during Prohibition and the short pause that preceded the modern craft beer explosion. For generations, names such as Hoster, Born, Schlee and Wagner secured staunch local loyalty for their brands and earned national acclaim for their brewmasters. Today, more than thirty craft breweries ply a prosperous trade in the capital city. After huge California craft brewery Stone became serious about Columbus for its East Coast expansion, Scotland's successful BrewDog chose central Ohio for its U.S. beachhead. Author Curtis Schieber celebrates the rise, fall and triumphant return of brewing in Ohio's capital.

The town of White Oaks, New Mexico Territory, was born in 1879 when prospectors discovered gold at nearby Baxter Mountain. In Gold-Mining Boomtown, Roberta Key Haldane offers an intimate portrait of the southeastern New Mexico community by profiling more than forty families and individuals who made their homes there during its heyday. Today, fewer than a hundred people live in White Oaks. Its frontier incarnation, located a scant twenty-eight miles from the notorious Lincoln, is remembered largely because of its association with famous westerners. Billy the Kid and his gang were familiar visitors to the town. When a popular deputy was gunned down in 1880, the citizens resolved to rid their community of outlaws. Pat Garrett, running for sheriff of Lincoln County, was soon campaigning in White Oaks. But there was more to the town than gold mining and frontier violence. In addition to outlaws, lawmen, and miners, Haldane introduces readers to ranchers, doctors, saloonkeepers, and stagecoach owners. José Aguayo, a lawyer from an old Spanish family, defended Billy the Kid, survived the Lincoln County War, and moved to the White Oaks vicinity in 1890, where his family became famous for the goat cheese they sold to the town’s elite. Readers also meet a New England sea captain and his wife (a Samoan princess, no less), a black entrepreneur, Chinese miners, the “Cattle Queen of New Mexico,” and an undertaker with an international criminal past. The White Oaks that Haldane uncovers—and depicts with lively prose and more than 250 photographs—is a microcosm of the Old West in its diversity and evolution from mining camp to thriving burg to the near–ghost town it is today. Anyone interested in the history of the Southwest will enjoy this richly detailed account.

Veteran journalist and author Sherry Robinson presents readers with the first full biography of New Mexico's first territorial governor, James Silas Calhoun. Robinson explores Calhoun's early life in Georgia and his military service in the Mexican War and how they led him west. Through exhaustive research Robinson shares Calhoun's story of arriving in New Mexico in 1849--a turbulent time in the region--to serve as its first Indian agent. Inhabitants were struggling to determine where their allegiances lay; they had historic and cultural ties with Mexico, but the United States offered an abundance of possibilities. An accomplished attorney, judge, legislator, and businessman and an experienced speaker and negotiator who spoke Spanish, Calhoun was uniquely qualified to serve as the first territorial governor only eighteen months into his service. While his time on the New Mexico political scene was brief, he served with passion, intelligence, and goodwill, making him one of the most intriguing political figures in the history of New Mexico.

This book looks at why people keep using identities even after the stories from which they were constructed have been rejected.

John Milton—a true son of the South— endeavored to find ways in which to keep Florida relevant to the Confederate cause. Under Milton, Florida was a key contributor of supplies for the Confederate Army. supplies. By pledging men, beef, and salt among other supplies, Milton gave credence to Florida’s war effort. However, poor strategizing, blockades, and lack of military might led to several failed attempts to overcome the Union armies infiltrating the Florida coast. Left to defend themselves from the enemy with little help from their Confederate compatriots, Floridians grew increasingly disenchanted with their government’s dismissive attitude. Over the course of the war, they were caught between survival and secession. With little resources remaining, survival was the only way for the state to maintain itself. Left disillusioned, the embattled Milton took matters into his own hands, refusing to submit to the impending surrender secession and the ignominy of defeat. Warrior at Heart is an in-depth study of Florida’s Southern history during the Civil War. Historian John Adams gives detailed analyses of not only the economic dynamics reasons for the South to wage war, but also the events that shaped John Milton’s role in the war effort. www.warrioratheartbooks.com

On January 10, 1901, Beaumont awoke to the historic roar of the Spindletop gusher. A flood of frantic fortune seekers heard its call and quickly descended on the town. Over the next three decades, Texas's first oil rush transformed the sparsely populated rural state practically beyond recognition. Brothels, bordellos and slums overran sleepy towns, and thick, black oil spilled over once-green pastures. While dreams came true for a precious few, most settled for high-risk, dangerous jobs in the oilfields and passed what spare time they had in the vice districts fueled by crude. From the violent shanties of Desdemona and Mexia to Borger and beyond, wildcat speculators, grifters and barons took the land for all it was worth. Author Bartee Haile explores the story of these wild and wooly boomtowns.