Murder, Madness, and Mayhem on the Iowa Illinois Frontier

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 Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois. When you're done reading it, you might even scratch your head and think - Oh, yeah! That's what Mrs. So, and So tried to tell me back in seventh-grade history class.

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 right to the fun stuff... Indian Wars. Murder. Suicide. Incest. Robberies. Killer storms.

If you live in Davenport, you're going to learn about the murder of the town's namesake, Colonel George Davenport, and get a few words about how he fathered two children by his stepdaughter, and another by a washerwoman at Fort Armstrong.

If you live in Nauvoo, Illinois we're going to review the Mormon Wars and their trek across Iowa on the way to their new home in Utah.

If you live in Camanche or DeWitt, Iowa, or Albany, Illinois, you're going to get a first-hand look at the Great Tornado of 1860 and how it killed over 150 people as it cut its way from Cedar Rapids, Iowa to Whiteside County, Illinois.

If you live in Rockdale or Dubuque, Iowa, you're going to read about the Rockdale Flood and how it destroyed every house in town and killed over 39 people in less than an hour.

Of course, there's more... The Black Hawk War, Jessie 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 lynch craze that was spreading 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 or their lives then given orders to move on or die.

Such was life on the Iowa-Illinois Frontier...