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American Countryside contact information:
Andrew McCrea, American Countryside host
(816) 351-2165
andrew@andrewmccrea.com

Tom Brand, American Countryside producer
(816) 294-2381
tom@tomeros.com

 

January 1, 2025
01Jan25 Best of 2024 – Hawaii Champion Cowboy
The accomplishment was so spectacular it is still remembered over a century later.  A cowboy journeyed thousands of miles to Cheyenne, Wyoming for a chance to become the world’s champion steer roper, and he would do it all with a borrowed horse after riding a ship and train for days…It’s the Best of 2024 with the American Countryside!

December 31, 2024
31Dec24 Best of 2024 – KISS Homecoming
There perhaps has never been a homecoming dance like the 1975 Cadillac, Michigan version.  The students and the entire town were surprised when that year they didn’t just play music, they had a live performance by a very memorable group…It’s the Best of 2024 with the American Countryside!

December 30, 2024
30Dec24 Best of 2024 – Lancaster Circus
Lancaster, Missouri is not a big town, but in the 1920s, the circuses came to town.  And yes, I did use the plural form of the word, because boy did the circus really come to town, for many days each year…It’s the Best of 2024 with the American Countryside!

 

December 27, 2024
27Dec24 Best of 2024 – Little America
This place isn’t really a town, yet it has its own zip code.  Sometimes it’s a bit of a game to see exactly how much or how little you can write on an envelope and still get a letter to arrive here.  Chances are, if you simply write the zip code, it will arrive at this place…It’s the Best of 2024 with the American Countryside!

December 26, 2024
26Dec24 Best of 2024 – Ismay Montana
You’ll need to drive on six miles of gravel roads from the highway to get to the tiny town of Ismay, Montana.  There would really be no need for any visitors to make the trip, but there’s still a few that do and it’s usually because of a story involving a Hall of Fame quarterback who, probably has never visited the place…It’s the Best of 2024 with the American Countryside!

December 25, 2024
25Dec24 Bevin Bells 3
Bells are often associated with the Christmas holiday.  There is one bell in one classic Christmas movie that remains a fixture in many folks’ minds, and a top seller for the company that made the original…

December 24, 2024
24Dec24 Bevin Bells 2
Bells sometimes signal the beginning of a school day or a work day.  At this company, the ringing of the bell is all day, every day.  They’ve been doing this work for about 200 years…

December 23, 2024
23Dec24 Bevin Bells 1
Once upon a time, a farm needed bells.  Bells were used in conjunction with livestock and other pursuits.  Times have changed but this company remains – and they’ll still make bells for farms and much more…

 

December 20, 2024
20Dec24 America’s Stonehenge 2
The Stone family has long enjoyed this spot on a wooded hill in southern New Hampshire.  In fact, they purchased the property a few generations ago and help folks explore an ancient site that still holds plenty of mysteries…

December 19, 2024
19Dec24 America’s Stonehenge 1
Many of us have heard, or perhaps even visited, Stonehenge, the ancient site of giant stones in England.  Did you know that in southern New Hampshire you’ll find what is known as America’s Stonehenge?

December 18, 2024
18Dec24 San Felipe de Austin 2
This was once the second largest city in what is today the state of Texas.  But the site was destroyed by fire and not much was here for decades, until now…

December 17, 2024
17Dec24 San Felipe de Austin 1
Many of us have heard of Stephen F Austin and we know he’s connected to Texas, but exactly how he wound up there is a bit of a mystery…

December 16, 2024
16Dec24 McGulpin Point Lighthouse 2
Many lighthouses are today just historical pieces that harken to the days when lights kept burning through the night to guide ships.  This famous lighthouse still has a beacon that shines and a history that brings many visitors to this part of Michigan…

 

December 13, 2024
13Dec24 McGulpin Point Lighthouse 1
Many have heard of Plymouth Rock, the famous landing spot of the Pilgrims.  But at the northern tip of Michigan, you’ll find another rock, larger in size and well known during the early days of European navigation…

December 12, 2024
12Dec24 Ely Nevada Railway 2
Steam locomotives are a thing of the past, but not everywhere.  A trip to eastern Nevada will show you a place still using those old engines and you can even come here to not only ride the rails, but work for a railroad of old…

December 11, 2024
11Dec24 Ely Nevada Railway 1
In the early 1900s, this area of eastern Nevada saw a boom that brought men and families from all points of the globe to work in an enterprise to fulfill the desire of Americans to experience the latest technology of the day.  It’s amazing how quickly this place grew to meet those needs…

December 10, 2024
10Dec24 Sedona Arizona History 3
Some businesses are known by their iconic logos.  For instance, if I refer to the golden arches, you know it’s McDonald’s…unless you’re here, where the gold just wouldn’t do…

December 9, 2024
09Dec24 Sedona Arizona History 2
Many would say Sedona, Arizona is a beautiful place with a beautiful and unique name.  But where did that name come from?  The is the story of the origin of the title and how this place grew to be a draw for visitors…

 

December 6, 2024
06Dec24 Sedona Arizona History 1
Before Sedona became a draw for tourists, this type of farming drew homesteaders here.  In fact, one important museum there is in the old buildings of a leading farm family of the day…

December 5, 2024
05Dec24 Merle Hay
For many years whenever I drive around the northern edge of Des Moines, on interstates 80 and 35, I have passed the exit for Merle Hay Road.  I’ve often wondered, “who was Merle Hay?”  Today I’ll not only answer that question but tell you why America owes him their gratitude…

December 4, 2024
04Dec24 M&M Divide 2
We’ve all heard of the Continental Divide, but have you heard of the M and M Divide?  That high point can be found here in Iowa and one particular point has quite a story behind it.

December 3, 2024
03Dec24 M&M Divide 1
Before today’s network of interstate highways was built, there were early routes constructed to cross the nation and help the traveling public get places faster.  One such route owed much to the work of farmers who helped build that highway

December 2, 2024
02Dec24 Heider Tractor
In the early 19^th century, many companies began to build tractors.  A wide variety of designs were used to try to help farmers accomplish their work more efficiently.  One of those companies was located in Carroll, IA

 

November 29, 2024
29Nov24 Lakers Plane Crash Carroll 3
Today the Los Angeles Lakers are one of the most recognized teams in the NBA.  But one night in Carroll, Iowa back in 1960, the story of that franchise almost came to an end.  They were the Minneapolis Lakers back then and what took place in that small town is still an event the team remembers today…

November 28, 2024
28Nov24 Berkley Plantation Thanksgiving
You may have thought Thanksgiving dates back to the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony in today’s state of Massachusetts.  But, in a moment we’ll travel to the farm that claims to have held that first feast many years prior…

November 27, 2024
27Nov24 Lakers Plane Crash Carroll 2
During World War II many airplanes made landings on places other that a smooth concrete runway.  The planes of the era were made to stand the force of landing on difficult terrain.  After the war, that fact came in very handy for one landing in an Iowa corn field…

November 26, 2024
26Nov24 Lakers Plane Crash Carroll 1
It was a cold, snowy night in 1960.  Residents of one Iowa town were mostly asleep when they suddenly began to hear what some may have thought was an attack by an airplane.  For some reason the town was being buzzed by a DC3 in the middle of a snowstorm…

November 25, 2024
25Nov24 Hollenberg Pony Express 2
The pony express was in operation for just a little over a year, however the story of horses and riders racing mail across the country continues to fascinate…

 

November 22, 2024
22Nov24 Hollenberg Pony Express 1
They say that in real estate, the three most important things are location, location, location.  That was true even in the 1850s.  It led one enterprising family to settle at the joining of two important trails to capture new business…

November 21, 2024
21Nov24 Christiana Riot 2
It’s called the Christiana Riot – a showdown between a slave owner and those harboring his runaway slaves.  It led to bloodshed here just a few miles north of the Mason Dixon line…

November 20, 2024
20Nov24 Christiana Riot 1
In the years before the Civil War, many people stood up for the cause of freedom and equality.  Some of those who showed the most bravery were former slaves…

November 19, 2024
19Nov24 Wigwam Hotel
If you, your kids or even your grandkids have seen the movie Cars, then you probably remember the Cozy Cones.  They’re patterned after a real-life motel of concrete wigwams…

November 18, 2024
18Nov24 Yuma Crossing 3
George Strait once sang that he had some ocean front property in Arizona and if you’d buy that he’d throw the golden gate in free.  This Arizona town isn’t exactly on the ocean, but much of its existence depended on it…

 

November 15, 2024
15Nov24 Yuma Crossing 2
Before bridges crossed rivers, communities often relied upon ferries to carry people and supplies.  In some cases, those ferry operators were able to build thriving businesses.  Two such men lived in the middle of a vast desert…

November 14, 2024
14Nov24 Yuma Crossing 1
Yuma, Arizona is in the Sonoran dessert.  The annual average rainfall is about three inches per year.  So it is a bit ironic that it is a river helped build a city of great wealth in the southwest…

November 13, 2024
13Nov24 Mission Point Lighthouse 2
Drive north from Traverse City, Michigan and you’ll find beautiful fruit orchards on a narrow peninsula that dead ends at this lighthouse.  It’s a place that attracts visitors and some folks who even wait months or years to get a chance to live there for a week…

November 12, 2024
12Nov24 Mission Point Lighthouse 1
The Great Lakes shoreline is dotted with many old lighthouses.  Many are not needed these days, but most have great stories to share.  One such place is in northwestern Michigan…

November 11, 2024
11Nov24 Fort Snelling Last Boat Out
It’s the junction of two important rivers – the Mississippi and the Minnesota – and it made sense to have a fort here.  But for those stationed at what became Ft. Snelling, enduring the winter and the accompanying isolation was something few wanted to face…

 

November 8, 2024
08Nov24 Harry Truman Election 3
It’s one of the most iconic pictures in presidential election history.  A picture of President Harry Truman holding up a paper that proclaims, “Dewey Defeats Truman.”  Of course the headline was wrong and the story behind how it all happened is one you won’t want to miss…

November 7, 2024
07Nov24 Harry Truman Election 2
In the summer of 1948 Harry Truman was losing the race to return for a second term as president.  But that summer his campaign accomplished something that would be hard to replicate now…especially considering the way they travelled to do it…

November 6, 2024
06Nov24 Harry Truman Election 1
It was the day after the voting had ended and people woke up to find a different person was elected president than they may have imagined.  It sounds like recent history, but it’s actually a story from 1948…

November 5, 2024
05Nov24 Cahokia Mounds 2
We’ve probably all heard of Native American mounds scattered throughout parts of North America.  Here just east of present day St. Louis was the largest of those mounds.  In fact, you can still see it and climb it today…

November 4, 2024
04Nov24 Cahokia Mounds 1
Before there was a United States of America, this was the largest city within its modern boundaries.  In fact, its size still marvels those who consider its origins over a thousand years ago…

 

November 1, 2024
01Nov24 French Lick Railroad 2
The heyday of passenger rail travel was about a century ago.  But don’t tell that to the folks in southern Indiana, for they are riding the historic rails of this town as they did in times of old…

October 31, 2024
31Oct24 French Lick Railroad 1
Airlines might devote more flights to popular winter destinations like Phoenix or Florida.  One hundred years ago they were adding trains for this popular spot in Indiana…

October 30, 2024
30Oct24 Spook Light 2
People like to have answers…and perhaps that’s what makes this phenomena so interesting…there seems to be no explaining it.  So what is it that has so many puzzled?

October 29, 2024
29Oct24 Spook Light 1
I don’t care for stories about evil and gruesomeness at Halloween, yet a spooky tale may be in order.  For such a story, you can venture to southwest Missouri where a centuries old legend has people still searching for answers.  It’s a story with world wide fame…

October 28, 2024
28Oct24 Fort Morgan Colorado
This area of northeastern Colorado has long been an important place for farming.  The way it developed was a bit by chance with one man happening to see its promise on a bison hunting trip…

 

October 25, 2024
25Oct24 Fort Morgan Museum
The initial route of the Oregon Trail followed the North Platte River, but over time, some decided to follow the southern fork of that river, creating a trail that passed this point in Colorado…

October 24, 2024
24Oct24 Julesburg Dragstrip
In Julesburg, Colorado you’ll find a small airstrip that has been in use for many decades.  But this is much more than a place for airplanes to take off and land…it’s second use is one that brings plenty of people here from Spring to Fall…

October 23, 2024
23Oct24 Julesburg Colorado History 2
Many of our towns have a namesake and that is the case for Julesburg, Colorado.  But, the “Jules” in Julesburg is a man with quite an infamous story…

October 22, 2024
22Oct24 Julesburg Colorado History 1
The town of Julesburg, Colorado has been an important point on many trails leading west.  But it’s history is one that has been a bit rough-n-tumble, especially for the early years of its existence…

October 21, 2024
21Oct24 Fromm Brothers Fus 2
In the woods of northern Wisconsin there is a lodge that housed some of the leading businessman of the world.  They came to one tiny town for a shot of acquiring the best of the best…

 

October 18, 2024
18Oct24 Fromm Brothers Fus 1
The Fromm Brothers might be said to have been as “sly as a fox.”  That’s because their business plan led them to develop the silver fox, an animal that brought them fame and fortune…

October 17, 2024…
17Oct24 George Washington Cherry Tree
Sometimes a person gains so much fame…they become bigger than life…so is that the case with George Washington and a cherry tree he chopped to the ground?

October 16, 2024
16Oct24 Hawaiian World Champion Cowboy
The accomplishment was so spectacular it is still remembered over a century later.  A cowboy journeyed thousands of miles to Cheyenne, Wyoming for a chance to become the world’s champion steer roper, and he would do it all with a borrowed horse after riding a ship and train for days…

October 15, 2024
15Oct24 Lane Frost
World class sprinters can complete the 100 meters in under 10 seconds.  In this sport, you are world class at just 8 seconds – and it’s those eight seconds for which a movie was made about one of the greatest to ever compete…

October 14, 2024
14Oct24 Cheyenne Frontier Days 2
It’s billed as the “Daddy of Them All” and that it is – a rodeo so big and so grand that others have worked to emulate it.  It is a place that every cowboy hopes to compete and win on one of the biggest stages…

 

October 11, 2024
11Oct24 Cheyenne Frontier Days 1
The railroad was looking for ways to entice people to ride the rails for one day excursions to see unique events.  But what was there to do in Cheyenne, Wyoming?  Perhaps some people thought, nothing, until a chance event took place near the depot…

October 10, 2024
10Oct24 Hatch Show Print 2
Inside the Country Music Hall of Fame you’ll find a shop with roots that go all the way back to 1879.  Some things have changed, but many have not.  In a moment I’ll take you to a place where the old is still new in a sense…

October 9, 2024
09Oct24 Hatch Show Print 1
Today we think of Nashville as a city for country music.  Back in the late 1800s, there was music here, but perhaps the city was known for another industry – a career that brought one family to town to help their business flourish…

October 8, 2024
08Oct24 Matchstick Marvels 2
I had long wanted to go see what so many people had told me about.  A small gallery of sorts in Gladbrook, Iowa where one man had been creating masterpieces that might take him over two years to create.  I’ll take you along to share what I found and meet the man behind it…

October 7, 2024
07Oct24 Matchstick Marvels 1
A lot of folks have hobbies.  Most of those pastimes are purely for one’s own enjoyment, but occasionally, some of those spare time projects go viral, so to speak.  That’s what happened in this small Iowa town…

 

October 4, 2024
04Oct24 Lewes Sideshow
Many a circus has it’s main acts and then has a sideshow to entice people to pay to see unusual acts, sites and sounds.  One of the items that draws the most attention in this museum is one of those sideshow items and the story behind it is quite interesting…

October 3, 2024
03Oct24 Delaware’s Sunken Treasure 2
There was a great treasure hunt taking place off the shore of Lewes, Delaware.  The real treasure though was perhaps different than what was originally sought, and today visitors come to see some of what was found from a vessel that sank in 1798…

October 2, 2024
02Oct24 Delaware’s Sunken Treasure 1
When a British ship sank off the coast of Delaware in the late 1700s, some of the crew was lost at sea.  A few survivors made it to shore and later tales emerged of those men paying for their meals and lodging with Spanish gold.  That story made this a ship that just had to be found…

October 1, 2024
01Oct24 First Town in the First State
It’s referred to as the first town in the country’s first state…that first state being the first one to ratify the constitution of the United States.  In a moment I’ll take you to that place and tell you want happened to that first settlement…

September 30, 2024
30Sep24 Cadillac Michigan KISS Football 2
There perhaps has never been a homecoming dance like the 1975 Cadillac, Michigan version.  The students and the entire town were surprised when that year they didn’t just play music, they had a live performance by a very memorable group…

 

September 27, 2024
27Sep24 Cadillac Michigan KISS Football 1
Many high school sports teams warm up to specific music and that was the case for the Cadillac, Michigan football team.  The particular music though has quite a story in this town.  In fact, the events of decades ago are still quite well remembered today…

September 26, 2024
26Sep24 James Banning 2
Today there are many flights each day that connect the two coasts of this nation.  In the early years of flying, there were prizes awarded for the first people who could pilot such a trip with a plane.  James Banning was one of those who succeeded and his story is one you won’t want to miss…

September 25, 2024
25Sep24 James Banning 1
Today, if a person want to learn to fly a plane, there are many options of places you can go to get your license.  But in the early years of aviation, not only were the options fewer, but the opportunities were closed to some because of the color of their skin.  This is the story of a man who was an overcomer…

September 24, 2024
24Sep24 Iowa State Jack Trice 2
I have long known that the Iowa State Cyclones football team plays at Jack Trice stadium.  Those not from nearby may just think Jack Trice was a wealthy donor to the university who paid to get his name on the place.  That is far from true.  In fact, the story behind the man is one quite remarkable…

September 23, 2024
23Sep24 Iowa State Jack Trice 1
In 1923 what is today Iowa State University played a football game at the University of Minnesota.  In part, due to the events of that game, the two schools that share a state line, did not meet again on the gridiron for 66 years…

 

September 20, 2024
20Sep24 Scott City Pueblo 2
Near Kansas’ border with Colorado you can find a place called El Cuartelejo.  It’s the ruins of an ancient home who’s occupants were on the run from the Spanish.  Today we revisit that interesting and often unknown piece of history…

September 19, 2024
19Sep24 Scott City Pueblo 1
In western Kansas you can find the foundations for an old Native American settlement.  Perhaps that doesn’t seem too out of the ordinary, until you dig a little deeper and find that this type of dwelling doesn’t belong in Kansas, but instead belongs to tribes from states away…

September 18, 2024
18Sep24 Monument Rocks
It’s one of the natural wonders of Kansas.  A place of white spires rising from the prairie plains that have been a landmark for centuries…

September 17, 2024
17Sep24 Earthquake Lake
We may think of big earthquakes in the U.S. being an event that normally occurs on the west coast.  In 1959, it was this area in the Rocky Mountains that experienced one of the biggest quakes in the countries history.  You can still see the impact on the landscape here…

September 16, 2024
16Sep24 West Yellowstone
It’s one of the coldest and snowiest towns in U.S.  In fact, it’s not uncommon for this community to have the lowest temperature in the lower 48 states on many days and can have three or feet of snow on the ground in the winter.  It is also a place that welcomes many visitors to Yellowstone National Park…

 

September 13, 2024
13Sep24 Fort Morgan Alabama 2
Perhaps you vaguely remember from your history books the words of a ship captain in war exclaiming, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”  That phrase was uttered here during a battle for this famous bay.  You may have been there and not realized it…

September 12, 2024
12Sep24 Fort Morgan Alabama 1
Today most people venture to this spot along the Gulf Coast for its scenic beauty.  Turn back the clock a couple of centuries and people were battling over this spot because of its strategic importance…

September 11, 2024
11Sep24 St Genevieve 2
We’ve all seen a log cabin.  Such structures were the norm for many Americans early in the country’s history.  But did you ever see a log cabin with the logs arranged vertically instead of horizontally?  There are only a handful in the U.S…and most are here…

September 10, 2024
10Sep24 St Genevieve 1
When these French Catholics learned that the British Protestants had taken over, they weren’t pleased.  It may be the reason this city still exists today…

September 9, 2024
09Sep24 John Deere
Although you may associate his name with tractors…he never saw one…yet his name is synonymous with the equipment used in agriculture.  We go to the small shop from which he built a mighty company…

 

September 6, 2024
06Sep24 Cyrus McCormick Reaper
A couple of centuries ago crops were cut and threshed by hand…but that all changed with a young farmer in Virginia.  This is the story of a birthday present that revolutionized agriculture…

September 5, 2024
05Sep24 Bowman North Dakota 2
Many of us are intrigued by huge dinosaur fossils like T Rex that are unearthed and displayed in museums.  There’s just something about seeing some of those ancient creatures that is totally fascinating.  Today I’ll take you to a place where that search is part of everyday life and you can be a part of it…

September 4, 2024
04Sep24 Bowman North Dakota 1
This part of North Dakota was once described as a sea of grass.  That had many people driving their livestock here to take advantage of that feed source each spring to fall…

September 3, 2024
03Sep24 Hay Trolley 2
One of the hardest jobs on the farm in the 19^th and early 20th centuries was putting up hay.  You had to mow it, rake it and then throw it up into a barn…often with sheer man power.  Over time, horses helped with some of that work and one of the key devices for the final part of the work is one Steve Weeber loves to talk about…

September 2, 2024
02Sep24 Hay Trolley 1
Over the years we have torn down some old bards on our property.  One of the items that went in the scrap heap is something coveted by many today.  They are called hay trolleys and I’ll take you to meet a man who has many, many of them…

 

August 30, 2024
30Aug24 California Trail Center 2
Pioneers that headed west on overland trails saw many sites.  Interestingly one that many wrote about was an elephant.  You wouldn’t expect to see an elephant on the trail and none did see a literal elephant.  However, they mention the creature many times…

August 29, 2024
29Aug24 California Trail Center 1
Just west of South Pass, Wyoming, overland travelers of the mid 19^th century came to a fork in the road.  The route to the left was the beginning of the California Trail which branched from the Oregon Trail.  The story of that trail is in part told at this site devoted to the topic…

August 28, 2024
28Aug24 Blackwell School 2
You’ve heard people say that there are unwritten rules that we sometimes must observe.  Today’s story is about such rules and how communities began to change.  The story is eye opening to some, especially depending on where you might live…

August 27, 2024
27Aug24 Blackwell School 1
We often tie the Civil Rights movement to the struggle of African Americans to obtain equal rights and equal access in this country.  A trip to this Texas town will reveal hos that process played out for another group of Americans…

August 26, 2024
26Aug24 Gerber House 2
When you hear the name, “Gerber,” you perhaps immediately think of baby food.   The home where the family lived and the kitchen that sparked the idea are very much a place you can stay today…

 

August 23, 2024
23Aug24 Gerber House 1
It all began with an argument in the kitchen.  What resulted is something that is commonplace today, but was a novel idea when it began to be promoted…

August 22, 2024
22Aug24 Friends Good WIll
For a ship that was in service less than five years, she had quite a story.  What began as a simple merchant vessel ended up fighting in a war for both sides in the conflict.  You can still see her today…

August 21, 2024
21Aug24 South Haven Michigan
This town sits on the opposite side of Lake Michigan as the city of Chicago.  Yet, this much smaller place played an important role in the rebirth of one of America’s largest cities…

August 20, 2024
20Aug24 Frank Phillips 3
When Frank bought a plane he needed a hangar in which to park it.  Soon the plane wasn’t the only thing in the building.  In fact…visitors still come here to see that plane an much, much more…

August 19, 2024
19Aug24 Frank Phillips 2
The president of this oil company was looking for a place to entertain business leaders from the east coast and around the world.  He settled on a ranch in northeastern Oklahoma.  This is the story of the ranch where million dollar deals are still done…

 

August 16, 2024
16Aug24 Frank Phillips 1
On the surface it seemed like an unlikely scenario for success.  A barber from Iowa striking oil and building one of the largest companies in America.  But that’s exactly what happened…

August 15, 2024
15Aug24 Readlyn Iowa Town Grump
When you enter Readlyn, Iowa you will find a sign that proclaims it has 857 friendly people and one old grump.  I just had to know, who is this old grump?  Turns out there are several of them, but that’s not a bad thing…

August 14, 2024
14Aug24 Colorado Springs
Today we may rely on the latest advancements in science and medicine to help cure disease.  Of course, in the 1800s, science provided some answers, but many folks simply looked for the best climate to help their ease their ailment.  This town is still known for its health and much more…

August 13, 2024
13Aug24 Pikes Peak 2
You’ve perhaps never heard of James’ Peak.  It’s more accurate to say you’ve heard of the mountain, but you simply don’t know it by that name.  In fact, you may have been to the top of the peak that James climbed, but he didn’t get the credit so to speak…

August 12, 2024
12Aug24 Pikes Peak 1
As Lewis and Clark headed west and north in 1803 to explore the newly acquire Louisiana Purchase, another explorer headed to the southwestern reaches of that territory.  One of the landmarks he found still bears his name today…

 

August 9, 2024
09Aug24 Fort Belmont 2
If you drive Interstate 90 through Jackson, Minnesota you’ll see a fort near the freeway.  Take the exit and explore the place an you’ll find the story of a community that built their own fort while the U.S. military fought the Civil War.  The museum and grounds here are quite impressive…

August 8, 2024
08Aug24 Fort Belmont 1
In the 1850s and 1860s there had been skirmishes between Native Americans and settlers in the area of northern Iowa and southern Minnesota.  Those tensions led one community to band together in an effort to protect their lives…

August 7, 2024
07Aug24 Pilot Rock
In the days before GPS or maps, you needed landmarks to find your way.  Just south of Cherokee, Iowa you’ll find one such place.  It’s a spot that Native Americans used to find their way as well as early pioneers…

August 6, 2024
06Aug24 Sanford Museum
One family can make a difference.  Stop in Cherokee, Iowa and you’ll find a museum and planetarium all there because one family wanted to honor their son.  It’s an impressive place that dates to the 1950s and it’s all free to see…

August 5, 2024
05Aug24 Wolf Point Montana
It just stands to reason that a place named Wolf Point must have something to do with wolves somewhere in its background.  That is the case here of course, but the story of what wolves is perhaps in dispute…

 

August 2, 2024
02Aug24 With or Without
Sometimes just a few words can reveal the place from which you hail, even when you don’t mention the actual place.  In this region of the country it’s the phrase, “with or without” that let’s people know where you live…

August 1, 2024
01Aug24 Wild Horse Stampede Rodeo
In northeastern Montana you’ll find a rodeo that is over 100 years old.  With that kind of track record, you know that has to be something they’re doing well to attract large crowds for all of those years…

July 31, 2024
31Jul24 Kit Carson 3
Comic books tell the story of larger than life characters.  In the mid 1800s, the comic books of the days took one unassuming mountain man and turned him into a frontier superhero…

July 30, 2024
30Jul24 Kit Carson 2
Sometimes it’s not what you know but who you know.  In Kit Carson’s case, it was both that made him a well-known figure yet today…

July 29, 2024
29Jul24 Kit Carson 1
This well-known frontiersman loved to hear the stories of those traveling west.  One day, he decided it was time to sneak away and try that life too…

 

July 26, 2024
26Jul24 William Preston Hall 3
Lancaster, Missouri is not a big town, but in the 1920s, the circuses came to town.  And yes, I did use the plural form of the word, because boy did the circus really come to town, for many days each year…

July 25, 2024
25Jul24 William Preston Hall 2
Some called him the Horse King of the World.  It was fitting title for a man who literally bought and sold horses and mules to locations around the globe…and then began selling another kind of animals in addition…

July 24, 2024
24Jul24 William Preston Hall 1
William Hall lost both of his parents by the age of 15.  He worked hard to make a living from an early age and found he had a knack for buying and selling horse.  That skill brought him worldwide fame…

July 23, 2024
23Jul24 Bakken Oil Fields 2
There’s oil all around Tioga, North Dakota.  For many years though, there just wasn’t a good way to reach it.  The ups and downs of the oil industry can be seen in the population ups and downs of this small farming town…

July 22, 2024
22Jul24 Bakken Oil Fields 1
Most of us know of the oil fields in northwestern North Dakota.  However, we may not realize that the word often used to describe the location of that oil field has everything to do with a family who farmed in the area…

 

July 19, 2024
19Jul24 Tioga North Dakota
Northeast of Williston, North Dakota you’ll find the town of Tioga.  There is a story behind that name and it reveals much about the folks who settled the area and continue to farm and ranch there today…

July 18, 2024
18Jul24 Purple Martins 2
On the surface, it may seem like an odd pairing–a man who manufactured television antennas became the champion for a bird that was in decline. His work decade ago continues today; you’ve probably seen it, but just didn’t realize it…

July 17, 2024
17Jul24 Purple Martins 1
It’s been called America’s most wanted bird. Not wanted in the sense that it has committed a crime, but rather desired. If you want to learn more about it, then a trip to Griggsville, Illinois is probably the best place to go…

July 16, 2024
16Jul24 Little America 2
This place isn’t really a town, yet it has its own zip code.  Sometimes it’s a bit of a game to see exactly how much or how little you can write on an envelope and still get a letter to arrive here.  Chances are, if you simply write the zip code, it will arrive at this place…

July 15, 2024
15Jul24 Little America 1
One young sheepherder never forgot a frigid night he spent on the plains of Wyoming.  The miserable weather had him dreaming of a warm place to sleep and a hot meal to eat.  Decades later, the dream became a reality…

 

July 12, 2024
12Jul24 First Female Office Holder
In 1869 Wyoming territory gave women the right to vote and to hold public office.  Just a few months after the legislation passed, the state had it’s first women office holder and her story is one honored in the U.S. Capitol…

July 11, 2024
11Jul24 South Pass City 2
The Oregon Trail crossed the Continental Divide at South Pass in Wyoming.  Just west of that pass you’ll find a handful of buildings that are all that remains of a boomtown of over 2000 people called South Pass City…

July 10, 2024
10Jul24 South Pass City 1
There had been rumors of gold in this area for years, but there always seemed to be a better place to find more of it.  Eventually minds turned back to Wyoming and thousands of people followed the reports in the hills around Willow Creek…

July 9, 2024
09Jul24 Mountain Men of the West
If I were to ask you to name some famous Mountain Men of the 1800s, there are usually some common names that most people share.  This museum tells there story and there are three big names that perhaps come to the top…

July 8, 2024
08Jul24 Mountain Man Rendezvous 2
It was called the Mountain Man Rendezvous and it was held for sixteen years, mostly in the present state of Wyoming.  The gathering of trappers, Native Americans, supply trains from the east and others made for quite a gathering each summer…

 

July 5, 2024
05Jul24 Mountain Man Rendezvous 1
In the early 1800s, the demand for beaver pelts for top hats was strong, but the world supply was short.  That had trappers looking for untapped sources of beaver and the search wound up here…

July 4, 2024
04Jul24 John Phillip Sousa
Today we look back to a story who’s music captures the spirit of the fourth of July…

July 3, 2024
03Jul24 Wausau Depot
There’s a good chance you’ve never been to this railroad depot.  However, if you’re over forty years old, there’s a high likelihood you’ve seen pictures of it, for it was this historic spot that made its way into the logo and ads of a prominent insurance company…

July 2, 2024
02Jul24 Father of Legal Gambling
When most people think of big time gambling they think of Las Vegas.  No doubt there was plenty of illegal gaming taking place in the state for decades, but you might be surprised to learn the state made it legal in 1931 and it was a rancher who didn’t much care for betting, that found the industry might just be a winner for Nevada…

July 1, 2024
01Jul24 The Basque
The high desert regions of Nevada, Oregon and Idaho you will often find a people called the Basque who are sheep ranchers.  In fact, the Basque have been in this area for generations and their traditions in farming and much more are still quite important today…

 

June 28, 2024
28Jun24 Lovelock Cave
Today this area is a mostly dry lake bed.  However, we have evidence this was once a much wetter place.  In fact, what was found in a cave here shows that these people used something quite common for some hunters today…

June 27, 2024
27Jun24 Chief Winnemucca
Along interstate 80 in north central Nevada you’ll come to a town with a unique name – a name that may have you wondering exactly where it comes from.  When you dig a little deeper, you’ll find an interesting piece of history tied to those who lived here…

June 26, 2024
26Jun24 Salem Sue 2
If you didn’t know what to expect when driving west from Bismarck, North Dakota on Interstate 94, you might be quite surprised to find this very large creature looking over the interstate.  It’s something that’s been there for over 50 years now and it truly shows you the importance of this to the community…

June 25, 2024
25Jun24 Salem Sue 1
Many small towns celebrate their heritage with a special festival or maybe other important sites throughout the town.  New Salem, North Dakota is like those towns, but much unlike those towns when it comes to what they did to celebrate their history…

June 24, 2024
24Jun24 Cheese Capitol
Lots of people love cheese and for those who can’t get enough of it, perhaps the Cheese Capital of the World is the place to visit.  As you’ll hear, there’s a good reason this is the center of the cheese universe…

 

June 21, 2024
21Jun24 Wade House 2
Just as hotels today might serve guests traveling the interstate highways, there were inns that catered to the travelers using horse drawn vehicles that navigated a network of dirt roads and trails in the early years of the country.  One impressive such place is in between Sheboygan and Fon du lac, Wisconsin…

June 20, 2024
20Jun24 Wade House 1
There was once a time when horses and carriage ruled the roads, and in those days before the automobile, the types, size and uses of horse drawn vehicles was quite diverse.  One company in Wisconsin was an important builder of those vehicles.  But when cars came along, the business closed, but what they produced is far from forgotten…

June 19, 2024
19Jun24 Galveston Juneteenth 2
The federal government established Juneteenth as a national holiday in 2021.  However, the celebration of the events of that date took place immediately after June 19^th, 1865…

June 18, 2024
18Jun24 Galveston Juneteenth 1
On January 1^st, 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.  However, that document that freed slaves had little impact if it could not be enforced. This is the  story of what took place over two years later on an island in Texas…

June 17, 2024
17Jun24 Galveston Hurricane 2
It is the deadliest hurricane in U.S. history – a storm that hit Galveston, Texas in September 1900 that causes catastrophic destruction and claimed thousands of lives.  We take a look back at the event, the rebuilding and the present day…

 

 

June 14, 2024
14Jun24 Galveston Hurricane 1
Today we may think of this city as a beach getaway.  In 1900 it certainly had beaches but it was also an important port and immigration point for the country.  But events that year would have a catastrophic impact on the place…

June 13, 2024
13Jun24 Hatch Chile
If you play with fire your liable to get burned.  But on Jim Lytle’s farm, fire is what they grow.  It’s fire in the form of vegetables.  We head to southern New Mexico

June 12, 2024
12Jun24 Center of Hemisphere
I recently headed west on highway 29 from Wausau, Wisconsin.  I then turned north, back west, then back north…and then, found myself next to a sign on the edge of a large farm field.  Many would say I was in the middle of nowhere.  Not so fast…if you stand here…you’re actually in the middle of everywhere

June 11, 2024
11Jun24 Standing Bear 3
At the time of his trial, Standing Bear did not have the right to take a matter to court.  However, this judge allowed the leader to speak and what he had to say – one short sentence in particular – still resonates today…

June 10, 2024
10Jun24 Standing Bear 2
A father was simply trying to bury his teenage son.  But a trip that would take them many miles to the family’s original home in northern Nebraska ended with the family being jailed and in the middle of a federal court case reported nationally…

 

June 7, 2024
07Jun24 Standing Bear 1
Imagine working hard to build your farm and then having the government step in and take everything from you – land, equipment and home.  That is what happened to this man and many others in Northeastern Nebraska.  The story is from many years ago, but is a story every American should know…

June 6, 2024
06Jun24 Enchanted Highway 3
When Gary saw his old school close, he was sad to see such an important chapter in his life, seeming to close as well.  But then he had the idea that he could purchase the old school and turn it into something that would attract people to his hometown…

June 5, 2024
05Jun24 Enchanted Highway 2
Along a lonely stretch of interstate 94 between Bismarck and Dickinson, North Dakota, you’ll find a metal sculpture called Geese in Flight.  If you exit the freeway there and venture south, you’ll be in for quite a treat…

June 4, 2024
04Jun24 Enchanted Highway 1
Turn south from Exit 72 on Interstate 94 in North Dakota and you’ll begin to encounter some very creative sites.  The man behind what you’ll see has quite a story – a story that has been ongoing for over three decades now…

June 3, 2024
03Jun24 Johnstown Flood 4
It was an American disaster that was hard to imagine.  A giant flood and an immense fire were destroying a city of over 30,000 people simultaneously.  We remember the tragic story of tragedy 125 years ago…

 

May 31, 2024
31May24 Johnstown Flood 3
It was a story of miraculous heroism among a story of deep tragedy.  A a wall of water cut loose from a breached dam was about to swamp Johnstown, Pennsylvania. As a tidal wave thundered down the valley, one locomotive engineer braved the swell to warn people of the impending danger…

May 30, 2024
30May24 Johnstown Flood 2
When 51 inches falls on an area in one month…well, it’s likely there’s going to be problems.  Here, those problems proved tragic…

May 29, 2024
29May24 Johnstown Flood 1
It was one of the worst disasters in American history…the break of the south fork dam that created the great Johnstown Flood.  In a moment we return with the stories of tragedy and heroism…

May 28, 2024
28May24 Glasgow Treasure in the Back of the Museum
Over many years of travels I’ve found that the back of a museum can hold many unexpected treasures.  You just never know what might be housed in what some would consider the last room of the place.  At this museum, that back room is certainly not lacking in treasures.  In fact, it’s pretty amazing to see what one man in town collected while running a bar…

May 27, 2024
27May24 Arlington Ladies
On Memorial Day we remember our loved ones, but these ladies recognize our fallen soldiers every day of the year.  This is the story of their unique and important role at Arlington National Cemetery…

 

May 24, 2024
24May24 Glasgow A Point On the Globe
The state of Montana is a long way from Scotland.  However a trip to this town will perhaps make you believe the two aren’t quite so farm from one another.  It’s a story that dates back to a tale of two men and a random spot on a globe…

May 23, 2024
23May24 Glasgow Native American Teepee
Many people associate Native American tribes from the Plains with a teepee.  That may be an accurate description but depends much on the tribe, location, time period and other factors.  A trip to this place though will allow you to see an original such structure, and it’s quite a site to see…

May 22, 2024
22May24 Ismay Joe Montana 2
You’ll need to drive on six miles of gravel roads from the highway to get to the tiny town of Ismay, Montana.  There would really be no need for any visitors to make the trip, but there’s still a few that do and it’s usually because of a story involving a Hall of Fame quarterback who, probably has never visited the place…

May 21, 2024
21May24 Ismay Joe Montana 1
Would you ever consider changing your name?  What if someone was offering you a prize to change it to a specific name of their choosing?  That’s in a sense what happened in the 1990s in this small town…

May 20, 2024
20May24 Thief at Thief River Falls
If you visit Thief River Falls, you may ask, who or what is the “thief” behind this river and this town?  There are several stories about that, plus much more about a city that is a hub of business and commerce in northwestern Minnesota…

 

May 17, 2024
17May24 The Most Norwegian Place
Some towns are known for having a large number of ancestors from a specific country.  That is the case for this city, for it has the distinction of having the highest percentage of folks from this one specific country of any other in the U.S…

May 16, 2024
16May24 Norwegian WW II Battalion 2
Every May 8^th, a wreath is laid on the grave of this Lt. Coronel at Arlington National Cemetery.  It’s a thank you from one country to the officer and those who served with him, several of whom came from this region of Minnesota…

May 15, 2024
15May24 Norwegian WW II Battalion 1
When World War II began, the U.S. military began to recruit troops for special missions they believed might be necessarily in specific countries.  Those missions would need troops who could speak the languages of those nations fluently.  The search led many young men from this area of Minnesota to be a part of one such unit…

May 14, 2024
14May24 Newberry Volcano Monument 2
In central Oregon you’ll find a cave tour that is quite popular.  In fact, you’ll most likely need a reservation well in advance in order to tour it.  But this cave is unlike what you may have in your mind, because this one is made of lava…

May 13, 2024
13May24 Newberry Volcano Monument 1
South of Bend, Oregon you’ll find a vast volcanic field.  It’s a place with a wide variety of geological features and a national monument that people love to explore…

 

May 10, 2024
10May14 Stand By Me
The movie Stand By Me is considered a classic by many. It’s a film that is still quite popular with audiences literally around the world.  And some of the biggest fans are still coming to this town to find the scenes they saw on screen…

May 9, 2024
09May14 Oregon Trail Wagon
Thousands of people traveled the Oregon Trail as pioneers headed west and almost all of them made the trip in a wagon.  Of course just about all of those wagons are long gone, but in a moment I’ll take you to a place where one remains and what you’ll see may surprise you…

May 8, 2024
08May14 Mount Hood 2
Very few people climb Mt. Everest, but there’s just something about the experience of climbing a really tall mountain.  Perhaps that’s what brings many folks here…it’s the tallest mountain in this state and it’s one that a lot of people can attempt to climb…which is both good and bad…

May 7, 2024
07May14 Mount Hood 1
In the early days, many people were simply trying to get around this place.  Then after the years passed, some decided to come back and enjoy the spot they once tried so hard to pass…

May 6, 2024
06May14 Barlow Road
This road wasn’t necessarily a short cut.  In terms of miles traveled it was a longer route.  However, it soon became the path many would take on their trek westward…

 

May 3, 2024
03May14 Government Camp Oregon
Sometimes a trip becomes a real haul because of all the stuff you are carrying with you.  That was the case for these men who decided to just drop their stuff and come back for it month’s later.  In fact, it was their decision that gave this place its name

May 2, 2024
02May14 Spindletop Museum 2
When this area struck it rich, the town was growing so quickly, they were renting the barber chairs as a place to sleep each evening.  It was a booming place that made history and you can still see it its heyday

May 1, 2024
01May14 Spindletop Museum 1
There just had to be oil under this hill, but no one could seem to drill down to it.  After years of work, the men working here got a really big surprise.

April 30 2024
30Apr24 Uranium Museum 2
It’s a museum with its mine underneath the floor – an unusual, but effective idea on promoting the industry that once flourished here…and perhaps may flourish again

April 29, 2024
29Apr24 Uranium Museum 1
Many mining booms begin quite by chance.  That was the case about 100 miles west of Albuquerque.  However, the mineral discovered was quite different than most found in the U.S.

 

April 26, 2024
26Apr24 Cray Supercomputer
It’s been dubbed the world’s most expensive love seat.  It’s true you can sit on it, but with an $8 million dollar price tag at the time, you’d want to do more than use it as a chair.  And of course, that’s where this story gets interesting, because this place has many of these multimillion dollar devices that today are obsolete…

April 25, 2024
25Apr24 Darly Fire Trucks
My father-in-law has been a volunteer fire fighter for many years.  His small town does what it can with a limited budget yet ever increasing needs for bigger and better equipment to handle emergencies.  Interestingly, this company was born much out of that need to help small towns afford the fire engines they needed…

April 24, 2024
24Apr24 Mason Shoes
Today most of us don’t think much about buying a pair of shoes.  There are many places you can shop for them both in store and online.  But of course, it was once not that way and this company capitalized on getting people the shoes that fit them perfectly…

April 23, 2024
23Apr24 Leinenkugel’s
It is definitely one of the longer names in the beer brewing industry and has and equally long lineage of production to boot.  Today I’ll take you to the place it all began and where it remains an important part of a community that had the natural resources to help it grow…

April 22, 2024
22Apr24 Brookfield John WIlkes Booth 2
Everyone knows John Wilkes Booth as the assassin of President Lincoln.  However, before his deadly deed in April 1865, he was a well known actor, and he left a quite favorable impression on the residents of one Missouri town…

 

April 19, 2024
19Apr24 Brookfield John WIlkes Booth 1
John was a well known actor who traveled the nation in a variety of productions.  In fact, a journey to one small town brought him fans for life…that is until the actor turned out to be something more sinister…

April 18, 2024
18Apr24 El Rancho Hotel 2
The movie stars are gone, but the legends still abound, including the story one celebrity who rode his horse into the bar, so both could get a drink.  It’s  a place with tons of history, but a hotel that is still serving travelers today…

April 17, 2024
17Apr24 El Rancho Hotel 1
It was built to house movie stars.  A hotel in western New Mexico where celebrities could catch some rest and relaxation away from the movie set…

April 16, 2024
16Apr24 Austin French Legation 2
In Austin, TX near the state capitol building you’ll find another old government building in a beautiful green space.  It is a place established in the 1840s and it has quite a story yet today…

April 15, 2024
15Apr24 Austin French Legation 1
Many countries establish embassies in other nations and usually those diplomatic sites are in a country’s capital.  That is the case for this old embassy in the U.S. but it’s not located in Washington, DC, yet it was in the nation’s capital…

 

April 12, 2024
12Apr24 Monument Hill Texas
On a high bluff overlooking the Colorado River in La Grange, Texas you’ll find a monument to men who gave their lives for the Republic of Texas.  Their stories speak to a time when Texas was fighting to maintain the independence it had already won…

April 11, 2024
11Apr24 Texas German Brewery
Germany is often known for its breweries and when immigrants sailed to the new world, they often brought that beer making knowledge with them.  That was the case for a place between Austin and Houston where one enterprising German set up his business…

April 10, 2024
10Apr24 Bowie Knife
Sometimes people will travel a long way to get exactly the item they desire.  That was the case for this frontiersman who made a trip to a specific blacksmith to create an item that bears his name today…

April 9, 2024
09Apr24 Historic Washington Arkansas
As the city of Washington, D.C. was growing into its role as the nation’s capital, another city of Washington was growing in prominence on the western frontier.  In fact, it was a leading city of its day and you can come here and see many of the original buildings similar to the way they appeared when built in the 1800s…

April 8, 2024
08Apr24 Woolford Old Trinity Church 2
This church can hold about 50 people – maybe a few more if everyone squeezes tight for a wedding.  And people have been coming to sit in these box style pews for well over three centuries…

 

April 5, 2024
05Apr24 Woolford Old Trinity Church 1
Along the coastline of Maryland’s easter shore, just south of the city of Cambridge, you’ll find a small, picturesque church that dates to the days well before this country was even born.  A walk around the grounds and inside the house of worship will reveal a story that speaks to the faithful generations who have lived and worshiped here…

April 4, 2024
04Apr24 Mitchell Farms Movie Theatres 2
When Kenny Mitchell was dating his wife-to-be, they enjoyed going to the local movie theater.  He probably never imagined how that theatre and so many others would impact his life…

April 3, 2024
03Apr24 Mitchell Farms Movie Theatres 1
When this farm decided to diversify they didn’t do it by growing a different crop or buying livestock.  They instead looked to something everyone in the family loved and began investing in that opportunity in many small towns across the country…

April 2, 2024
02Apr24 Blue Bunny Ice Cream 2
What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?  The folks here know a lot about what we like and maybe, don’t like.  And they are always trying out new flavors that may be a hit with our taste buds…

April 1, 2024
01Apr24 Blue Bunny Ice Cream 1
When this company was looking for a new name for it’s product line, it decided to offer a cash prize for the winning suggestion.  The fact that contest was held around Easter is perhaps the reason we wound up with a name that has been around for many years now…

 

March 29, 2024
29Mar24 Annapolis Maryland
It is known as the sailing capital of the U.S.  It also happens to be a state capital…a former national capital…and home to some of the most prominent institutions in the country…

March 28, 2024
28Mar24 Devil’s Gulch
After a failed bank robbery attempt in Northfield, Minnesota, the James gang headed west toward the Dakota Territory.  Near what is today’s border between South Dakota and Minnesota, the pursuers of Jesse James had him cornered.  What happened next is still up for debate, but folks in this town believe they know what happened…

March 27, 2024
27Mar24 Elvis Barbershop Ft Smith 2
Next to Delilah’s shearing of strongman Samson, it’s perhaps the most famous haircut in history.  Many young ladies wondered if Elvis would lose his musical powers once he received his buzz cut and entered the army.  We’ll head to that famous barbershop…

March 26, 2024
26Mar24 Elvis Barbershop Ft Smith 1
From 1958 to 1960, Elvis Pressley was part of the active military.  He spent time at Ft. Hood, Texas and in Germany.  His entrance into the army was a heartbreaker for many young ladies and today we take a look back at the bus trip from Memphis that ushered the music legend into armed services…

March 25, 2024
25Mar24 John Dickinson Plantation 2
He was a founding father – a contemporary of men like Washington, Jefferson and Franklin.  We know that he talked, argued and wrote with them and his role in the early years of the new nation led him to be known as the Penman of the Revolution…

 

March 22, 2024
22Mar24 John Dickinson Plantation 1
They are known as “Letters from a Farmer.”  Perhaps you have not heard of them, but if you lived in colonial America in the 1760’s, you most likely would know them because of their widespread readership.  Today I’ll take you to meet the man behind them – he did own a farm, but there’s much more to the story…

March 21, 2024
21Mar24 Buena Vista College
In the 1800s, many college and universities sprang up across the Midwest.  Some were short lived, yet others managed to stay alive and even thrive.  That’s the case for the university in this small town and the story of how it wound up here is quite interesting as well…

March 20, 2024
20Mar24 Storm Lake Iowa 2
With a name like “Storm Lake” you would suppose there has to be a major storm somewhere its history.  That is the case, but the story of the storm varies quite a bit upon who you ask.  I’ll take you to a town with competing origin stories…

March 19, 2024
19Mar24 Storm Lake Iowa 1
This lake was a draw for people as far back as there were people living in the area.  But the lake is a bit different than most and the story of its settlement is one that is quite interesting…

March 18, 2024
18Mar24 Babe Didrikson 2
While individuals compete in track and field events, there is often a team component to the standings, with points awarded for each team member for the events in which they place.  Now imagine a national collegiate finals in which a one person team won the championship.  That’s just how amazing this athlete was…

 

March 15, 2024
15Mar24 Babe Didrikson 1
It’s difficult to know exactly how many medals this athlete might have won at the Olympics.  She qualified for several events, but the rules said she was limited on how many contests she could enter…

March 14, 2024
14Mar24 Fredericksburg Texas
Today cities don’t need to be laid out so that ox carts can make U-turns.  However, that was the plan behind this Texas town.  While the oxen on the roads are now gone, they left the streets wide and never forgot their German heritage here.  It’s a recipe for success in the state’s Hill Country…

March 13, 2024
13Mar24 Menger Hotel 2
Imagine a well-known general riding his horse into the lobby of a hotel…and it was met with applause.  Another military man came here to recruit his best troops for a famous charge against the enemy.  It’s a unique combination of history that still serves customers in the present…

March 12, 2024
12Mar24 Menger Hotel 1
Today just about every hotel room in America has a private bathroom included.  Turn back the clock over a century and shared baths were the norm.  But in this city, the baths were in such demand, people raced from the stagecoach to claim a room with the luxury item…

March 11, 2024
11Mar24 Two Rivers Ice Cream Sundae 2
Many of us enjoy an ice cream sundae.  We have our favorite flavors and toppings.  But were did that phrase, the “sundae” come from?  You may be surprised the origin and just how something as commonplace today as putting things like hot fudge and strawberries on top of ice cream all began…

 

March 8, 2024
08Mar24 Two Rivers Ice Cream Sundae 1
Some have referred to this place as the Sistine Chapel of this town.  No the ceilings aren’t as high, nor the building as large as Michealangelo’s masterpiece, but this is quite interesting to see and the entire building has quite a story to boot…

March 7, 2024
07Mar24 Sputnik Art Museum 2
Perhaps you don’t think you’d care to go to an art museum.  But what about a museum that had a Soviet satellite crash right in front of it?  Well, that strange fact is enough to get folks here and what they find is a interesting tale about a visitor from space and some great art as well…

March 6, 2024
06Mar24 Sputnik Art Museum 1
It was the middle of the night and two police officers had happened upon a relatively small piece of smoldering metal in the middle of 8^th Street in Manitowoc, Wisconsin.  They kicked it to the side of the road and really didn’t give it a second thought – that was until they got back to headquarters…

March 5, 2024
05Mar24 Council Grove Kansas 3
Today if you need parts for your car or truck, you might just head to an auto repair store.  Turn back the clock nearly 200 years and you instead made a visit to these trees in the state of Kansas.  It was a practice that put wagons on the road, but also led to the near extinction of on native American tribe…

March 4, 2024
04Mar24 Council Grove Kansas 2
Before express mail or overnight delivery, messages traveled at a speed measured not in hours, but in weeks.  For those wanting to communicate up and down the Santa Fe Trail, one tree became an important link in the system…

 

March 1, 2024
01Mar24 Council Grove Kansas 1
The hardwood trees along the Neosho River had been growing here for years.  In fact, many of those old trees can be found yet today.  But in 1825, the small grove of trees gained added attention as a place where two nations could meet…

February 29, 2024
29Feb24 Czech and Slovak Museum 2
In Cedar Rapids, Iowa you’ll find an impressive museum that tells the past and present of a group of people who made this part of the state their new home.  While decades have passed, that spirit still lives and has become a foundation for many thing that take place in this city…

February 28, 2024
28Feb24 Czech and Slovak Museum 1
In the 1800s many immigrant groups began to move from Europe to the United States.  Specific groups of people would often begin to settle in a common area as they could rely on their neighbors to perhaps speak the same language and carry on some traditions from their homeland…

February 27, 2024
27Feb24 Prescott Frontier Days Rodeo 2
If you come to watch this rodeo, you’ll most likely be sitting in seats that were first used in 1913.  That’s actually pretty modern considering they’d been hosting a rodeo her for 25 years before that…

February 26, 2024
26Feb24 Prescott Frontier Days Rodeo 1
Where was the first rodeo held?  You’ll find some debate on the actual beginning point of the sport with several towns laying claim to some part of the story.  But today I’ll take you to the place that proclaims it is the world’s oldest rodeo.  There are some reasons behind their title and event is very much alive in that city today…

 

February 23, 2024
23Feb24 Heavener Runestone 3
It’s a long way from Norway to Oklahoma.  That’s precisely why this story seems so hard to believe.  However, could it be true that ancient Vikings sailed all the way to the Midwest and left notes for us to find centuries later?  That could very well be the case…

February 22, 2024
22Feb24 Heavener Runestone 2
You can find ancient carvings of Native Americans in many parts of the country.  So when early settlers happened upon these writings in Oklahoma, they figured they were from tribes that once lived here.  However, the natives told a far different story.  Not only did they not know what the writings meant, they said they weren’t made by any tribe…

February 21, 2024
21Feb24 Heavener Runestone 1
If you want to learn the story of ancient Vikings you would of course travel to Scandinavia…or Oklahoma of course.  Why Oklahoma?  There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that Vikings were living and trading in the area long before other European explorers ventured here…

February 20, 2024
20Feb24 Jerome Arizona 2
Many a mining boom town has experienced boom and bust.  When this town was just about gone it began to be promoted as a ghost town.  The local historical society established a museum, a few people were inspired and today the town has had a bit of a boom again…

February 19, 2024
19Feb24 Grant Boyhood Home
Presidential birthplaces are visited by many tourists each year.  But no home may have quite the story as this small place.  You could call it General Grant’s mobile home.  It’s our salute to the commander in chief on Presidents Day…

 

February 16, 2024
16Feb24 Jerome Arizona 1
It was once one of the largest cities in the Arizona Territory.  Miners made there way to town to get rich, while others came to mine the miners, so to speak.  It created a place some called the wickedest city in the west…

February 15, 2024
15Feb24 Seattle Washington 3
This June 6^th fire might have been the best thing that ever happened to Seattle, but it sure made shopping a hassle.  This is the unique story of how one city rebuilt after disaster…

February 14, 2024
14Feb24 Seattle Washington 2
Today’s topic is toilets and chuckholes.  You may have never thought those items to be worthy of a feature until you head to Seattle…

February 13, 2024
13Feb24 Seattle Washington 1
I recently had a chance to visit the city of Duwamps, Washington.  You may have never heard that name, but I’m sure you’ve heard of the city it became…

February 12, 2024
12Feb24 Heath Bar
Many of us have a favorite candy bar…or maybe we can’t narrow it to just one, but have a few.  You’ve most likely heard of the one I’ll feature today, but there’s a good chance if a World War wouldn’t have taken place, perhaps it would have been lost to history…

 

February 9, 2024
09Feb23 US Marshal Museum 2
Who makes sure that the scientists of Antarctica are accountable to the law?  It may sound like a strange question, but the answer will be told here, in Ft. Smith, Arkansas.  The two places share an important link…

February 8, 2024
08Feb23 US Marshal Museum 1
They are the longest tenured federal law enforcement group in the United States.  Their important work has played a critical role in U.S. history, however their contributions are often behind the scenes.  This city hopes to shed more light on those who have preserved law and justice in the land…

February 7, 2024
07Feb23 Sumner Iowa Vacant Building Tour
Vacant buildings can be eyesores, but they can also be opportunities.  So how do you make it the latter instead of the former?  This town developed a unique way to attract the businesses they needed and wanted, and you could too…

February 6, 2024
06Feb23 Warren Minnesota UFO Police Car 2
In Warren, Minnesota you’ll find a 1970s vintage sheriff’s car on display.  What may be a bit unusual is that the car has some damage to it – unusual damage that was never repaired, in part because no one could figure out exactly what had caused it.  There’s still a steady stream of people coming to look at this car…

February 5, 2024
05Feb23 Warren Minnesota UFO Police Car 1
It was late August of 1979 and there was a large, yet strange light near the rural intersection where a deputy’s car was patrolling.  When he made a turn to investigate, a story unfolded that still brings people here to today to try and uncover the facts…

 

February 2, 2024
02Feb23 Father of the Army Jeep
Between the time of World War I and World War II, most armies moved away from the use of horses and mules, to motor powered vehicles to move troops and equipment. But exactly what type of vehicle should do that bulk of that work was very much in question.  Today, we trace something commonplace to the man who advocated the army build it…

February 1, 2024
01Feb23 Warren Minnesota Pimbina Trail
Before highways crisscrossed this nation, trails linked remote communities to one another.  One such route connected today’s Manitoba, Canada with the state of Minnesota and the Red River Valley.  You can still find traces of that trail and the vehicles of the day that made the trip…

January 31, 2024
31Jan23 Terre Haute Bulldog Stiffy Green
It’s said a dog is a man’s best friend.   And in this case, the dog was this man’s best friend even after his death.  The story became a legend of its own – a tale that still brings people to this town to learn about a dog and a visit to the cemetery…

January 30, 2024
30Jan23 Terre Haute Coke Bottle 2
Before the days when refrigerators had lights inside, this company wanted to make sure that you could find it’s product just be feeling the package, so to speak, that it came in.  That’s certainly the case for a design that has been around for well over a century now…

January 29, 2024
29Jan23 Terre Haute Coke Bottle 1
Companies usually want their products to stand out from the competition and that’s exactly what this major brand was trying to do.  They had something people really liked, but they decided perhaps the way to separate from the competition was to recreate the bottle it came in…

 

January 26, 2024
26Jan23 Terre Haute Gilkie Pop-Up Camper
Many people love to camp.  Of course, camping means different things to different people.  Some folks just need a tent and little else.  Others go camping in some trailers and RVs that rival the comfort of a nice home.  Today I’ll take you to the place where some of the mobile camping if you will got it’s start…

January 25, 2024
25Jan23 Terre Haute Santa Hero
What should have been a time of holiday cheer was quickly turned into tragedy.  However, the story could have turned much worse if not for a young man just back from his service in the army.  His heroism is still remembered over a century later and I’ll take you to the spot where they remember his sacrifice…

January 24, 2024
24Jan23 Elkton Inventor Henry Heitz
You probably haven’t heard of Henry Heitz.  However, the folks in Elkton, South Dakota know that he invented a flying machine…that didn’t fly.  But perhaps most interesting was one of Henry’s biggest fears.  You can still see that part of his story long after his death…

January 23, 2024
23Jan23 Elkton Elephant 2
The people of Elkton, South Dakota were excited that the circus was in town.  But when bad weather forced its cancellation it wasn’t the end of the show.  One of the elephants turned on a drunk trainer who had abused it and began to turn over circus wagons in its rage.  Soon it was headed into the town proper…

January 22, 2024
22Jan23 Elkton Elephant 1
Just about everyone loves the circus, so people in Elkton, South Dakota were disappointed when bad weather forced the cancellation of the show that had stopped in town.  However, the folks here had no idea the mark this circus would leave on their town, for one of the animals was going to stage quite a final performance…

 

January 19, 2024
19Jan23 High Desert Museum 2
There are plenty of museums across the country to visit, but it’s fairly rare to find one that cover 40 acres.  This one can make that claim and perhaps it is only fitting that the size is large, given the vast region it seeks to share with those who stop by…

January 18, 2024
18Jan23 High Desert Museum 1
As settlers moved west, rail lines were not far behind them in most cases.  However, when you look at the entirety of the lower 48 U.S. states, it was this spot that was one of the very last to receive rail service.  The reason the tracks finally got here was to take advantage of a resource that brought many people to live in the area…

January 17, 2024
17Jan23 Boring Oregon 3
Sometimes you run into someone, who when asked about where they live, will tell you they live in a boring place.  Perhaps the don’t see much to do there, a lack of opportunities or the place just doesn’t seem to prosper.  Will today I am going to take you to a town that without a doubt is boring.  That’s not a slam against the city – they proudly claim they are boring…

January 16, 2024
16Jan23 Boring Oregon 2
A trip to Boring, Oregon is anything but – especially if you stop by the place Cliff Barackman established back in 2019.  Whatever you think of this mysterious creature, what Cliff has to share is often of interest to many worldwide…

January 15, 2024
15Jan23 Boring Oregon 1
The term “sasquatch” is one that invokes a variety of images for people.  To some in may be merely a mythical creature that roams the woods.  For others, it is a very real and reclusive beast that only shows itself rarely in some of the remote areas of the continent…

 

January 12, 2024
12Jan23 Thompson Mill Oregon 2
Many of us are fascinated by those old mills that use water power to turn wheels or turbines that in turn power the machinery to grind grain and perform many other tasks.  In central Oregon there is a place where you can still experience that and see the impact the place had on the world…

January 11, 2024
11Jan23 Thompson Mill Oregon 1
In the Willamette River valley you’ll find an old mill with quite a story.  It’s legacy dates to the 1850s and it was still operating in the 21st century…

January 10, 2024
10Jan23 Minnesota Hat Collector 2
Every farmer needs a hat – and many farm supply companies provide them all the time.  But Scott’s dad enjoyed getting those farm hats so much, he decided to collect them.  They can now be measured in semi loads…

January 9, 2024
09Jan23 Minnesota Hat Collector 1
A farm hat is a necessity for many people- something to keep the sun out of your eyes or perhaps the top of your head warm in the winter.  On this farm the hats went far beyond that usual purpose…

January 8, 2024
08Jan23 Poteau Oklahoma 3
It is one of the highest points in the world and it isn’t out of reach for any climber, no matter their level of experience.  In fact, I recently enjoyed my trip there…as well as eating lunch at the local pizza place in full view of the magnificent peak…

 

January 5, 2024
05Jan23 Poteau Oklahoma 2
Imagine a six story hotel in a place some would consider the frontier border of Oklahoma and Arkansas.  That was the plan and there was definitely a need.  The place did get built and it remains today…

January 4, 2024
04Jan23 Poteau Oklahoma 1
Most folks aren’t quite sure how to pronounce the name of this town.  The name looks like it belongs to the country of France, but why would such a place be located in Oklahoma?  Dig a little deeper and an interesting story from a few centuries ago begins to unfold…

January 3, 2024
03Jan23 What Cheer Iowa 2
I’ve always been fascinated by some of the old opera houses in small towns across America. Those buildings often have quite a story and that is certainly the case for one in the town of What Cheer, Iowa.  Not only is it an impressive building, but it has a couple of unique claims to fame to boot…

January 2, 2024
02Jan23 What Cheer Iowa 1
If you see this town on the map or perhaps find yourself passing through it on a trip across Iowa, you’ll certainly be intrigued by the name.  It’s a title that you know just as to have an interesting story behind it…

January 1, 2024
01Jan23 Best of 2023 Bily Brothers
In 1928 the Bily brothers received quite an offer from Henry Ford.  He offered them one million dollars for something they created.  The story of what they built and wheat they did with Ford’s offer is quite a story…

 

December 29, 2023
29Dec23 Best of ’23 North Carolina Nuclear Bomb Farm
It’s the Best of 2023 with The American Countryside! Brent Tyndall has people pulling in his driveway just about every weekend.  They are looking for something, but can’t quite seem to locate it.  Luckily they find a man willing to not only share the story but help them see what is no longer there…

December 28, 2023
28Dec23 Best of ’23 Midwest Dream Car Museum
It’s the Best of 2023 with The American Countryside! If you’ve ever seen one of the movies in the Back to the Future series, you know that Michael J Fox, in the role of Marty McFly drives a Delorean which must hit a speed of 88 miles per hour in order to transport him backward or forward through time.  While a time machine may be far fetched, there’s another factor that may have prevented time travel in that Delorean…

December 27, 2023
27Dec23 Best of ’23 Cole Younger
It’s the Best of 2023 with The American Countryside! When you hear the name Cole Younger, you probably think of an outlaw holding up banks and living a life of crime.  That story is true in part.  But what you may not know is a second chapter in his life – a chapter told here in the town where he is buried…

December 26, 2023
26Dec23 Best of ’23 Al’s Oasis
It’s the best of 2023 with a The American Countryside! If you’ve driven across interstate 90 in South Dakota you know you’ll see plenty of signs for Wall Drug, an iconic business in that state.  But you also likely to see quite a number of billboards for another well-known stop on the Missouri River.  I’ll take you to that place locals and tourists love…

December 25, 2023
25Dec23 Noel Missouri Post Office
At Christmas we may sing, “The First Noel.”  In the United States, this is the “Only Noel.”  Confused?  Join me on a trip to Christmas City USA…

 

December 22, 2023
22Dec23 Twas the Night Before Christmas
Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house…they’re words we know well…and words that launched Santa’s image about two centuries ago…

December 21, 2023
21Dec23 Christmas Acres 2
Christmas is a busy season for Rob and his wife Joyce.  They usually have hundreds of people walking around their front yard each November and December and they’ll often be baking 2000 to 3000 cookies each weekend…

December 20, 2023
20Dec23 Christmas Acres 1
A lot of people put up Christmas lights on and around their house each holiday season.  That was the case for Rob.  He’s done it for years.  But his display down a gravel road on his farm just keeps growing and that has lots of people driving down his road each year…

December 19, 2023
19Dec23 Miss Laura’s Brothel 2
It may be one of the most unique businesses to ever be placed on the National Register of Historic Places.  That doesn’t mean the type of work here was uncommon, but it was certainly a piece of one region’s history that impacted the local economy…

December 18, 2023
18Dec23 Miss Laura’s Brothel 1
Laura Ziegler came to Ft. Smith, Arkansas from Vermont.  She was only in this city for about a decade, then moved to Missouri and vanished.  However, the thriving business she built still remains, well at the least the building does…

 

December 15, 2023
15Dec23 Fort Snelling 4
The state of MN has a state flag, a flag flown above many sites in the state.  They also have one flag that once belonged to the state of Virginia…

December 14, 2023
14Dec23 Fort Snelling 3
The Battle of Gettysburg is often referred to as the turning point of the Civil War, and within the battle it was the successful stand against Picket’s Charge that is one many people know from their history books.  At that critical moment, there was a group of well-seasoned troops from seemingly far away who turned that tide of battle…

December 13, 2023
13Dec23 Fort Snelling 2
When Ft. Sumter was fired upon in April of 1861, in signified the beginning of the U.S. Civil War.  Interestingly, the first state to send volunteers to fight for the northern states was one that most people would consider far from the conflict…

December 12, 2023
12Dec23 Fort Snelling 1
It’s the place where the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers meet – a place that has been important for centuries of travelers by water and land…and today even by air with the adjacent international airport…

December 11, 2023
11Dec23 Prohibition Party 2
Before there was a Got Milk slogan…some dairymen used an amendment to the constitution to help keep their product ahead of a more evil beverage of the day…

 

December 8, 2023
08Dec23 Prohibition Party 1
You may have thought this political party died when this became legal again back in the 1930s.  You’ll be intrigued by the history of the group most think is dead…

December 7, 2023
07Dec23 Heisman Winner Bruce Smith 2
December 7^th 1941.  It was a day of travel for this standout college football player, but as the events of Pearl Harbor unfolded, he knew his life, and the speech he was about to deliver, would change greatly…

December 6, 2023
06Dec23 Heisman Winner Bruce Smith 1
Today we say hello to our listeners on KDHL in Faribault, MN.  Listeners there know there is one athlete that put this town on the map.  In fact, he’s the only man from the state to date to win the Heisman Trophy…

December 5, 2023
05Dec23 Moonshine Cafe 2
Imagine serving hundreds of people out of a small store in very rural Illinois.  That’s the setting that takes place many a summer day, a frankly to slightly smaller crowds year round.  They come to a place called Moonshine for some food and a café setting that’s hard to replicate…

December 4, 2023
04Dec23 Moonshine Cafe 1
If I told you people were traveling hundreds of miles to this spot for moonshine, you’d probably think there was some illegal alcohol flowing in the countryside.  But here the moonshine is something far different and it does bring people from near and far…

 

December 1, 2023
01Dec23 Pella Iowa Wyatt Earp
Mention the name Wyatt Earp and folks often quickly think of the shootout at the OK Corral.  You certainly aren’t wrong for having those images, but you may be surprised at where that legend of the west spent most of his growing up years…

November 30, 2023
30Nov23 Pella Iowa 3
Some cities have skyscrapers that dominate the skyline.  When you live in a small town, it could well be the water tower that is the tallest structure.  Here, this structure may not be the very tallest, but it is certainly the most unique in town…

November 29, 2023
29Nov23 Pella Iowa 2
Some people plant flowers each Spring to spruce up the place they live or work.  Now image you have 300,000 flowers to plant.  That’s the case here and it takes the entire town to pull it off…

November 28, 2023
28Nov23 Pella Iowa 1
When about 800 folks wearing strange clothes begin crossing the nation, they are bound to get noticed.  That was the case for this group that wound up in Iowa.  Their story is an interesting look at creating a new home in a new land…

November 27, 2023
27Nov23 AD Makepeace Cranberry Farm 3
It’s hard to imagine a farm growing a crop from vines that are over a century old.  But that’s exactly the case here.  Some of the plants that first began producing in the 1800s are still providing a great crop each year…

 

November 24, 2023
24Nov23 AD Makepeace Cranberry Farm 2
Most farmers want to avoid a flood that drenches their crops.  Here, it’s just part of the process to keep the vines growing and getting the crop out of the field.  We’ll visit the largest grower of this produce known for the holidays…

November 23, 2023
23Nov23 AD Makepeace Cranberry Farm 1
It’s hard to image that a place once known for mining iron would become an area that later was recognized for growing bountiful crops, but that’s exactly what happen here.  And thanks to that fact, you may just get one of your favorite holiday dishes…

November 22, 2023
22Nov23 Lewis & Clark Sheheke
They were the first farmers in America…growing the crops, fruits and vegetables to sustain their tribe as well as some famous visitors in the fall of 1804…

November 21, 2023
21Nov23 Lewis & Clark Fort Mandan 2
It is said that there are more statues in America of this lady than any other.  Quite an accomplishment considering she probably never thought of herself as an American…yet I’m sure you’ve heard of her name…

November 20, 2023
20Nov23 Lewis & Clark Fort Mandan 1
Lewis and Clark spent two winters away from home on their trip to the Pacific Ocean…the first winter was cold and the second one wet.  We pick up the story of the first and bitterly cold winter…

 

November 17, 2023
17Nov23 Mamie Eisenhower 2
What do you give as a gift to someone who has meant a great deal to you throughout your life?  First Lady Mamie Eisenhower had quite a gift for her uncle living in Iowa

November 16, 2023
16Nov23 Mamie Eisenhower 1
General and US President Dwight Eisenhower hailed from Abilene KS.  The first lady to be, hailed from here…  That location is one of the few birthplaces of a first lady that is preserved for history

November 15, 2023
15Nov23 Boone Iowa History 2
Many towns across this country sent men and women overseas during World War II.  And in many of those same towns we honor those who gave their lives in that service.  That is the case in Boone, Iowa but you’ll find that this story has an interesting second chapter that took place over seven decades after the war.

November 14, 2023
14Nov23 Boone Iowa History 1
Boone, Iowa is about 30 minutes north and slightly west of Des Moines.  These fertile farm fields also yielded some other industries that built a strong town…and one opportunity that went to a town next door.

November 13, 2023
13Nov23 Octagon House 2
When the British entered the Washington, D.C. during the War of 1812, they burned many of the government’s buildings, including the residence of the president.  There was one many who defended some of those buildings though, an unlikely hero who understood what would be lost if some sites succumbed to the flames…

 

November 10, 2023
10Nov23 Octagon House 1
Everyone knows the Pentagon is in Washington.  But did you know the city is home to an Octagon as well?  It may not be as big, but it does have more sides and it has a very interesting story…

November 9, 2023
09Nov23 Oklahoma Land Run 2
If a city grows quickly, we might say it sprang up overnight.  This state capital literally sprang into existence in just one night.  We go back to that night and the events leading up to the mass migration to buy those town lots…

November 8, 2023
08Nov23 Oklahoma Land Run 1
If you found a great deal on a house of a piece of land, we might say that we ran to get the deal.  In 1889, thousands literally ran to get a deal…

November 7, 2023
07Nov23 St Louis History 2
Daniel Boone is one of the most famous American frontiersman.  But when he crossed the Mississippi River, he went to work for a country other than the newly founded United States…

November 6, 2023
06Nov23 St Louis History 1
It’s one of the oldest and largest cities on the Mississippi River…and although some may have heard of names like Laclede and Chouteau…why did they choose this spot for a town and why did it become the city it is today?

 

November 3, 2023
03Nov23 Great Locamotive Chase
It’s called the Great Locomotive Chase – an event that occurred in 1862 when a secret force of Union soldiers captured a confederate locomotive and attempted to destroy tracks and rail movement near Atlanta.  Confederate forces took pursuit and the subsequent race between the locomotives General and Texas is legendary

November 2, 2023
02Nov23 Fort Clatsop 2
It was their goal…yet it was only the half way point of the trip…It was the Pacific Ocean that the Lewis and Clark party longed to see…but when they arrived here, they still had to travel all the way back home

November 1, 2023
01Nov23 Fort Clatsop 1
After spotting the Pacific Ocean on November 7^th, 1805…Lewis and Clark searched for a suitable location for their winter camp.  The place they resided that year may have not been that cold, but it was certainly miserable

October 31, 2023
31Oct23 Glur’s Tavern 2
One thousand dollar bills were last printed in 1945 and they were officially discontinued in 1969.  You can still find a few in the hands of collectors today.  They were rare even when they were in use…but when used, they could create quite a stir.  That’s exactly what happened when one well known celebrity paid his tab at this tavern with such a bill

October 30, 2023
30Oct23 Glur’s Tavern 1
If you drove past Glur’s Tavern in Columbus, Nebraska you might not give it a second thought.  However, if you know it’s storied history, you’d be sure to stop and at least take a look at the walls and relive a part of the place’s incredible history

 

October 27, 2023
27Oct23 Captain Kirk Future Birthplace
Over the years we’ve done many stories from towns that are the birthplace of famous people.  In fact, just about every town loves to promote the well known folks that may have grown up there.  But today is certainly a first…for I’m taking you to a place that proclaims to be the future birthplace of a very famous individual…

October 26, 2023
26Oct23 Anne Frank Letters 3
Not many people write letters these days, opting for emails, texts and the like.  But this letter is one that is truly special – a letter from long ago still inspiring kids today…

October 25, 2023
25Oct23 Anne Frank Letters 2
Did you ever save a letter that was important to you?  This lady did.  It was a nice letter from a far away place – a penpal from long ago.  But then something happened that completely changed the value of that letter so to speak to the world…

October 24, 2023
24Oct23 Anne Frank Letters 1
Way back when I was in school our classes sometimes had penpals.  That was the case for this school in Danville, Iowa.  What began as a simple exercise in connecting with students on another continent turned into a story that impacted the entire world…

October 23, 2023
23Oct23 Morton Minnesota Lower Sioux 2
It’s called the Lower Sioux Agency.  You can still find a few of the historic buildings near Morton, Minnesota.  The story told here is one of the struggle and conflict that arose as people began to pour into the fertile fields of today’s state of Minnesota…

 

October 20, 2023
20Oct23 Morton Minnesota Lower Sioux 1
As pioneers of Europeans decent moved westward, the once large spaces that many Native American nations once called home were reduced in size.  And with those changes came tensions that sometimes erupted.  That was the case here in southwestern Minnesota and I visit with a man who traces his heritage to those ancestors who resided here…

October 19, 2023
19Oct23 Salt River Bay St Croix 3
Columbus reached the Americas in 1492.  He returned to Spain and put together a much larger party of ships and people to sail back to the new found land in 1493.  We know much about that voyage, including a not so peaceful meeting with the natives at this stretch of land in United States territory…

October 18, 2023
18Oct23 Salt River Bay St Croix 2
You may remember that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred and ninety-two.  But what else do you know about the famous explorer?  Today we go to the place some believe is the only place he touched down in what is today U.S. territory…

October 17, 2023
17Oct23 Salt River Bay St Croix 1
Columbus reached the Americas in 1492.  He returned to Spain and put together a much larger party of ships and people to sail back to the new found land in 1493.  We know much about that voyage, including a not so peaceful meeting with the natives at this stretch of land in United States territory…

October 16, 2023
16Oct23 Quackery Museum
We’ve all heard that some things are just too good to be true.  That’s in a sense the theme to one man’s collection, It’s a fun, yet important place to perhaps reflect on what’s true and what’s not and how to tell the difference.  I’ll take you to meet a most interesting man…

 

October 13, 2023
13Oct23 Marshall Minnesota 3
Most of us are familiar with the movie Hoosiers, the story of a small Indiana school that wins the state basketball championship against tremendous odds.  In the state of Minnesota a similar story played out and that town may have just landed a state university as a result of it…

October 12, 2023
12Oct23 Marshall Minnesota 2
Depending on where you live, you may know this company, not by where it is located but rather by where its yellow trucks happen to travel.  In fact, when I was growing up, that yellow truck made a regular stop by our house, a visit that was greatly anticipated…

October 11, 2023
11Oct23 Marshall Minnesota 1
The land that surrounds a town often has a big impact on the types of industries that will spring up within the city limits.  That was certainly the case for this town and it ended up producing some of the largest companies of its kind, especially for a city of its size…

October 10, 2023
10Oct23 San Juan Puerto Rico 2
This impressive fort has stood watch over the Atlantic for nearly 400 years.  For some of those sentrys who scanned the ocean for invading navies, the fear was not a foreign fleet, but rather the devil himself.  Isolated events grew into stories which gave way to tales of sentries vanishing into the night…

October 9, 2023
09Oct23 San Juan Puerto Rico 1
If you are looking for one of the first places Europeans explorers touched land in what is today the United States, you may need to head to a U.S. territory rather than a state.  It is here that you’ll find some amazing history that you perhaps didn’t even know existed in this country…

 

October 6, 2023
06Oct23 Kafir Corn 2
You’ve probably never heard of Kafir Corn.  However, turn back the clock a century and you may have been hearing about it on national radio.  In fact, the miracle crop even had its own festival that attracted thousands.  The event raised thousands of dollars which helped pay for an important item in El Dorado, Kansas…

October 5, 2023
05Oct23 Kafir Corn 1
The first settlers to this region began to farm the land, but drought and grasshoppers made life miserable for most.  But just when things seemed to be at their worst moment, a chance trip half-way around the world would change the area’s fortunes…

October 4, 2023
04Oct23 Coranodo Quivera Museum 3
The early trails that moved settlers from east to west often charted courses that helped reduce the number of obstacles in their path.  Those trails also kept another very important resource in mind and you can find that along this stretch of the Sante Fe trail near Lyons, Kansas…

October 3, 2023
03Oct23 Coranodo Quivera Museum 2
If you are a Spanish explorer searching the New World for gold, the place you’d come look of course would be the state of Kansas.  Well, it may sound a bit ridiculous today, but it was real life for one group who trekked all the way what it central Kansas to see for themselves…

October 2, 2023
02Oct23 Coranodo Quivera Museum 1
The area around Lyons, Kansas in the central part of the Sunflower State may appear to be sparsely populated by national standards.  However, about 500 years ago, there were many more residents living here.  Why that was the case and how we know that is quite a story…

 

September 29, 2023
29Sep23 Columbia Falls Montana 3
They are called the Back Country Horseman.  Their work is something that may have impacted you and you never realized it.  And once you hear about what they do, well you might be inclined to help them as well.  It’s an interesting story that takes place in some of the nation’s most remote areas…

September 28, 2023
28Sep23 Columbia Falls Montana 2
Placing explosives on the backs of mules sounds like an unusual job, but it was just part of the work that Stu performed for years – an important task helping ready a place for visitors each year…

September 27, 2023
27Sep23 Columbia Falls Montana 1
We’ve all seen old time pictures of mule trains packing supplies to some remote location.  However, Stu Sorenson will tell you those are not always pictures from the past, but from the present as well.  In act, he’s led many a mule train packing things as unusual as cement mixers and outhouses…

September 26, 2023
26Sep23 Glacier National Park 2
We recently did some shows from the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park.  Also impressive is another park lodge…this one in Glacier National Park.  The story of its construction and its service to visitors yet today is quite a story…

September 25, 2023
25Sep23 Glacier National Park 1
Along Montana’s border with Canada you’ll find one of the most popular and most scenic national parks in the country.  The story of how it came into existence and the key players behind it is certainly interesting…

 

September 22, 2023
22Sep23 Eugene Boone 4
In the tragic events that unfolded in Dallas when President Kennedy was assassinated, we may forget that a police officer lost his life in the pursuit of the suspect.  Eugene Boone knew that officer…

September 21, 2023
21Sep23 Eugene Boone 3
In November of 1963 Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy.  Just two days later, Jack Ruby shot Oswald.  Deputy Eugene Boone soon found the assassination of the president now had a personal connection…

September 20, 2023
20Sep23 Eugene Boone 2
In the early afternoon of November 22^nd, 1963, Deputy Eugene Boone was searching the 6^th floor of the Texas School Book Depository shortly after President Kennedy had been shot by an assassin.  Soon the officer searching that floor began to find evidence of the crime, but it was Boone that perhaps found the most important item of all…

September 19, 2023
19Sep23 Eugene Boone 1
Deputy Eugene Boone was watching President Kennedy’s motorcade pass Main Street on November 22, 1963.  But just moments after the president’s car traveled down the street, he heard gunshots.  He was one of the first officers in the streets of Dealey Plaza.  Soon he was running up the grassy knoll in search of an assassin…

September 18, 2023
18Sep23 Willard Hotel 2
The round bar at the Willard Hotel has been the places where generations of politicians, celebrities and power brokers have forged deals, shared conversations or simply relaxed.  The portraits here share the stories of the many notables who have sat in this very bar and made history…

 

September 15, 2023
15Sep23 Willard Hotel 1
The President, of course, lives in the White House.  But over the decades, when a president or president-elect has needed another place to stay the night in Washington, this hotel has often filled the role.  It’s history is nearly as old as this city…

September 14, 2023
14Sep23 Old Faithful Inn 3
Depending on where live in the country, you sometimes have to ready your home for the cold winter months.  Now image getting a 300-plus room hotel ready for a very cold and long winter.  It happens here with a hotel that is well over a century old…

September 13, 2023
13Sep23 Old Faithful Inn 2
Today you can take a highway loop to the sites at Yellowstone National Park.  In the days before cars, that trip was made in a stagecoach and while that mode of travel is long gone, some of the way those coaches traveled still impacts us today…

September 12, 2023
12Sep23 Old Faithful Inn 1
In the latter half of the 1800s, explorers and early visitors to what is today Yellowstone National Park were amazed by the area’s geysers – so much so that it was quickly evident that a place to stay overnight would be needed..

September 11, 2023
11Sep23 Van Doren Brothers
The Van Doren brothers hailed from Vermilion County, Illinois. Their father saw great potential in his sons and even made a move to get them extra education. It turns out they accomplished something no other set of brothers has ever matched…

 

September 8, 2023
08Sep23 Speaker of the House Joe Cannon 3
The Speaker of the House is an important position in government and this man is often regarded as the man who dominated that role and became a role model to others who held the position.  Today it may be hard to find someone to tell you about him…

September 7, 2023
07Sep23 Speaker of the House Joe Cannon 2
What happens in a kid’s life can have an impact on what they do later in life.  That was the case for Joe Cannon and an incident involving his father standing up for the rights of others.  It was a lesson he carried for a lifetime…

September 6, 2023
06Sep23 Speaker of the House Joe Cannon 1
A name may say a lot about a person.  In this case, there was a man’s name within a man’s name.  It was his parents way of instilling the qualities of someone they admired in their own son…

September 5, 2023
05Sep23 Landmark Golf Course 3
You won’t find a big sign for this place and you’ll travel down plenty of gravel roads to reach it – but many people do.  It’s worth the trip for farmers and golfers.  I’ll take you to a very unique spot in the Missouri River bluffs with quite a view and quite a story…

September 4, 2023
04Sep23 Landmark Golf Course 2
“Landmand” is the Danish word for farmer and in northeast Nebraska you’ll find a place that recently opened with that name.  It’s a nod to this family’s heritage, but it’s also a place that has lots of people traveling down some graveled farm roads to reach it…

 

September 1, 2023
01Sep23 Landmark Golf Course 1
Bryce Andersen’s family had a piece of ground that stood out, but for the wrong reasons.  It was just too hilly to farm, and they weren’t livestock people, so grazing was not an option.  They placed the ground in the Conservation Reserve Program…but still, they wondered if there was another option.  What resulted is quite remarkable…

August 31, 2023
31Aug23 Stephen Douglas Birthplace
Abraham Lincoln led the country through the Civil War…but it was this man who defeated him for the senate just two years prior.  We’ll go to the home of the man known as the little giant…

August 30, 2023
30Aug23 Carl Ben Eielson Museum 3
Carl Ben Eielson hailed from Hatton, North Dakota.  He was a pioneer in aviation and helped open the vast Alaskan territory to air travel.  It was his mission to use a plane to help people and explore the world.  His life would come to a tragic end in doing just that…

August 29, 2023
29Aug23 Carl Ben Eielson Museum 2
In the 1920 a guy named Carl brought the first airplane to Fairbanks, Alaska.  What took place from there would put him in the record books and help the people of what was then a remote U.S. Territory…

August 28, 2023
28Aug23 Carl Ben Eielson Museum 1
If you live in the states of North Dakota or Alaska, you quite likely have heard of Carl Ben Eielson.  His aviation firsts in the 1920s are still part of the curriculum for many elementary students there.  For the rest of us, it’s our first time to learn of an amazing individual who used a plane to help others…

 

August 25, 2023
25Aug23 George Washington Carver 2
You may know him for just one thing…peanut butter…but in a moment you’ll see just how much this man accomplished.  Born a slave…and today revered as one of America’s greatest agricultural scientists…

August 24, 2023
24Aug23 George Washington Carver 1
He is one of the most famous agricultural scientists…a man who was born a slave and struggled to find a place to gain an education…

August 23, 2023
23Aug23 St. Ignatius 2
Just north of Missoula, Montana you’ll find a beautiful rural church with quite a story.  It’s a place where people worship, but also where visitors stop just about every day of the week to see something that many compare to the great artistry of the Sistine Chapel…

August 22, 2023
22Aug23 St. Ignatius 1
Churches began to spring up in many town in the U.S. as they were settled.  But this church is perhaps a little different than most.  It was established with the native tribes here spent much time and travel to St. Louis in an effort to get help establishing a place of worship…

August 21, 2023
21Aug23 Edison West Orange Lab 2
Even though this young man had but a few months of formal education, you wouldn’t know it by what career he adopted and how he changed the world…

 

August 18, 2023
18Aug23 Edison West Orange Lab 1
Although these buildings once had many workers, they now only house tourists.  But this is the place that helped build the 20^th century…

August 17, 2023
17Aug23 Pontiac Oakland Museum 2
Today we take a look at a very old Pontiac wagon.  No, we’re not talking about a station wagon, but rather an 1800s wagon…the type pioneers used to move west.  It’s the beginning of a transportation legend…

August 16, 2023
16Aug23 Pontiac Oakland Museum 1
If I were to tell you that there is a car named for Oakland County, Michigan you’d probably not recognize any of the models.  However, you do know the brand named for a city in that county…

August 15, 2023
15Aug23 Eli Bridge Company 2
The numbers 1 and 17 are important in Jacksonville, IL.  Those are the numbers of two machines built here that continue to “live” here, so to speak.  In fact, many come here to experience them every year too…

August 14, 2023
14Aug23 Eli Bridge Company 1
It was a moment of inspiration.  A man took a ride on an amazing contraption that resulted in him just having to learn more…and him coming home to begin building them himself…

 

August 11, 2023
11Aug23 Atlanta Cyclorama 3
Many people remember Clark Gable in the movie Gone With the Wind.  But have you seen him in his role of a dying Union soldier?  His joke turned out to be taken literally and today he’s immortalized in this famous scene…

August 10, 2023
10Aug23 Atlanta Cyclorama 2
Never was the bankruptcy of a circus so fortuitous to a city.  Not only did they pick up what would become a major attraction, they got a zoo to boot.  And it all came at a rock bottom price…

August 9, 2023
09Aug23 Atlanta Cyclorama 1
It began life as a campaign poster, although you would have to have one very large wall to ever hang it.  However, this elaborate painting was never used to herald a general who had eyes on public office.  Rather it took on a very interesting life of its own…

August 8, 2023
08Aug23 Jolly Green Giant 2
Just about all of us have seen a picture of the Jolly Green Giant.  But have you ever seen what the back of the Jolly Green Giant looks like?  Why do I ask?  Well it was a challenge here in Blue Earth, Minnesota…

August 7, 2023
07Aug23 Jolly Green Giant 1
An interstate can help connect a town to others, but it may also provide a way for motorists to zip by a place without stopping or doing business.  The leaders of this town had a unique idea to get folks to still stop once the interstate arrived…

 

August 4, 2023
04Aug23 Peculiar Missouri
Not all of us can live in a normal place.  While most of the nation lives in cities that aren’t that far from average…there is the occasional town that is unusual, different, strange, weird…AND the name of their town says as much.  We go to a place that proclaims the odds are with you…

August 3, 2023
03Aug23 Daphne Alabama 3
Some cities or regions are known for the nationalities of the people who settled there.  But this perhaps seems a bit out of place – an Italian settlement along the Gulf Shores.  This is the story of how those families arrived here and the festival that still exists today…

August 2, 2023
02Aug23 Daphne Alabama 2
The resort was a place that saw entertainers of the day stop and provider performances…Alfred says even President Millard Fillmore was a guest here. In the late 1800s the hotel was sold and it became the Daphne Springs Hotel and later the Dryer Hotel.  Interestingly, the building still stands…today a part of Bayside Academy…a landmark for many who have passed this way for about two centuries…

August 1, 2023
01Aug23 Daphne Alabama 1
Did you ever visit a location and say to yourself, “I wish I could live here.”  That’s in a since what happened to the captain of this ship.  He loved a place so much he decided to build something that would attract others…

July 31, 2023
31Jul23 Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum 2
There are tales of locusts that consumer the crops and a blizzard so bad that a man had to hunker down in a cave and survive on Christmas candy.  They are actually real life stories that happened here.  Meet the girl who shared them with us…

 

July 28, 2023
28Jul23 Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum 1
Early pioneers sometimes did not have the means or resources to build a house on the prairie.  They instead created something called a dugout.  This dugout is quite well known for the young girl who lived there…

July 27, 2023
27Jul23 Wilder Pageant
This outdoor theatre has been taking place since the 1970s.  It’s hosted in a very small town and is all about life in and around that town.  In fact, there’s a good chance you know some of the story because you read about it once upon a time…

July 26, 2023
26Jul23 SAC Museum
It’s the largest and fastest blackbird you’ll ever see.  But it’s just one of many intriguing items associated with America’s strategic command of the air.  We’ll go there for a look ourselves…

July 25, 2023
25Jul23 Lindbergh Little Falls Minnesota 3
It’s hare do describe just how famous this man had become.  It’s estimated that in the late 1920s one in four Americans had traveled to see him in person.  Who is it and what did he do?

July 24, 2023
24Jul23 Lindbergh Little Falls Minnesota 2
Do you remember seeing an important event for the first time when you were a kid.  That was the case for Charles and it definitely impacted his life…

 

July 21, 2023
21Jul23 Lindbergh Little Falls Minnesota 1
Sometimes kids, even from an early age, will give you a glimpse of what they might do or become as they grow older.  The contraptions young Charles was building at his home in Little Falls, MN were certainly a tip off that this was not your ordinary five year old…

July 20, 2023
20Jul23 Lincoln Vandalia Illinois 2
What was Abraham Lincoln doing with 81 bottles of champagne and 14 pounds of raisins?  Thankfully he didn’t consume them all himself, but he was an integral part of the party for which the food and drinks were purchased.  We go to that party and learn about Lincoln’s failed marriage proposal…

July 19, 2023
19Jul23 Lincoln Vandalia Illinois 1
You can go to Springfield, IL and learn plenty about president Abraham Lincoln.  His home and presidential library are there.  But if you want to find the place where he got his start in politics, you’ll need to drive further south in the state…

July 18, 2023
18Jul23 Fort Wallace 4
Presidents receive all kinds of gifts.  One young resident of Sharon Springs, KS was so excited to see President Teddy Roosevelt, she gave him a most unusual gift.  He must of liked it because he took it back to the White House…at least for a little while…

July 17, 2023
17Jul23 Fort Wallace 3
Doctors may be called upon to help people in all kinds of situations, but the request in Wallace, KS was a bit unusual.  There was something sticking out of the ground but no one knew for sure what it was.  The doctor’s discovery made headlines across the nation…

 

July 14, 2023
14Jul23 Fort Wallace 2
Conflicts between Native Americans and westward moving settlers took place around Ft. Wallace, in western Kansas, during the years around the Civil War.  However, it was an encounter in 1874, that led to a search for four young girls who had been taken captive…

July 13, 2023
13Jul23 Fort Wallace 1
Today it is a small town in an area where towns are few and far between.  Yet it is a place that was important for years upon years – a place important for many people and perhaps too many people – that’s partly why we know it today…

July 12, 2023
12Jul23 Wright Brothers Dayton Ohio 2
The Wright Brothers made their first flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.  However, it was the farmers around Dayton that helped them perfect the plane.  However, those pastures were they trained were full of dangers…

July 11, 2023
11Jul23 Wright Brothers Dayton Ohio 1
Although Kitty Hawk, North Carolina received most of the attention regarding the Wright Brothers first flight, it was this Ohio city were much of the work took place before and after that inaugural flight.  It’s a place where Orville Wright was skipping school at the age of six…for what he thought was a very good reason…

July 10, 2023
10Jul23 Canton Kansas Water Towers
Just about every town has a water tower.  Canton, Kansas has not one, but two such towers, similar in size and style that stand about one hundred yard from each other.  So, why am I mentioning this?  Well, it’s what’s painted on the towers that has had people stopping and taking pictures for decades now…

 

July 7, 2023
07Jul23 Mayberry 3
Most of us have at least seen an episode or two of the Andy Griffith Show.  A good chunk of that show takes place in the Sheriff’s Office where Andy and Barney interact with a wide range of characters.  I recently had the chance to visit that office, so to speak, and you can too…

July 6, 2023
06Jul23 Mayberry 2
If you build your own police car, take to the roads and turn on the siren, well, you might quickly get in trouble with the real police.  But this man has made a habit of it.  In fact, he has five police cars roaming town.  Perhaps it just depends on who’s police car it is…

July 5, 2023
05Jul23 Mayberry 1
Mt. Airy, North Carolina is a town of about 10,000 people.  If you type the name of the town into the internet, you can find plenty of information about it, but you’ll also quickly find that the town is usually known by another name.  Perhaps you know why that is…

July 4, 2023
04Jul23 Gettysburg 2
Every Independence Day we remember those who have fought for our freedom.  One well known battlefield still draws thousands of visitors who learn about a man who made an ill fated charge…

July 3, 2023
03Jul23 Gettysburg 1
He’s shared his knowledge with joint chiefs of staff, ambassadors and other high ranking government officials.  But when you lead tours here, some of the most memorable encounters come when you least expect them.  We look back 160 years to the battle of Gettysburg…

 

June 30, 2023
30Jun23 Great Falls
Although sandbars and other river snags were a danger for Lewis and Clark on the way up the Missouri River…it was this obstacle in Montana that made them pull their boats out of the water…

June 29, 2023
29Jun23 Albany Pioneer Days 3
There are lots of places you can go to see classic tractors.  Most are well done and many have a unique twist or a specific brand that display.  In that sense, this event it like the others.  Then there’s the part that’s unlike the others.  It’s everything else that’s here that attracts people of all ages…

June 28, 2023
28Jun23 Albany Pioneer Days 2
One September weekend each year you can count on about 20,000 to 25,000 people to attend an event in central Minnesota that began with just a few folks getting together to swap stories and display some items of importance to them.  Turns out, a lot of others were interested too…

June 27, 2023
27Jun23 Albany Pioneer Days 1
John had a job, but he also had a keen eye for what he saw while doing that job.  For what other people may have seen as junk, he saw a piece of history and thanks to him, the past is an important part of the present each year here.  We say hello to our listeners on KASM? In Albany, MN who know this story well…

June 26, 2023
26Jun23 Charles Carroll 2
Of those who signed the declaration of independence, this man was the only one to sign more than just his name.  He had plenty of reasons not to sign the document, yet his support for the cause was one the new country would remember to the very day he passed…

 

June 23, 2023
23Jun23 Charles Carroll 1
He became one of the wealthiest men in a colony where he could not vote, hold office, or worship in public.  Yet he was a man with a desire to form a government that would guarantee freedoms for all…

June 22, 2023
22Jun23 Raymond Hagan 2
It can be difficult to earn the money needed to get a college education.  Raymond Hagan graduated high school in 1935 and wanted to go to the university.  But a simple desire to go was far from all he would need to make the dream become a reality.  It’s the story of hard work that paid off…

June 21, 2023
21Jun23 Raymond Hagan 1
Today we take things like a high school education for granted.  If you want a diploma, you usually have access to a school where you can earn it.  It once was not so easy.   The story of the struggle just to attend a high school is one of my favorite interviews and we take a look back at a man who lived to be over 100…

June 20, 2023
20Jun23 Farther Emil Kapaun 4
Pilsen, Kansas is probably not on your way to most places you need to get.  Yet many people go out of their way to get to this little town.  It’s all because of one man who grew up there, served there, served his church and served his country…

June 19, 2023
19Jun23 Farther Emil Kapaun 3
If someone needs help, we might say that others figuratively carried them to where they needed to be.  In this case, one man literally carried another man for 40 miles to save his life.  It was a testimony to all who had just been taken prisoner…

 

June 16, 2023
16Jun23 Farther Emil Kapaun 2
The army needs brave soldiers.  In this battle, it seemed the bravest of them all was a man in the heat of the conflict yet one not there to take up a weapon.  The soldiers soon noticed he would run to the sound of the gunfire because that’s where he was needed most…

June 15, 2023
15Jun23 Farther Emil Kapaun 1
Drive to the small town of Pilsen, Kansas and there’s one building that dominates the skyline.  It’s the steeple of the town’s Catholic Church – a century plus old building that can seat a congregation of over 500, maybe even over 1000.  It’s a beautiful place, but there’s much more to the story…

June 14, 2023
14Jun23 St Croix Alexander Hamilton 3
The Spanish were the first Europeans to arrive here. Then the French rules the island, followed by the Danes. Finally the Americans purchased it in 1916. Its remarkable history is not a thing of the past, for here the vibrantly colored buildings are an important part of today…

June 13, 2023
13Jun23 St Croix Alexander Hamilton 2
Today a high school or college student might take an internship to learn the basics they need for a certain career.  That was what Alex was doing in a sense.  No one realized that what he had learned would be the basis for appointing him Secretary of the Treasury…

June 12, 2023
12Jun23 St Croix Alexander Hamilton 1
Historians don’t agree whether this U.S. founding father was born in 1755 or 1757.  He never arrived in what is today the United States mainland until he was 18 years old and that was the result of the writing that he did…

 

June 9, 2023
09Jun23 St Croix 1
It’s the easternmost point in U.S. territory…an island purchased by the United States in 1916.  If you come here to visit, you’ll be amazed by the rich history that is still intact from centuries ago…

June 8, 2023
08Jun23 Wizard of Oz 3
In 1939 two major movies were released at the same time.  One was “Gone with the Wind,” one of the most popular movies of all time.  Interestingly, the other movie, went on to be proclaimed the most watched movie ever released on film…

June 7, 2023
07Jun23 Wizard of Oz 2
Some people can spin great stories.  By all accounts, Frank was a great story teller, but his audience was just his children.  Perhaps that would have been his only audience for his life if not for another family member who happened to hear some of the wild tales Frank was inventing and telling his kids.  In fact, you know one of those stories he told his family…

June 6, 2023
06Jun23 Wizard of Oz 1
In Wamego, Kansas you’ll find the Columbian Theatre.  It’s history is a story in its own right.  However, the larger billing these days often goes to something just a few doors down – a place that got its start thanks to an exhibit at the Columbian…

June 5, 2023
05Jun23 Christian Christiansen 2
The military exercise was top secret.  When this mission was finally opened to the public, the reverend who played the pivotal role in thwarting the Germans plan to build an atomic bomb had already died.  But today his story and that of mission is known and memorialized in this small Illinois town…

 

June 2, 2023
02Jun23 Christian Christiansen 1
During World War II the Germans raced against the Americans to be the first to successfully build an atomic bomb.  Interestingly, a Norwegian pastor living in Illinois helped the Americans win the race…

June 1, 2023
01Jun23 Gardner Illinois Jail
The need for maximum security prisons is an unfortunate reality of life.  On the other end of the spectrum is the jail in Gardner, Illinois.  Its residents were far from hardened criminals, yet the small place served its purpose well…and continues to attract folks yet today…

May 31, 2023
31May23 Ripavilla Plantation 2
Imagine being taken a prisoner of war, not once but twice and while you were away from home, the opposing army used your house to treat their wounded soldiers.  It was real life here in Spring Hill, Tennessee…

May 30, 2023
30May23 Ripavilla Plantation 1
There are times when a family is not thrilled with a son’s choice of a spouse.  There may be many reasons for their displeasure, but in Nathaniel’s case, it was something very simple.  She had the wrong name and Nathaniel’s father was willing to pay a big sum of money to make sure the wedding didn’t take place…

May 29, 2023
29May23 Higgins Boat Columbus Nebraska
Every Memorial Day we remember our family and friends who have passed.  Many communities will also remember their veterans and that’s certainly true in Columbus, Nebraska where a unique military memorial not only pays tribute to the soldiers, but also a very important inventor, who General Eisenhower said won the war for the allies…

 

May 26, 2023
26May23 Milt Torati Veteran Stories 3
I like to say that everyone has a story.  Today’s guest helps people tell their story.  In fact, he helps people who have never told their story, share it, so that others can learn and perhaps that individual can overcome some of the challenges they encountered as a result of what they did…

May 25, 2023
25May23 Milt Torati Veteran Stories 2
I will confess, there are some interviews for this show that sent me driving hundreds of miles just to meet the person who could share the story.  However, in all of my years, I’ve never gone to the lengths today’s guest went to get the interview he wanted.  He ditched school and began to hitchhike…

May 24, 2023
24May23 Milt Torati Veteran Stories 1
Sometimes when a conflict erupts somewhere around the world, young men will volunteer for the war effort.  That was the case for Milt.  But his story is far larger than one man simply signing up to head to Vietnam…

May 23, 2023
23May23 Belle Meade Plantation 3
There’s a good chance you’ve never heard of a horse named Bonnie Scotland.  However, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of many horses – in fact, many racing today, that are in that horse’s lineage…

May 22, 2023
22May23 Belle Meade Plantation 2
Today we know Kentucky as home to some of the top thoroughbred farms in the nation.  However, roll back the calendar to the 1800s and the heart of that industry was in the state of Tennessee.  So what caused those farms to move north?

 

May 19, 2023
19May23 Belle Meade Plantation 1
When John Harding moved to this property, it was just another parcel of land just outside the town of Nashville.  However, it’s location and Harding’s ingenuity began to turn this into quite a place to see…

May 18, 2023
18May23 Presidential Limo 3
March 30^th, 1981.  After delivering a speech at the Washington Hilton Hotel, President Ronald Regan was hit by a bullet fired by John Hinkley Jr.  Today we know the president’s wound was much more serious than originally thought and the car meant to protect him actually deflected the bullet into Regan’s body…

May 17, 2023
17May23 Presidential Limo 2
You may have heard people say that president Kennedy would have never been assassinated in Dallas if he ordered the bubbletop to remain on his limo.  Today we take a look at the actual car he was riding in that day and what it tells us about the security of our presidents on the road…

May 16, 2023
16May23 Presidential Limo 1
Today we begin a three part series on one of the most luxurious and secure automobiles in America – the limo of the president of the United States.  You may be surprised what you can see at this museum as we go from carriage to a limo tank…

May 15, 2023
15May23 Henry Ford Museum 2
The birthplace of America is often considered to be Independence Hall, the site of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  You can go to Philadelphia and see it yet today.  But one man may have wanted the entire building moved to a new site…

 

May 12, 2023
12May23 Henry Ford Museum
Edison, Ford and Firestone.  They are some of the best known inventors and businessmen of the 20^th century.  But not only did their work affect the lives of virtually all Americans, the men also worked together to create one amazing museum…

May 11, 2023
11May23 North Carolina Nuclear Bomb Field 3
Brent Tyndall has people pulling in his driveway just about every weekend.  They are looking for something, but can’t quite seem to locate it.  Luckily they find a man willing to not only share the story but help them see what is no longer there…

May 10, 2023
10May23 North Carolina Nuclear Bomb Field 2
At the time it was just speculation, but today we know that in early 1961, there was a thermonuclear weapon buried somewhere deep in the mud underneath the farm Brent Tyndall’s family was farming.  The story of how it got there and the effort to recover it is one still fascinating today…

May 9, 2023
09May23 North Carolina Nuclear Bomb Field 1
In early 1961 a B52 crashed in a farm field about 12 miles north of Goldsboro, North Carolina.  The tragic accident not only cost the lives of several crew members but resulted in a recovery effort that is still talked about today…

May 8, 2023
08May23 Two Harbors Minnesota 3
Roll back the clock to the late 1800s and the people of Two Harbor, Minnesota would tell you this company was a flop.  In fact, the stock was considered worthless.  However, today, it’s that initial business failure that has its own museum in town…

 

May 5, 2023
05May23 Two Harbors Minnesota 2
There are many people that tout a variety of diet plans.  We may have a new idea to add to the list.  When you hear the story of the Edna G Tugboat, you realize just how much weight a person might drop when things go awry…

May 4, 2023
04May23 Two Harbors Minnesota 1
It’s been over a century since one major storm hit the shores of western Lake Superior.  However the twenty plus boats that crashed into the shore are still a catastrophe talked about in this small town.  The event showed the need for more light stations to keep ships from peril.  We visit that town and one of those stations…

May 3, 2023
03May23 Ray Starling Air Force One 3
There’s a part of many of us that wishes we could take to the open road, with no one around and drive as fast as we please.  Ray, got that chance, not as the driver but as the passenger.  In fact, the trips he took are some you may see on tv.  We go inside the caravan…

May 2, 2023
02May23 Ray Starling Air Force One 2
Did you ever go back and talk or write to a teacher to tell them the difference they made in your life?  This guy did and the letter he wrote was impactful, not to mention where it was written and the stationary upon which it was penned.  This is the memorable story of writing to one’s ag teacher…

May 1, 2023
01May23 Ray Starling Air Force One 1
We often cherish time spent with our mom.  That was the case for Ray Starling.  But in this case, dinner with mom came with a tradeoff.  It meant he’d need to find another way back home…and that original ride was one that was pretty special.

 

April 28, 2023
28Apr23 Ray Starlig NAFTA
In April 2017, there was debate in the country about exiting the NAFTA trade deal with Canada and Mexico that had been adopted in the 1990s. Most in agriculture considered the deal vital for strong ag markets, but preserving the trade deal involved sneaking into the oval office…

April 27, 2023
27Apr23 Grafton Illinois 2
Rose Marie Ritchie has a beautiful location to work right along the Mississippi River.  But in the decades she’s lived here, she’s also seen the power these waters can bring, when flooding swamps her town.  It’s a resilient place though – a town that has become quite a draw for many day and weekend trippers…

April 26, 2023
26Apr23 Grafton Illinois 1
There are many storied rail routes in this nation – some historic, others still operating.  In Grafton, IL you’ll find a very famous route with a unique name – the Dinky.  We say hello to our listeners on WJBM just up the road in Jerseyville, IL as we take a look back at a route now gone but still memorialized…

April 25, 2023
25Apr23 Viking Ship 2
On the surface it seemed to be a ludicrous project.  A man with no experience building boats, was going to cut his own trees, build his own Viking Ship and then sail it from the Great Lakes and cross the Atlantic.  So what happens when a junior high school counselor has such a dream?

April 24, 2023
24Apr23 Viking Ship 1
Robert Asp had a dream to visit Norway someday.  It was, after all, the land where his family traced their heritage.  Most people would take an airplane.  Robert decided on the mission of a lifetime to make the trip of a lifetime and his work now attracts visitors from around the world…

 

April 21, 2023
21Apr23 Serge Kreisberge 4
Imagine a scene in which a boy is wrenched from a mother’s arms…and is headed for certain death.  No doubt the scene played out many times during the holocaust…but this version had a happy ending…

April 20, 2023
20Apr23 Serge Kreisberge 3
A diet of chocolate and potatoes is probably not the most balanced ration one can eat…but during World War II…it meant survival for this family.  It was all this young man could provide for his family…

April 19, 2023
19Apr23 Serge Kreisberge 2
I occasionally like to go back to our show archives to hear stories that have moved me and many of our listeners.  One of those shows was with Serge Kreisberger.  As World War II began, Serge Kreisberger and his family struggled just to survive.  Although Serge has now passed, his miraculous story of survival is one still inspirational today…

April 18, 2023
18Apr23 Serge Kreisberge 1
His city bounced from one country’s control to another during World War II.  No matter who was in control…this young Jewish man feared for his life…

April 17, 2023
17Apr23 Dave Dahl Diamon D Saddle Shop 2
When Dave Dahl turns on the cowboy channel to watch a rodeo, there’s a good chance he’s going to see something he made.  In fact, he’s become an important friend to many a cowboy both here and in countries far and wide…

 

April 14, 2023
14Apr23 Dave Dahl Diamon D Saddle Shop 1
Sometimes a business begins without you realizing you were beginning a business.  That is perhaps the case for Dave Dahl.  What began about 50 years ago is something that today makes him one of the premiere builders and suppliers of this…

April 13, 2023
13Apr23 Dakota Emporium Trading Post 2
Successful businesses have to change with the times.  Or do they?  In some ways, this store is doing the same thing predecessors of 200 years ago accomplished at nearly the same spot.  Yes, some things have changed but some remain the same…

April 12, 2023
12Apr23 Dakota Emporium Trading Post 1
Take a walk around the small downtown area of Ft. Pierre, South Dakota and you’ll find a place called the Dakota Emporium.  The store can trace its roots back to a small operation in the local mall, but today it is a place with a unique set of supplies and items to be bought and sold…

April 11, 2023
11Apr23 Dewbery Tulip Farm 2
Imagine a crop that might take you twelve days, with twelve people to get planted.  This family has come up with a slightly faster way to plant now, but there is still work to create one of the largest types of this farm that you will find on the east coast…

April 10, 2023
10Apr23 Dewbery Tulip Farm 1
This old tobacco farm has been in the Johnson family for about a century now.  The tobacco is long gone, but what replaced it is a unique crop that has people driving miles and miles to experience it for about three weeks each Spring…

 

April 7, 2023
07Apr23 Tennessee River Museum 3
You could say it was the bus line of the 1800s.  A network of transportation that could take you just about anywhere a person needed to go.  The passengers and cargo have changed but this route is still an important one today…

April 6, 2023
06Apr23 Tennessee River Museum 2
Necessity is the mother of invention.  When the Civil War began, it was relatively easy to sink wooden ships, so both sides immediately began beefing up the exteriors of their hulls.  What resulted was a famous type of ship that was only on the naval scene but for a few short years…

April 5, 2023
05Apr23 Tennessee River Museum 1
Each year, thousands of people will travel to southern TN to see the famous national battleground at Shiloh.  What most people don’t know is that this place would most likely have become a national historic site even if a battle had never been fought there…

April 4, 2023
04Apr23 Lee’s Summit 3
When you hear the name Cole Younger, you probably think of an outlaw holding up banks and living a life of crime.  That story is true in part.  But what you may not know is a second chapter in his life – a chapter told here in the town where he is buried…

April 3, 2023
03Apr23 Lee’s Summit 2
It was known as the Burnt District – a place where residents were forced to leave because there was no way to keep the peace during the Civil War.  While well over a century has passed, you can still find the impact and the story is told here…

 

March 31, 2023
31Mar23 Lee’s Summit 1
Sometimes the naming of a town is quite a story in itself.  That’s the case for what became one of Missouri’s largest cities.  However, few know the origins of this place that seems to indicate it’s at a great elevation…

March 30, 2023
30Mar23 Finley Farms Ozark Mill 2
When you’re building is in the path of a regularly flooding river you might consider moving locations.  This place did just the opposite.  The rebuilt the foundation to withstand the floods and in the process created a place that brings agriculture of the past into the present…

March 29, 2023
29Mar23 Finley Farms Ozark Mill 1
There was a time when old mills dotted the landscape, grinding grain into feed and food.  One of the oldest mills in the area still stands between Springfield and Branson, Missouri.  It’s undergone a transformation that has people coming from near and far…

March 28, 2023
28Mar23 Lake Itasca 2
The Mississippi River flows over 2500 miles, southward through the Midwestern U.S.  That is, unless you are here, where the river actually meanders north for about 50 miles…

March 27, 2023
27Mar23 Lake Itasca 1
The Mississippi River empties into the Gulf of Mexico just south of New Orleans, Louisiana.  But where does the mighty river begin?  That question puzzled explorers for many years, leading many on a search through the woods of northern Minnesota…

 

March 24, 2023
24Mar23 Last Train to Clarksville 2
In the summer of 1966 the Monkees released “The Last Train to Clarksville.”  The song went to number one on the billboard charts and many people went in search of that last train to Clarksville.  That journey led many to this town and one particular train depot…

March 23, 2023
23Mar23 Last Train to Clarksville 1
In the early and mid 1900s, passenger train service was common in most cities of any size.  Today the passengers and freight have vanished from those stations.  Only a few remain.  Most are now simply historic structures reminding us of the way things once were…

March 22, 2023
22Mar23 Daddy Bryson
His name was Daddy Bryson…and he became one of the best-known train engineers in the Smoky Mountains…not because of his skill on the rails, but instead for the unfortunate accident that cost him his life…

March 21, 2023
21Mar23 River Raisin 2
We all recall the battle cry, “Remember the Alamo” but over 200 years ago it was “Remember the Raisin!”  So what was this “raisin” and exactly why would it rally troops in battle?  Today we dust off the history books for an important piece of early American history…

March 20, 2023
20Mar23 River Raisin 1
It’s long been said that the only thing most Americans can tell you about the War of 1812 is what year it began.  Maybe they recall the burning of Washington or Andrew Jackson’s soldiers in New Orleans, but it is difficult to remember much else…

 

March 17, 2023
17Mar23 Turkish Countryside Fatma Tribute
A couple of years ago I was approached with a novel idea.  Could we use these broadcasts to help share Americana with those outside this country and perhaps help them learn English as a second language as well.  What resulted was a unique program developed by an enthusiastic teacher in the country of Turkey…

March 16, 2023
16Mar23 Midwest Dream Car Collection 5
Sometimes a car is known for it’s time period in history.  That’s the case for this particular Nissan.  If you’re under the age of 35, you probably realize just how valuable the car on today’s feature is.  If you’ve over 35, well, you might just pass by a half million dollar car without giving it a thought…

March 15, 2023
15Mar23 Midwest Dream Car Collection 4
If you have work to do in the field, you probably get a tractor to pull an implement to get it done.  But one company came up with a more flexible answer – just use your pickup to do the job and much more.  Today we take a look at one of those trucks born from the duties of World War II…

March 14, 2023
14Mar23 Midwest Dream Car Collection 3
Most of us have a car.  Some of us have a boat.  What if wanted both but only had the money for one or the other.  A trip here shows you that the problem may be solved.  We go back in time to a car that still gets a lot of looks today…

March 13, 2023
13Mar23 Midwest Dream Car Collection 2
If you’ve ever seen one of the movies in the Back to the Future series, you know that Michael J Fox, in the role of Marty McFly drives a Delorean which must hit a speed of 88 miles per hour in order to transport him backward or forward through time.  While a time machine may be far fetched, there’s another factor that may have prevented time travel in that Delorean…

 

March 10, 2023
10Mar23 Midwest Dream Car Collection 1
Did you ever set out to purchase a car and wind up buying several by accident?  I know, that’s probably not going to happen, but in this case it kind of did.  And because of that situation, an amazing car collection was born in the heart of the Midwest – a collection that allows people to truly experience some great cars of all ages…

March 9, 2023
09Mar23 Monroe Michigan Custer 3
When news of the defeat at the Little Bighorn reached Monroe, Michigan, this town had an extra reason to morn.  They did not lose just one soldier in the battle, but five…

March 8, 2023
08Mar23 Monroe Michigan Custer 2
There are several portraits that show the surrender of General Lee to General Grant at Appomattox.  Those scenes usually display a small table on which the surrender documents were signed.  When the ceremony was complete, who ended up with that historic table?

March 7, 2023
07Mar23 Monroe Michigan Custer 1
We know him for the battle at the Little Bighorn.  But to know just that one fact is to miss out on the amazing story of one George Armstrong Custer.  Today we head to his hometown, a place that still honors the family and their service to the nation…

March 6, 2023
06Mar23 Sears Birthplace 3
At one time, Sears was the largest retailer in the world.  Today there are just a handful of stores that remain, but the story of the man behind the business behemoth is one that can be traced to a small town in Minnesota.  In fact, this is a place that Mr. Sears always remembered.  We say hello to our listeners on KLGR in Redwood Falls…

 

March 3, 2023
03Mar23 Sears Birthplace 2
There was a problem at the rail depot in North Branch, Minnesota.  A box of watches had arrived, but the business listed to receive the package refused the shipment.  So what was the depot to do with these unclaimed watches?  One young man had an idea, and that idea became something huge…

March 2, 2023
02Mar23 Sears Birthplace 1
Richard was born in Minnesota.  His father died while he was a boy and he got a job as a railroad telegraph operator to help earn money for the family.  Interestingly, it was that job which began a career path that made him a household name…

March 1, 2023
01Mar23 Wahoo Friends Cafe 2
Some eating establishments are known for a specific item on the menu.  That’s the case for this spot near Omaha, Nebraska.  The recipe has been around for decades, but when this café opened, the owner had not heard of the item.  In fact, she may have thought it sounded a bit strange.  Now it’s the dish that has many, including myself, stopping by to try it…

February 28, 2023
28Feb23 Wahoo Friends Cafe 1
Over time the use of buildings can change.  That’s the case in downtown Wahoo, Nebraska.  The old co-op offices left their old home in the late 1980s.  One of the businesses that occupies the spot today still attracts a lot of farmers, but for another reason…

February 27, 2023
27Feb23 Wahoo Locker 3
We may think of specific regions of the world offering up dishes that you can only find if you make a journey there.  Today’s story is a bit like that, but the people in Wahoo, Nebraska found that they could offer some special tastes that are unique to the places their citizen’s ancestors once called home…

 

February 24, 2023
24Feb23 Wahoo Locker 2
You’ve heard of Colonel Sanders special chicken recipe.  In fact, some of our favorite foods and drinks have secret recipes that date back decades.  Today’s stop is no different.  It’s a place turning out a product that has people coming from far and wide…

February 23, 2023
23Feb23 Wahoo Locker 1
Decades ago just about every town in farm country had a locker plant.  Today those numbers have decreased, but demand has suddenly increased. That means finding a local locker plant to process meat can sometimes be a challenge.  The folks in this community though have one of the best…

February 22, 2023
22Feb23 Indio California 2
Most people have heard of Chuck Yeager, but most have not heard of his good friend Jackie…a pilot who set more aviation records that any other aviator.  This is Jackie’s story and how it affected our world…

February 21, 2023
21Feb23 Indio California 1
When the rails came through this stretch of dry wilderness, the only people living here were the Cahuilla Indians.  This is the story of what became of the train depot and the city built in the middle of the desert…

February 20, 2023
20Feb23 Patsy Cline Museum 2
Fans often love to interact with the stars.  But those stars are often too busy to communicate with any one individual.  However, turn back the clock to the 1950s and 60s and this star was known to hand write letters to fans and forge friendships that lasted for years…

 

February 17, 2023
17Feb23 Patsy Cline Museum 1
She was just 30 when she died in a plan crash in 1963, but her music had already made her one of the most recognized voices in the nation, and that voice remains one that brings people to this museum devoted to her life…

February 16, 2023
16Feb23 Johnny Cash Museum 3
You’ve probably not heard of a museum owner named Bill Miller.  However, Bill was a long time friend of a country music legend and that friendship led him to acquire many pieces of memorabilia that people come to see today…

February 15, 2023
15Feb23 Johnny Cash Museum 2
Some knew him as the man in black.  There were several reasons he may have worn that color – it was an image that stills makes him stand out among music greats.  Today we head to the museum devoted to that man…

February 14, 2023
14Feb23 Johnny Cash Museum 1
He was born in Kingsland, Arkansas in 1932.  After High School he served in the Air Force for four years and then…well then he began a career that just about everyone has heard of…

February 13, 2023
13Feb23 Thomas Jefferson Agriculture 2
Thousands of visitors tour this famous presidential home each year and although most know of this man’s important role in forming the nation, they often have heard little of his efforts to improve life on the farm…

 

February 10, 2023
10Feb23 Thomas Jefferson Agriculture 1
His face is one of four carved into Mt. Rushmore…but few know the story of how this well known president changed the face of agriculture.  This is the story of one president’s quest to make American farms the best in the world…

February 9, 2023
09Feb23 Lincoln Log Cabin 2
We may remember that President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday is February 12^th.  But we often forget the important role of his parents long after his birth.  Today we journey to the Lincolns’ final homestead and farm, a place where a mother bid her son farewell…

February 8, 2023
08Feb23 Lincoln Log Cabin 1
Abraham Lincoln lost his mother to a sudden illness when he was just nine years old.  Within a year his father remarried and young Abraham adjusted to a new step mother running the household.  The role of both mothers would be instrumental in his road to the presidency…

February 7, 2023
07Feb23 Jean Lafitte
He’s still regarded as an important figure in New Orleans and American history.  And although almost two centuries have passed, this shadowy figure still intrigues visitors to the French quarter and Cajun country…

February 6, 2023
06Feb23 Bily Clocks 3
In the summer of 1893 a unique visitor arrived in Spillville, Iowa.  He loved the place so much that he stayed for the summer, did some work, and shared his talents at the local church.  It’s a summer they still remember here today…

 

February 3, 2023
03Feb23 Bily Clocks 2
In 1928 the Bily brothers received quite an offer from Henry Ford.  He offered them one million dollars for something they created.  The story of what they built and wheat they did with Ford’s offer is quite a story…

February 2, 2023
02Feb23 Bily Clocks 1
The Bily brothers were farmers near Spillville, Iowa.  But it’s what the brothers did when they weren’t farming that has people still coming to this small town today for their pastime was truly remarkable…

February 1, 2023
01Feb23 Sam Rayburn 3
In November of 1961, this small town in north Texas was overwhelmed with people coming to pay their respects to a man who had led the House of Representatives longer than any other person.  Local residents were employed just to shuttle all the dignitaries from the nearest airport to the largest building in town, the First Baptist Church…

January 31, 2023
31Jan23 Sam Rayburn 2
Many governors, senators and representatives may aspire to one day become president of the United States.  However, this man believed the real power was leading the legislative branch of government.  After all, there are not term limits to being a representative, but there are for the president…

January 30, 2023
30Jan23 Sam Rayburn 1
In Bonham, Texas you can find the boyhood home of Sam Rayburn.  The small town is also host to the politician’s library and museum.  It’s an interesting look at a man who served his district for portions of six decades and the terms of eight presidents…

 

January 27, 2023
27Jan23 Two Harbors 2
They are some of the largest boat docks you’ll ever see.  Not mere spots on a lake from which to fish, but rather one thousand foot long steel railways for trains to dump their contents onto waiting ships.  It’s a process that’s been taking place here for over 150 years…

January 26, 2023
26Jan23 Two Harbors 1
Today Duluth, MN and Superior, WI are major shipping points on Lake Superior.  However, turn back the clock a century and a half and it was this town up the shoreline that had the advantage.  They are still loading some of the lakes largest ships here…

January 25, 2023
25Jan23 Al’s Oasis 2
If you’ve driven across interstate 90 in South Dakota you know you’ll see plenty of signs for Wall Drug, an iconic business in that state.  But you also likely to see quite a number of billboards for another well-known stop on the Missouri River.  I’ll take you to that place locals and tourists love…

January 24, 2023
24Jan23 Al’s Oasis 1
An oasis is often thought to be a lush, fertile spot in the middle of a desert.  The oasis I’ll take you to today isn’t in a desert, but it does have a lot to offer, especially when it opened in a sparsely populated part of the country in the early 1900s…

January 23, 2023
23Jan23 Hellcats 2
Many military museums tell the story of an entire war, or perhaps the history of a fort or military outpost.  This museum is unusual in that it shares the story of a division that existed but for three years.  But they were a very important three years…

 

January 20, 2023
20Jan23 Hellcats 1
They were often known as the Hell Cats.  Others knew them by the name, “Suicide Squad” for their hard fought battles against the fiercest German divisions.  It was one of those fights that resulted in heavy losses for the Hell Cats…

January 19, 2023
19Jan23 Bluff Dwellers Cavern
Arthur Browning thought he was just going to check the traps on his farm one morning back in 1927.  What he found was a far bigger prize than any pelt, for what was under his farm was more important than what was above ground…

January 18, 2023
18Jan23 Sam Walton 3
He was one of the wealthiest men in America.  Yet almost everyone that ever worked with him would tell you that money didn’t change him.  He cared about his employees and his customers and it showed in the way he lived life…

January 17, 2023
17Jan23 Sam Walton 2
It you walked into a business that had just remodeled its space and noticed the floor tiles did not match, you might think the owner was cheap or the contractor didn’t know what they were doing.  It turns out, the fact the flooring didn’t match here told you a lot about the owner and the future of his fledgling business…

January 16, 2023
16Jan23 Sam Walton 1
It’s said, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”  Perhaps that’s how Sam should have regarded the fact that his lease was not renewed and someone else took over the business space.  But the setback was only temporary…

 

January 13, 2023
13Jan23 Antelope Island 3
Every fall there is a round-up of the herd here just outside of Salt Lake City, Utah.  You can even bring a horse, or rent one and help corral hundreds of bison roaming one of the largest islands in the nation…

January 12, 2023
12Jan23 Antelope Island 2
Until the 1960s, ranchers took animals by a barge from the mainland to this island for grazing.  The vast rangeland was difficult to reach and winter storms could produce swells of ten feet or more on the lake.  Yet, ranching continued here for well over a century…

January 11, 2023
11Jan23 Antelope Island 1
Jeremy Shaw is responsible for patrolling a lake larger than the state of Rhode Island.  It’s a unique place that’s been drawing curious visitors here for thousands of years…

January 10, 2023
10Jan23 Scott Hamilton 3
Fourteen Americans have won an Olympic gold medal in individual figure skating.  For Scott Hamilton,  his gold medal is just a footnote in a story that has led him through ups and downs to the happiest moment of his life…

January 9, 2023
09Jan23 Scott Hamilton 2
Many athletes have stories of overcoming failure in order to reach triumph.  For Scott Hamilton, the journey to a gold medal seemed to be leading to heartbreak and his family to bankruptcy…

 

January 6, 2023
06Jan23 Scott Hamilton 1
Scott Hamilton was never supposed to accomplish much in sports, let alone win a gold medal.  In fact, the way he got involved in ice skating was quite by accident.  This is the story of a child who’s doctor prescribed an ice rink…

January 5, 2023
05Jan23 Walter Cronkite Museum 2
The most trusted man in America.  That’s quite a title and it was often used when referring to a broadcaster who was born in St. Joseph, Missouri.  Today we take a trip to a place that remembers his broadcasts and reminds us about the early days of television news…

January 4, 2023
04Jan23 Walter Cronkite Museum 1
We live in a time when some folks love to throw around the term, “fake news.”  Perhaps it’s warranted in some cases, but let me take you to a place where the news was delivered in an era when people thought the broadcaster was fact-based and trusted…

January 3, 2023
03Jan23 Nome Schoolhouse 2
The schoolhouse in Nome, North Dakota saw its last students in 1970.  The old building would have been demolished a few years ago if not for two ladies who had an idea.  Today that idea has people literally coming from all points in the nation to experience a unique business venture

January 2, 2023
02Jan23 Nome Schoolhouse 1
When your sales increase to the point you need to expand your business, that’s usually a good thing.  That was the case for Theresa and Chris, but the larger building they desired for expansion was a bit out of the ordinary

 

December 30, 2022
30Dec22 Best of 2022 – Ben the Steer
He is the biggest steer on record – a beef that was over 16 feet in length and weighed well over two tons.  In fact, he was such a site to see, the city of Kokomo, Indiana made sure you can still see him today…

December 29, 2022
29Dec22 Best of 2022 – Green Giant
Some people have a green thumb, and it certainly seemed the farmers in southern Minnesota were experts at growing peas.  Large beautiful peas.  Peas so large and so good that they really needed to be differentiated from all others.  How did they do it?

December 28, 2022
28Dec22 Best of 2022 – Big Bend
In a moment I’ll take you to a small room, about the size of a large walk-in closet, that’s insured for 25 million dollars.  What’s in it?  Not jewels or gold or anything technological.  Rather it’s something rare, old and one of the few places in the world where the public can come and see it…

December 27, 2022
27Dec22 Best of 2022 – Piggy Bank
Maybe you had a piggy bank as a child, or perhaps you still do.  In a moment I’ll take you to the place  where the piggy bank was born.  It all began with a boy, a pig and an important need in the world…

December 26, 2022
26Dec22 Best of 2022 – Ray Starling
It was Ray’s first time in the Oval Office and he did not want to mess up his presentation.  He thought all was going well until the president made a move that seemed to indicate the meeting was coming to a swift end…

 

December 23, 2022
23Dec22 Twas the Night Before Christmas
We know the words of “’twas the night before Christmas;” words that helped solidify the image of Santa over 200 years ago. Here’s the the place that marks the beginning of their story…

December 22, 2022
22Dec22 Bronner’s Christmas Store
If Santa Claus needed a place to buy all of his decorations, this would be it. It’s big business in small town Michigan and it brings Christmas cheer every day of the year…

December 21, 2022
21Dec22 Camp Floyd 3
For three years, 3500 soldiers served alongside one another in Utah Territory.  It was the largest military outpost in the country.  But within a matter of months, the place would become a virtual ghost town and those same soldiers would be fighting one another…

December 20, 2022
20Dec22 Camp Floyd 2
In the summer of 1858 U.S. soldiers went to Utah to put down a supposed Mormon rebellion.  However, their three year stay in the Utah territory saw no military action.  Some believe it may have all put a ruse to help the cause of the Secretary of War…

December 19, 2022
19Dec22 Camp Floyd 1
In 1857 rumors of rebellion made it to the oval office.  President James Buchannan ordered troops to head to the trouble spot.  Soon one third of the entire nation’s army was on the move to squash the rebels…

 

December 16, 2022
16Dec22 Friend Nebraska 2
If you live in or near a very small town, it’s a big blow when you lose your grocery store.  It’s rare that one ever comes back to fill that void.  But that wasn’t the case for this town.  They found a unique way to pull their resources to create even more than what they may have imagined…

December 15, 2022
15Dec22 Friend Nebraska 1
Sometimes you need a good friend. In this case, the good friend is the entire town.  After all, it’s in their name…

December 14, 2022
14Dec22 Blue & Gold Sausage
This FFA advisor found a fund raiser that was so successful, he had to quit teaching just to operate the new business.  It’s a venture still doing well over 50 years after it was founded…

December 13, 2022
13Dec22 Kidder Massacre
Today messages can be relayed to a military patrol within a split second.  But in the 1860s, it took a scouting party to track down soldiers on the high plains.  Those trips could take days or weeks and could be very dangerous.  This is the story of one such patrol delivering messages to George Armstrong Custer…

December 12, 2022
12Dec22 Goodland Helicopter
The first operational helicopters took flight in the 1930s.   Widespread production of the aircraft didn’t occur for another decade after that.  However, inventors were experimenting with prototypes for much of the early 20th century.  The first patent was for a craft here on the high plains…

 

December 9, 2022
09Dec22 Leota Cowboy War 2
It was proclaimed the Cowboy War by national newspapers.  It was truly a battle that required some of the biggest names in law enforcement to head to a couple of towns in western Kansas to try and keep the peace before a vote to determine the place to be named the county seat…

December 8, 2022
08Dec22 Leota Cowboy War 1
I’ve heard several stories over the years about towns fighting to be proclaimed the county seat in the early years of settlement.  But in western Kansas you’ll find a county where that decision was more than a fight, it was a battle between towns that left people dead in the streets…

December 7, 2022
07Dec22 Norman Borlaug Home 2
In an era when most farm boys completed eighth grade at most, this family saw something in their son that led them to help him go to high school and college.  In turn, his work saved the lives of millions and earned him a Nobel Peace Prize…

December 6, 2022
06Dec22 Norman Borlaug Home 1
The old farmhouse that sits about a dozen miles south of Cresco, Iowa that probably appears a lot like other homes built in the Depression era.  The barn still stands and a row of trees provides a windbreak.  Take a closer look and you’ll learn that not just any farmer lived here.  His work impacted the world…

December 5, 2022
05Dec22 USS Constellation 2
She was built in 1854 and one hundred years later she was still serving in the U.S. navy.  We get the story of a ship that served in the Civil War and WW II…

 

December 2, 2022
02Dec22 USS Constellation 1
A trip to the Baltimore harbor will provide you a glimpse of many ships.  But it is perhaps the oldest one in the harbor with the biggest story.  She is the last surviving ship from the Civil War and today we go on board to get part of her storied history…

December 1, 2022
01Dec22 USS Indianapolis 4
When Japan surrendered to the U.S, Americans rejoiced to know that the conflict was coming to an end.  Buried in the news that very same day was one of the most sobering stories of the war.  It was the story of a ship that was missing…

November 30, 2022
30Nov22 USS Indianapolis 3
We’ve shared many stories of veterans on this show over the years.  All are important stories, yet this one stands out.  It is the story of survival and overcoming one of the worst loss of life at sea in American history..

November 29, 2022
29Nov22 USS Indianapolis 2
As August of 1945 neared, one ship took a top secret cargo across the Pacific.  But for the men of the U.S. Indianapolis that shipment would soon overshadow their own fate…

November 28, 2022
28Nov22 USS Indianapolis 1
He grew up in the heart of the Midwest but during world war II his life at sea would become one of the most important stories of survival to ever be told…

 

November 25, 2022
Today we associate the Pilgrims with the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts. However, the landing spot was a bit accidental…
25Nov22 Mayflower 2

November 24, 2022
It just happened to be a ship that was available to sail, but the ship that was chosen is still known by us today.  Its name is synonymous for many with our celebration of Thanksgiving…
24Nov22 Mayflower 1

November 23, 2022
It was a mail shipment so large that it overwhelmed a tiny post office and caused the postal service to rewrite its rules.  In fact, it’s a story of how people moved an entire building, piece by piece, using the US Postal Service…
23Nov22 Bank of Vernal 2

November 22, 2022
If you need to ship 40 tons of bricks, you of course use…parcel post.  That’s what one man did to construct a two story bank building in 1916…
22Nov22 Bank of Vernal 1

November 21, 2022
Before he was known as Buffalo Bill, he was simply William Cody.  We all assume he must have some connection to buffalo to get the nickname.  The title actually came from a contest on the high plains in the spring of 1868…
21Nov22 Buffalo Bill Oakly Kansas

 

November 18, 2022
18Nov22 Lincoln Library Historic Doc 4
Almost every American can recite the opening line of this speech.  It is perhaps the best known in American history, yet it was one of the shortest ever delivered – a speech constructed to say a lot in a little time, but perhaps crafted that way for another important reason as well.  We take a look at a few things you may not have known about the Gettysburg Address…

November 17, 2022
17Nov22 Lincoln Library Historic Doc 3
What is the most important document that Christian McWhirter handles at this vault?  He admits, the answer may seem boring, but it doesn’t make it wrong, and it certainly makes it a very interesting job overseeing a piece of important American history…

November 16, 2022
16Nov22 Lincoln Library Historic Doc 2
We know Abraham Lincoln as a great president and orator.  However, how much do you know about Lincoln as a mathematician?  Perhaps it’s irrelevant, but Lincoln’s math homework certainly made for an interesting piece of history…

November 15, 2022
15Nov22 Lincoln Library Historic Doc 1
Most people think you need to go to Hawaii to see hula girls.  Not so.  In fact, it was one very unique hula girl that had cars driving off the road to see her for over two decades.  What they found was an eclectic mix of items one ninety year old man had gathered and turned into his own city for tourist to enjoy…

November 14, 2022
14Nov22 Hulaville
Most people think you need to go to Hawaii to see hula girls.  Not so.  In fact, it was one very unique hula girl that had cars driving off the road to see her for over two decades.  What they found was an eclectic mix of items one ninety year old man had gathered and turned into his own city for tourist to enjoy.

 

November 11, 2022
11Nov22 Dorchester Nebraska 4
In May of 1945, Dorchester, Nebraska native, Charley Havlat, was killed in action in the European theatre of World War II.  His death was one of thousands who gave their lives for the cause of freedom.  However, over 50 years after the war, this town learned something that made Charley’s death even more significant…

November 10, 2022
10Nov22 Dorchester Nebraska 3
The journey from slavery to freedom was one of many challenges for many families in the years following the Civil War.  This Nebraska town celebrates one such family who came her to farm and left a positive impact on the community…

November 9, 2022
09Nov22 Dorchester Nebraska 2
You may not think of advertising as a work of art.  A trip to the farm town of Dorchester, Nebraska may change your mind.  What once adorned the stage of a small town not only told you much about the local stores but also served as a beautiful visual reminder of home…

November 8, 2022
08Nov22 Dorchester Nebraska 1
You can still find a few old, historic log cabins in this country.  Many are museums of early pioneer life.  You know you have an important one though when you put that log cabin inside another building in order to protect it…

November 7, 2022
07Nov22 Lincoln Log Cabin
Abraham Lincoln is known as the great emancipator, a champion of ending slavery in the United States.  However, in the fall of 1847 he found himself on the other side of the debate in an Illinois courtroom…

 

November 4, 2022
04Nov22 Nanibajou 2
Pick a paint color or new carpet for your home and it will probably fade over time.  However, the paint on these walls looks as bright as it did when it was first viewed over 80 years ago.  “Bright” really doesn’t do these colors justice.  Add to the intrigue the fact the owner has now idea what’s in that paint that keeps it looking so nice…

November 3, 2022
03Nov22 Nanibajou 1
Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey were members of this exclusive club, yet they may have never set foot here.  It’s a place that was built from the wilderness in 1927 and the grand plans had ships arriving here with high rolling guests enjoying its amenities for a summer’s worth of fun…

November 2, 2022
02Nov22 Theodore Roosevelt National Park 2
Although his time here in North Dakota was not long if measured in numbers of days, the quality of that time and the impact it made on his life, in turn impacted Americans forever…

November 1, 2022
01Nov22 Theodore Roosevelt National Park 1
To date, no U.S. president has been born in North Dakota…but this commander-in-chief’s experiences there may be the reason he achieved the office.  The story of that Badlands rancher who would up in the White House…

October 31, 2022
31Oct22 Anoka Minnesota Halloween Parade 2
The town of Anoka, Minnesota can make quite a claim.  That title traces its history to a twelve year old boy who made a trip to Washington, D.C. to get special recognition for what was taking place where he lived.  The story that is very much alive today…

 

October 28, 2022
28Oct22 Anoka Minnesota Halloween Parade 1
Anoka, Minnesota had a problem.  Every Halloween the local kids were pulling all kinds of pranks – tipping outhouses, turning the cows out of their pens and in general causing plenty of mischief.  So, the town came up with a creative way to keep kids busy.  What resulted is still here today…

October 27, 2022
27Oct22 Jim Grey’s Petrified Wood Shop
Jim says he’s in the treasure hunting business.  He’s looking for items that are worth tens of thousands of dollars and they’re buried in the desert rangeland near his home.  What he finds may well take a trackhoe to unearth, but the discovery is well worth it.  What’s he hunting?

October 26, 2022
26Oct22 Island Mound 3
You may have never heard of the Battle of Island Mound.  However, what occurred there in the fall of 1862 was more than just another skirmish between confederate and union troops.  It was significant because of who fought there and the outcome of the battle…

October 25, 2022
25Oct22 Island Mound 2
Where did the first former slaves take up arms and fight with the Union army?  You may be surprised to find them organizing in the state of Kansas.  But why there?  It all has to do with a man named Jim Lane, a man who served as a U.S. senator and Union general simultaneously…

October 24, 2022
24Oct22 Island Mound 1
In the years leading up to the Civil War, counties adjacent to the Missouri-Kansas border saw bloodshed as pro and antislavery forces conducted guerilla attacks on towns, citizens and property.  One the counties in the crosshairs of the strife was Bates County, Missouri…

 

October 21, 2022
21Oct22 Marfa Texas 3
There’s something odd taking place in the countryside east of Marfa, Texas.  It’s been going on for over a century and in that time many of people have tried to get to the bottom of it, but no concrete answers have ever been found.  That fact brings many people here each night to look for a phenomenon that some of the early cowboys first witnessed…

October 20, 2022
20Oct22 Marfa Texas 2
The courthouse in Presidio County, Texas is a picturesque and historic place to visit.  It’s small dome affords visitors views of the surrounding countryside and a glimpse at a town that is remote in location, but a hotspot for new residents…

October 19, 2022
19Oct22 Marfa Texas 1
This town in southwest Texas is one of the most remote in the U.S.  Some might think that would make it hard to attract people to live there.  But in the 1970s the exact opposite happened when one person from New York City found a town that was perfect for him and his work…

October 18, 2022
18Oct22 Bullhead City 4
In Quartzite, Arizona you can find the grave of Hi Jolly.  It’s the Americanized name of a man responsible for transporting many of the supplies needed for settlement of what is today Arizona.  But his journey to this country and the method he used to transport those items makes him a unique individual in U.S. history…

October 17, 2022
17Oct22 Bullhead City 3
How do you move people and supplies across a desert?  Well, the answer may depend on what desert you are attempting to cross.  The U.S. military decided to think outside the box.  What resulted was an unusual site in the barren stretches of today’s state of Arizona…

 

October 14, 2022
14Oct22 Bullhead City 2
When you picture steamboats, we may have images of stately paddle wheeled ships moving up and down the Mississippi River.  So, it may seem odd for us to image those same boats cruising up and down a river in the middle of an American dessert.  It’s exactly what happened here for over a half century…

October 13, 2022
13Oct22 Bullhead City 1
School lunches can be an important part of some kids’ days.  In this district, those meals are so important, they ship them several miles by boat…

October 12, 2022
12Oct22 Apostle Islands 3
School lunches can be an important part of some kids’ days.  In this district, those meals are so important, they ship them several miles by boat…

October 11, 2022
11Oct22 Apostle Islands 2
Some places are hard to reach.  You might need a car, boat or plane to get there.  Depending on the season here, all three might work, or might not.  It just depends on the weather…

October 10, 2022
10Oct22 Apostle Islands 1
At the northern tip of the state of Wisconsin you’ll find the Apostle Islands.  The scenic spot includes several islands surrounded by Lake Superior – the largest of which is Madeline Island…

 

October 7, 2022
07Oct22 Grand Portage 4
Today you can find many canoes made from aluminum or fiberglass, but you don’t see many constructed of Birch bark.  That fact makes Carl Coster’s work impressive.  Not only that, his canoes compare very favorably with the new ones you might buy today…

October 6, 2022
06Oct22 Grand Portage 3
Normally companies who operate illegally do so by carefully hiding their activities.  This company made no such move to operate secretively.  Of course it’s easily seen work was so far from the rest of civilization, it was difficult for anyone to enforce them to pay their tax bills…

October 5, 2022
05Oct22 Grand Portage 2
Imagine paddling a canoe for eight weeks, reaching your destination, and then turning around and paddling eight weeks back home.  It was reality for the men who came to this isolated spot in the interior of North America.  In fact, in the late 1700s, there were thousands of men paddling here…

October 4, 2022
04Oct22 Grand Portage 1
What is the most important commodity in the world?  There are a variety of answers you might get to that question, but in the late 1700s there was something important that drove men into the far flung reaches of North America to find the precious item.  What is it?

October 3, 2022
03Oct22 Winslow Arizona
This song hit number 12 on the billboard charts 50 years ago, and it’s popularity seems to keep growing.  In fact, this town likes the song so well, they built a special street corner and began a festival in honor of the tune.  What’s the song and where’s the city?

 

September 30, 2022
30Sep22 Louisiana Missouri 4
So I’ll share a little story about this show.  I’ve been doing it 26 years and I travel to all the places we feature.  I do use the map on my phone to help navigate, but I’m old school, still regularly relying on a road atlas.  In fact, I keep a couple of atlases next to my desk and one in my vehicle and buy new ones each year.  Perhaps I should thank the man we feature today…

September 29, 2022
29Sep22 Louisiana Missouri 3
Some towns take the name of a state.  That is the case of Louisiana, Missouri.  It is an early Mississippi River town that flourished here on the banks of that day’s major highway…

September 28, 2022
28Sep22 Louisiana Missouri 2
Spies are supposed to work in secret.  After all, it’s usually automatic death or imprisonment if you’re caught.  But that was not the case for this spy.  In fact, it didn’t seem to matter that one side knew she was probably up to something…

September 27, 2022
27Sep22 Louisiana Missouri 1
We’ve all heard of the Titanic, and many of us know the name Carpathia, a nearby ship that helped rescue some of the ocean liners survivors.  Today’s story is about one of the passengers on that second ship and the unlikely career launched in the middle of that tragedy…

September 26, 2022
26Sep22 Fort Pierre Karl Fisher 2
For communities near a time zone, it can sometimes be confusing which time one is using when hosting an event.  In Ft. Pierre, SD most folks use central time, even though the town is actually in the mountain time zone.  There is one time though when that later time has proved a benefit over the years…

 

September 23, 2022
23Sep22 Ft Pierre Karl Fisher 1
Take a walk around the small historic district in Ft. Pierre, SD and you’ll find some buildings with quite a history.  Karl Fisher knows many of the stories well.  Perhaps that’s because his family was one of the groups who came her over a century ago to help supply the folks on the west side of the Missouri River…

September 22, 2022
22Sep22 Lincoln Library Holocaust
It is perhaps only fitting that right now in Springfield, IL you’ll find an exhibit titled “Stories of Survival” at the Lincoln Library and Museum.  Lincoln helped bring freedom and survival to slaves.  Here that story is built upon with real-life examples of individuals facing and triumphing over other injustices around the  globe…

September 21, 2022
21Sep22 Isle Royal 2
Concentrate on this piece of geographical trivia.  It’s the largest island, in the largest lake, on the largest island, in the largest lake in North America.  Where is it?  A trip to that island will offer you far more than the answer in Trivial Pursuit…

September 20, 2022
20Sep22 Isle Royal 1
It takes a boat or seaplane to get to this national park.  Those who make the journey are rewarded with a place like none other.  A remote forested island, surrounded with a rich history and a plethora of ship wrecks that may be explored…

September 19, 2022
19Sep22 American Gothic House 2
It’s one the largest and busiest ports in North America.  That’s saying something when you consider ships can only reach this point ten months of the year…

 

September 16, 2022
16Sep22 American Gothic House 1
If an artist painted a picture of his sister and his dentist, you’d probably doubt it would be anything special.  Of course, the picture did become famous, you’ve seen it no doubt and the backdrop for that masterpiece is a place people still come to farm country to see every day…

September 15, 2022
15Sep22 Duluth Harbor 2
Most farmers think of New Orleans as being a major grain handling port – and rightly so.  However, for those in the upper Midwest, this is the destination of much of the grain.  Half the trip to Europe is simply making it out of North America’s waters for these ships…

September 14, 2022
14Sep22 Duluth Harbor 1
It’s one the largest and busiest ports in North America.  That’s saying something when you consider ships can only reach this point ten months of the year…

September 13, 2022
13Sep22 Nathan Boone 2
Before there was a U.S. cavalry, this man was noted to be the top mounted military man in the nation.  His skills were so impressive that the future president of the confederacy wrote of his keen ability to lead men on the high plains.  However, few have heard of him, mostly due to the huge shadow cast by his prominent father…

September 12, 2022
12Sep22 Nathan Boone 1
Most of us remember the frontiersman and explorer, Daniel Boone from our history books.  However, we may not be familiar with his children and their equally impressive contributions to building America.  The baby of the family was perhaps the most successful…

 

September 9, 2022
09Sep22 Maui Costeau Center 3
I can attest, to see this animal up close is truly something unlike any other mammal you’ll encounter.  Katherine’s job is to get people close and to help them better understand an animal that in some cases, even researchers are still trying to figure out…

September 8, 2022
08Sep22 Maui Costeau Center 2
Maybe you live in a city, maybe you don’t, but we usually need to make a trip to the city to sometimes get some of the supplies we need to simply live life.  That holds true in the waters here off the coast of Maui.  While you don’t think you see a city, there is a vast network of buildings here…

September 7, 2022
07Sep22 Maui Costeau Center 1
Some college degrees would seem to do you more good depending on where you live.  Katherine’s degree was in marine biology, but she didn’t live close to an ocean.  Then an opportunity arose that allowed her to do what she loves and share that knowledge with others…

September 6, 2022
06Sep22 Maui Haleakala 3
Some refer to this place as the Seven Sacred Pools.  Make a trip here and you’ll find the true number probably can’t be accurately numbered.  It’s a place of natural beauty and one sacred for hundreds of years to the natives of Maui…

September 5, 2022
05Sep22 Maui Haleakala 2
There are some places on Earth where you are literally and figuratively closer to the sun, moon, and stars.  This place in particular is one that really seems to offer a different view of the heavens and that brings over one million people here each year…

 

September 2, 2022
02Sep22 Maui Haleakala 1
The island of Maui is a place many come to enjoy the beach.  But it’s also a place with a volcanic peak that reaches over 10,000 feet in the sky.  The slopes of that mountain are one that sustains some of the best farming on the islands…

September 1, 2022
01Sep22 Hinkley Minnesota Fire 3
Imagine a fire that could consume about 500 square miles in just four hours.  Such a firestorm has not been seen since 1945.  It was real life for residents of this small Minnesota town in 1894.  We remember those who lost their lives and the stories of the race to safety…

August 31, 2022
31Aug22 Hinkley Minnesota Fire 2
It sounds like the script of an action adventure movie.  A wall of fire approaches a city as townspeople rush to board trains that can move them to safety.  Locomotives race backwards down the tracks as the flames engulf the cars and people dive into lakes to save themselves.  It was the real life story that occurred here…

August 30, 2022
30Aug22 Hinkley Minnesota Fire 1
We’re all familiar with Smokey Bear and his warnings to prevent forest fires.  But imagine a fire with fuel that had been building, not for one summer, but for twenty-four years.  When that fire began, it was not a wildfire but a firestorm…

August 29, 2022
29Aug22 Monument Valley 3
Some students must ride a bus to school.  But imagine a school district where a student might spend nearly six hours simply riding to and from school each day.  It’s a reality here…

 

August 26, 2022
26Aug22 Monument Valley 2
You may have thought the use of Medicine Men was a thing of the past.  Not here.  In fact, this man has found the combination of the old and new is the perfect way to bridge cultures and create the best way to treat livestock and grow young leaders in this community…

August 25, 2022
25Aug22 Monument Valley 1
Clyde McBride may have never imagined he’d be teaching his students about Native American traditions in his High School agriculture classes.  However, the intertwining of cultures has led him to oversee one of the most successful veterinary science programs in the nation…

August 24, 2022
24Aug22 Lotz House 3
There’s a good chance you’ve never heard of Matilda Lotz.  However, if you happen to find one of her paintings, there’s a good chance it could be worth six figures.  It all began with a little girl drawing farm animals in the dirt of her Tennessee farmstead…

August 23, 2022
23Aug22 Lotz House 2
Today we sometimes see news coverage of families fleeing their homes with shelling taking place all around them.  That story was a reality here in this country and one of the places that tells of the challenges of triumphs of living near a battle is the Lotz House…

August 22, 2022
22Aug22 Lotz House 1
In Franklin, TN you’ll find a small, historic home called the Lotz House.  Step inside and you’ll learn not only about the family who found their way from Germany to what was then the countryside outside of Nashville, but you’ll also learn of the incredible heartache that was soon all around them…

 

August 19, 2022
19Aug22 Orphan Train Complex 2
Imagine being an orphan boarding a train on the East Coast, not knowing where your next home might be.  That was the case for nearly a quarter million children during the late 1800s and early 1900

August 18, 2022
18Aug22 Orphan Train Complex 1
In a restored rail depot building in Concordia, Kansas you can find an intriguing story of nearly a quarter million orphans who found new homes in the Midwest.  They are stories of sadness and triumph…stories of finding a new home and a new start on the Great Plains…

August 17, 2022
17Aug22 Forest City Missouri 3
This is a story about people in small towns who are determined to make good things happen.  They may have to overcome challenges but they find a way to bring people together to accomplish something special.  That’s what happened here and you can experience it too…

August 16, 2022
16Aug22 Forest City Missouri 2
The last steamboats docked here in 1868. In fact, some of theme didn’t make it out of town before the river suddenly changed course that August.  You can still find hints of the bustling scene that could be found here and part of that story has everything to do with one of the oldest buildings in town…

August 15, 2022
15Aug22 Forest City Missouri 1
If you drive into Forrest City, Missouri these days newcomers might be surprised to learn a couple of facts about this town of about 250 people.  One, this was once a river town…and two, this was one of the largest and wealthiest towns on the river save St. Louis…

 

August 12, 2022
12Aug22 Kit City Carousel 2
We appreciate the folks listening on KNAB in Burlington, Colorado who helped us with a story that’s nearly a century old in their community.  It’s a true treasure, even in the literal sense of the word.  We go to a town that tracked down their stolen masterpiece and then held a parade…

August 11, 2022
11Aug22 Kit Carson Carousel 1
The general public usually wants its elected officials to be fiscally responsible.  But the purchase the commissioners in Kit Carson County made was so over-the-top, they had to be removed from office.  What did they purchase?  The answer is well known…

August 10, 2022
10Aug22 Yellowstone Trail 2
Today we don’t think much of hoping on an interstate to zip from one location to the next. But a century ago, national highways were just beginning and it often required a major effort to construct one.  That was the case for a road, dubbed a trail, that led from Massachusetts to Washington state.  There’s quite a story behind it…

August 9, 2022
09Aug22 Yellowstone Trail 1
You’ve probably never heard of a man named Michael Dowling who spent most of his life in southwester Minnesota in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  However his story is one that should inspire us all. His life’s journey is one that is truly amazing…

August 8, 2022
08Aug22 Minnesota Machinery Museum
The school closed in the small town of Hanley Falls, Minnesota in the late 1970s.  Many people wondered what to do with their old school building and how they could keep spirits up in a town that was losing population. The creative idea is one that brings plenty of people of here from across the country…

 

August 5, 2022
05Aug22 Granite Falls Popcorn Stand 3
1919 was an important year in Granite Falls, Minnesota.  Amidst the hubbub of that year, people at the time wouldn’t have thought that a new business there would still be generating major income from a building barely big enough to fit two grown men…

August 4, 2022
04Aug22 Granite Falls Popcorn Stand 2
Many organizations work to raise money for local causes. That is the case for the Kiwanis Club in Granite Falls, Minnesota. However, you may be surprised at what generates over $30,000 most years that is donated back to the community…

August 3, 2022
03Aug22 Granite Falls Popcorn Stand 1
The folks here can tell you the exact date two brothers started, what to them, must have seemed to simply be a side business to make some extra cash.  The brothers have long since passed, but the business remains an icon in this small town…

August 2, 2022
02Aug22 Squirrel Cage Jail 2
Prisoners have used many different methods to escape from their cells.  A man in this jail crawled through pipes of raw sewage, not once but twice.  It’s just one of the many stories from a place known as the squirrel cage jail…

August 1, 2022
01Aug22 Squirrel Cage Jail 1
If you seem to be busy, but going nowhere in life, you might be said to be a “hamster in a wheel.”  The prisoners of this jail weren’t going anywhere and they truly were like hamsters in one giant rotating wheel..

 

July 29, 2022
29Jul22 Dublin Bottling Works 2
There are a lot of studies that show high consumption of sugary drinks is bad for your waistline and your health.  But one study actually helped this drink company keep producing its product and expanding its market share at a time when similar brands disappeared…

July 28, 2022
28Jul22 Dublin Bottling Works 1
If someone walked into a restaurant and said, “Shoot me a Waco,” no one would probably know what they meant.  They’d actually be asking for a drink most of us know very well…

July 27, 2022
27Jul22 McGloflin House
Today it is just a historic site overlooking the Oregon’s Wilamette River…yet the man who lived here is regarded to have saved the lives of many who first ventured over the Oregon Trail…

July 26, 2022
26Jul22 Mennonite Heritage Center 2
Perhaps you’ve seen the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.  But have you see the Liberty Bell in Goessel, Kansas?  The version that was crafted by 200 volunteers back in 1976 and it is created from something these citizens brought with them from the Ukraine…

July 25, 2022
25Jul22 Mennonite Heritage Center 1
This community in central Kansas traces their lineage to the Netherlands, Poland and the Ukraine.  During their journey it was a chance meeting with one of the country’s leaders created a name that has been a part of this group’s heritage for about two centuries now…

 

July 22, 2022
22Jul22 Sy Brenner 4
Life inside a POW camp in Germany was a struggle for survival.  Yet inside the barbed wire and the horrific experiences Sy Brenner encountered, there was hope.  He was part of an effort to pass secret message to underground agents working to help the Allies behind enemy lines…

July 21, 2022
21Jul22 Sy Brenner 3
Sy Brenner was an American soldier captured by the Germans and held in a POW camp.  He was fearful his captors would learn of his Jewish heritage and execute him on the spot.  That’s what he believed was about to occur, but what unfolded was a story straight out of a spy novel…

July 20, 2022
20Jul22 Sy Brenner 2
Sy Brenner served as a medic during World War II.  However, he was about to be asked to serve in the role of doctor.  He had no choice.  His story inside the barbed wire of a German POW camp…

July 19, 2022
19Jul22 Sy Brenner 1
November 29^th, 1944 was the night Sy Brenner was killed in action in southern France.  At least that’s what many eye witnesses reported.  However, his survival simply meant he was about to endure a long tenure in a POW camp…

July 18, 2022
18Jul22 Mark Twain Cave 2
Imagine looking through 250,000 signatures, in dark narrow passages with a flashlight in an effort to find where one very famous person had left their mark.  It’s just part of the interesting story behind this place that you may just know from a book you’ve read…

 

July 15, 2022
15Jul22 Mark Twain Cave 1
There are plenty of caves to visit in this country, but this one just happened to be explored many times by one boy who grew up to write about it.  And because he wrote about it, people are still coming here to see where the adventures took place…

July 14, 2022
14Jul22 Collinsville Ketchup Tower 2
Today we call it “ketchup.”  But there was once a segment of this nation that knew it as “catsup.”  Today we visit with a man nicknamed “The Big Tomato” who will set you straight on the story behind the product and why such a large bottle of it is sitting in Collinsville, Illinois…

July 13, 2022
13Jul22 Collinsville Ketchup Tower 1
If you are one of those folks who will put ketchup on just about anything, head to Collinsville, IL.  If this bottle is full, you should be about to get about 100,000 gallons of the condiment out of it.  Of course, you’d need a crane to tip the bottle and something even larger to shake it…

July 12, 2022
12Jul22 Son Tay Raid 4
Some would say the raid on the Son Tay prison camp in North Vietnam in 1970 was a failure.  Yet, the raid has been used as a pattern for many similar military operation for decades since.  We look back at the historic mission and how the lesson learned are still being used today…

July 11, 2022
11Jul22 Son Tay Raid 3
In the fall of 1970, the U.S. military conducted a mission into north Vietnam to rescue about 60 POWs.  Terry Buckler was the youngest member of what was known as Operation Ivory Coast.  We relive the moments of nighttime raid on the prison…

 

July 8, 2022
08Jul22 Son Tay Raid 2
What would go through your mind if you were selected for a mission and told your chances for survival were 50-50?  Would you back out?  Would it matter if you had a wife or kids?  It was a decision presented to Terry Buckler…

July 7, 2022
07Jul22 Son Tay Raid 1
Terry grew up during the Vietnam War.  As a young man he decided to enter the armed forces.  When presented with an opportunity to be a part of the special forces, he jumped in.  What happened next made him a part of a historic mission…

July 6, 2022
06Jul22 KORN Radio 2
You know your station has hit the big time when it’s call letters are used for a fictional radio station on a tv show.  I won’t give too much away at this point, other than to say hello to our listeners in Mitchell, SD as their station celebrates 75 years on the air…

July 5, 2022
05Jul22 KORN Radio 1
The radio business has lots of four-letter words.  The words I’m talking about are the four call letters by which most stations are known.  So what can you spell with four letters that must begin with a K or W?  Well, this station found the perfect fit and it turns 75 years old this week…

July 4, 2022
04Jul22 Liberty Bell
July 4^th, 1776.  It’s Independence Day in the United States and one of the symbols of our freedom is the Liberty Bell.  But most folks don’t know the real story behind that bell…a bell that really was not famous at all until more than a half century after that famous July 4^th in Philadelphia…

 

July 1, 2022
01Jul22 Gettysburg Battlefield 2
In the three days leading up to Indpendence Day 1863, Americans waged the greatest of battles against one another at Gettysburg  we taking a look back at the the people and sites that played at important role in the conflict.  We begin with the man who led the Union…a man most Americans cannot name…

June 30, 2022
30Jun22 Gettysburg Battlefield 1
Imagine hitting the age to retire and then deciding to volunteer for the army.  That is what John Burns did.  The military rejected him. but then the battle came to him…

June 29, 20022
29Jun22 Limpia Creek Hats 3
How much would you pay for a good cowboy hat?  I suppose it depends what you do for a living or if you think you need one – but here you can find some of the best hats in the nation and the starting price is usually around $500.  There’s usually at least a six month waiting list to get one of these hats…

June 28, 2022
28Jun22 Limpia Creek Hats 2
In 26 years of doing interviews for this show, John Davis may take the award for the most polite person I have every interviewed.  Sure most people are nice, but John begins each one of his answers with “Yes sir” and when my wife came along for the interview he took off his cowboy hat and nodded as she entered.  It’s that cowboy politeness that has perhaps set John’s work apart from others…

June 27, 2022
27Jun22 Limpia Creek Hats 1
Every cowboy needs a cowboy hat.  There are plenty of places you can buy a hat, but this small shop in west Texas has quite a story.  The man who operates it has customers from other continents who know the value of his work…

 

June 24, 2022
24Jun22 Museum of the Big Bend 3
In a moment I’ll take you to a small room, about the size of a large walk-in closet, that’s insured for 25 million dollars.  What’s in it?  Not jewels or gold or anything technological.  Rather it’s something rare, old and one of the few places in the world where the public can come and see it…

June 23, 2022
23Jun22 Museum of the Big Bend 2
As settlers moved from east to west across this continent they were looking for the best route to reach the Pacific coast.  Each option had its opportunities and challenges.  But this route showed promise.  It mostly avoided hostile tribes and treacherous mountains…

June 22, 2022
22Jun22 Museum of the Big Bend 1
The Big Bend region of Texas is a place where mountain chains meet but few people stayed.  The land was often a place not settled but rather traversed.  We know much about the land from 500 years ago because of the early Spanish who wrote down what they saw…

June 21, 2022
21Jun22 Kingman Arizona 2
Before Hoover Dam supplied electricity for this region of the southwest, this old powerhouse generated the electricity.  In fact, in was the energy from this building that allowed the huge dam to be built.  What happened to the old powerhouse?  It has a use today that has even more people stopping to see the wonder…

June 20, 2022
20Jun22 Kingman Arizona 1
Dinosaurs, caves and safari parks are the things summer road trips are made of.  Perhaps that’s why the combination still appears on an old section of route 66 – a must see for many tourists making their way across the state of Arizona.  This is the story behind those attractions and the smoke they blew into the Grand Canyon…

June 17, 2022
17Jun22 Elmer Long Bottle Tree
Elmer Long doesn’t manage a national forest, but it may be the most unique collection of trees in the nation.  He doesn’t have to plant them and wait for them to grow, he simply creates them – and his building materials are quite interesting.  In fact, it’s hard for him to get his work done these days for all of the people stopping by his front yard…

June 16, 2022
16Jun22 Duluth Aquarium 3
You may have seen folks on tv diving to explore old shipwrecks. Most of the time we may think of those dives taking place in warm Caribbean waters exploring a treasure ship. In a moment though, I’ll take you to a place some call the Disneyland of Diving – a place where the water is just above freezing but the sites you’ll see are truly amazing…

June 15, 2022
15Jun22 Duluth Aquarium 2
Lots of people love to go fishing, and even if you’re one of the folks that doesn’t care much for the pastime, what you’ll find in this body of water is certainly interesting.  It’s a place where cold water meets warmer water and a place where the fish rarely mix until the Spring each year…

June 14, 2022
14Jun22 Duluth Aquarium 1
One of the most recognizable structures in Duluth, and in the state of Minnesota for that matter, is the famous lift bridge.  It traverses the canal that connects Lake Superior with St. Louis Bay.  Along the shoreline you’ll find a place that will tell you all about the very unique and different bodies of water that canal connects…

June 13, 2022
13Jun22 Dylan Boyhood Home 2
The home at of 519 N 3^rd Ave. East in Duluth, Minnesota looks much like the ones surrounding it.  In fact, you wouldn’t give it much notice if not for the small plaque there designating it as the boyhood home of a man that this city celebrates each Spring…

 

June 10, 2022
10Jun22 Dylan Boyhood Home 1
Robert Zimmerman perhaps sounds like a fairly common name.  This young man was born in Duluth, Minnesota, later moving to Hibbing and after high school, changed his name…and with that name change came a man you most likely know…

June 9, 2022
09Jun22 Joe Jeffrey 3
Every cattleman needs good fences to keep the herd from roaming free.  Joe Jeffrey has seen many miles of those fences and he began to notice something unusual.  People will use just about anything to keep the wire up and the cattle in.  Who knew it would end up becoming a new career for Joe…

June 8, 2022
08Jun22 Joe Jeffrey 2
You can plant a crop in the ground, but without water it will do very little.  The farmers of this part of Nebraska knew they had plenty of water available.  The problem in the early days was figuring out a way to move the moisture to where they needed it…

June 7, 2022
07Jun22 Joe Jeffrey 1
When the first residents of this area began building bridges to cross the nearby river, they found they often needed a span that stretched over a mile.  However, there were many time during the year when that mile wide riverbed was nearly dry.  It was all a part of the rugged early years here…

June 6, 2022
06Jun22 D-Day Memorial 2
It’s been several decades since allied troops landed at Normandy on D-day.  Over four thousand men gave their lives that day from many allied nations.  So why is the national D-Day memorial in this rural town of about 6000 people?

 

June 3, 2022
03Jun22 D-Day Memorial 1
Many of those who served in World War II actually joined the armed forces before the tradgedy at Pearl Harbor.  Some joined for adventure or a source of income during the lean Great Depression years.  The young men from this small farming community had their reasons too, but little did they know they’d make history…

June 2, 2022
02Jun22 Bob Garst D-Day Memorial
It’s estimated that over three million military men and women served in Vietnam and neighboring nations during the Vietnam War.  About 48,000 died during the years of 1955 to 1975.  Bob Garst was one of those who served…

June 1, 2022
01Jun22 Chain of Rocks Bridge
The development of not only cars, but roads themselves has improved safety and lessened highway fatalities.  But in the 1920s building a mile long bridge over the nation’s longest river and putting a curve in the middle of it, didn’t seem like a bad idea…

May 31, 2022
31May22 Cooperstown Doubleday Field
This town has under 2000 residents, yet it hosts thousands of visitors each year and is arguably the most important place to travel for fans of one sport.  So how did it become such a draw?  It all goes back to one man’s cow pasture

May 30, 2022
30May22 Santa Monica Pier 3
Dan Rice has traveled the length of Route 66 over two dozen times.  It might surprise people that his original inspiration for traversing the nearly 2500 miles was a character on the show Happy Days…..

 

May 27, 2022
27May22 Santa Monica Pier 2
Today this sign on Santa Monica Pier attracts a steady stream of travelers who pose by it.  Interestingly, it’s a replica of a sign that disappeared over a half century ago, but a sign that is the destination for motorists from the U.S. and around the globe……

May 26, 2022
26May22 Santa Monica Pier 1
In 1926 Route 66 ended at the corner of 7th and Broadway in downtown Los Angles, California.  Today, most people will tell you route 66 ends at Santa Monica pier.  Neither of those answers may be officially correct though.  So why’s it matter?

May 25, 2022
25May22 Le Seur Minnesota Nature Center
We may think of a nature center as a place with an interpretive building and a few wooded acres where one can hike.  So when you come to the nature center here near Le Seur, Minnesota, you may be surprised that you’ll find, not one, but two farmsteads that have been transformed into a place to enjoy and learn about past and present of the place

May 24, 2022
24May22 Mayo & the Green Giant 2
Some people have a green thumb, and it certainly seemed the farmers in southern Minnesota were experts at growing peas.  Large beautiful peas.  Peas so large and so good that they really needed to be differentiated from all others.  How did they do it?

May 23, 2022
23May22 Mayo & the Green Giant 1
In Le Suer, Minnesota you’ll find what appears to be a modest old home sitting on a lot in front of a grain elevator.  Unless you read the sign you might not know who lived there.  What makes the place truly special is the identity of not just one, but two families who’s work you’ve certainly heard of…

 

May 20, 2022
20May22 WW Mayo House 3
In August of 1883 a tornado hit southeastern Minnesota.  It was a devastating event that caused a lot of damage to people and property.  Out of that tragedy though a doctor and some nuns decided to work together to begin caring for those in need.  What resulted is a place still very much a part of our world today…

May 19, 2022
19May22 WW Mayo House 2
One of this medical doctors first patients when he came to town was a horse.  He was glad to treat the horse, but he was there to help people.  In time, the chance to work with humans rather than horse did occur and he gained a good reputation – a reputation that lives on today…

May 18, 2022
18May22 WW Mayo House 1
He was a frontier doctor that found himself in the middle of the Dakota War.  His work in that war led him to take a medical position with the army during the U.S. Civil War.  And from there, well, you know this doctor, you perhaps just didn’t know the beginning to his story…

May 17, 2022
17May22 Brooks Dairy Farm 2
Most corn farmers have a date they would like to have all of their seed planted.  Of course the weather has a big impact on whether that happens or not.  But in a moment I’ll take you to a farm where they plant corn on May 5^th every single year no matter the weather…

May 16, 2022
16May22 Brooks Dairy Farm 1
Many farms have a long legacy of working the land.  Just outside Waupaca, Wisconsin you can find a dairy that traces its history to the days before the Civil War.  Part of that history is a unique item that is passed down from each generation as they begin to manage the operation…

 

May 13, 2022
13May22 Camp Algona Iowa 2
It’s hard to imagine being held as a prisoner of war and then, after the war, immigrating to the country that held you captive.  That’s exactly what happened on many occasions during WW II and today we go to one of the towns familiar with that story…

May 12, 2022
12May22 Camp Algona Iowa 1
Over the years you’ve heard us feature some towns in the heartland of America that served as POW camps during WW II.  Today we head to north central IA where a group of folks keep alive the story of the prisoners, guards and the farm families were many of those POWs worked…

May 11, 2022
11May22 KMA Radio History
Imagine hosting a breakfast so large that you needed to buy pancake flour by the boxcar.  That’s exactly what happened here.  So why was this small town feeding such large crowds and attracting some of the biggest names in entertainment?

May 10, 2022
10May22 Chillicothe Sliced Bread 2
Sliced bread was born, but there’s much more to this story, including how the new product was received and where we came up with that phrase that something is the best thing since sliced bread…

May 9, 2022
09May22 Chillicothe Sliced Bread 1
Go down a supermarket aisle and you can find lots of different types of bread.  White bread, wheat, honey oat, the list goes on and on.  But just about every loaf you’ll find in those aisles has one thing in common that traces its roots back to a man working in Chillicothe, Missouri…

 

May 6, 2022
06May22 Holbrook Arizona 2
Sometimes movies do more than just bring in dollars at the box office.  They occasionally have an impact on the place where they were filmed.  In a sense, this movie set stretched nearly 2500 miles and today the backdrop of that animated movie is still brining people from around the world to places some thought dead…

May 5, 2022
05May22 Holbrook Arizona 1
There are many towns in the western U.S. that had rough and tumble beginnings.  They are places where it was sometimes difficult to determine exactly who was in charge of peace and justice.  So it shouldn’t be surprising that one town went so far as to send out invitations to a hanging…

May 4, 2022
04May22 Chilicothe T-Mobile Hometown Grant
On the north side of the square in Chillicothe, MO you’ll find a small park where some buildings once stood.  It’s called Silver Moon Plaza.  Those in the area know the significance of the name and in a moment you’ll hear about a major grant program that’s helping this place and could just help your hometown too…

May 3, 2022
03May22 Fort Riley Kansas 2
There is a lot of important military artifacts in this museum and Dr. Robert Smith can tell you why each is very important to the development of the American military.  However, there is one interesting exhibit that seems to draw a lot of stares.  If you’ve never seen a horse wearing a gas mask, join us on this interesting look at the U.S. Cavalry…

May 2, 2022
02May22 Fort Riley Kansas 1
If you drive by Junction City, Kansas on Interstate 70 you’ll see the airfield and buildings related to one of the county’s military bases.  But how and why did such an important fort get established here?

 

April 29, 2022
29Apr22 Pima Air and Space Museum 3
Imagine flying a plane called the “SuperGuppy.”  There are only two in existence and one is here for the world to see.  As the name implies, it’s not your average aircraft.  It’s a plane that has a 46 foot bulge in the middle…

April 28, 2022
28Apr22 Pima Air and Space Museum 2
The President of the United States flies in Air Force One…and to some extent they can customize the ride to their preferences.  That was the case for one president who had an unusual request when he began flying this version of the president’s plane…

April 27, 2022
27Apr22 Pima Air and Space Museum 1
In Tucson, Arizona you’ll find a place dubbed “the boneyard.”  It’s a military facility that scraps old airplanes.    Across the street from that airbase though is a place that capitalizes, in a sense, on the proximity to the place where many planes go on their last flight….

April 26, 2022
26Apr22 Wahoo Nebraska 2
It’s certainly one of the more unique names for a town in the country.   Interestingly, no one knows for sure how it got its title – but one thing is sure, the town receives plenty of attention.  This is the story of that place at the famous citizens who hail from there…

April 25, 2022
25Apr22 Wahoo Nebraska 1
Lots of people have nicknames.  This baseball hall of famer was so proud of his hometown, they inserted it into his name on his plaque in Cooperstown.  This is the story of that record holder and the interesting town name from where he hailed…

 

April 22, 2022
22Apr22 Redwood National Park 2
Normally the taller a tree grows, the deeper its roots sink into the ground.  But these trees seem to do just the opposite.  Their size would lead you to believe they must have equally large roots to hold them in place, however, they’ve developed a way to not only stay in the ground but also live some of the longest lives of any tree on the planet

April 21, 2022
21Apr22 Redwood National Park 1
It’s one of the smallest seeds – in fact, it’s just about the size of a tomato seed.  However, what grows from this seed is much different than any tomato.  In fact, most of us are so amazed by what that seed can become, we will drive hundreds of miles just to see it

April 20, 2022
20Apr22 Perry Iowa 100 Plus 2
Four times each year a group of people in Perry, Iowa are writing $100 checks to an important local cause of their choosing.  They don’t seek personal accolades for their donation, they simply meet as a group and vote on a different cause to support each meeting.  It’s an idea that makes quite an impact…

April 19, 2022
19Apr22 Perry Iowa 100 Plus 1
It’s called One Hundred Plus for Perry.  Although local residents can’t take credit for the idea, they adapted in from other towns to create a way that thousands of dollars can be directed to local causes four times per year.

April 18, 2022
18Apr22 Grotto of the Redemption 2
It took 80 years to build this structure in West Bend, IA and today it is valued in the millions of dollars.  However, it was totally built on donations and was not constructed to be a tourist attraction.  It’s a place where people from around the world come to visit, worship and contemplate the work of God

 

April 15, 2022
15Apr22 Grotto of the Redemption 1
It is a story fitting for the message of Good Friday – the story of a priest who recovered from a grave illness and began to construct a magnificent place to glorify God.  This is the story of the masterpiece which took him 42 years to build…

April 14, 2022
14Apr22 Big Bend River Guide 3
It was a land full of tall grass – a place perfect to graze cattle and set up a ranch.  And that’s exactly what many did.  But today this place looks much different that the accounts of the first visitors, yet it attracts thousands of people each year…

April 13, 2022
13Apr22 Big Bend River Guide 2
If I told you there were people wading the Rio Grande River crossing the border, you might think they were crossing illegally.  Here you can was the river or take a rowboat and it’s perfectly legal because it’s one of the most unique border checkpoints on the country’s southern border…

April 12, 2022
12Apr22 Big Bend River Guide 1
Terry lives in one of the most remote U.S. towns in the lower 48 states.  He didn’t grow up here, but he loves this place, and today it’s a location attracting more folks all the time…

April 11, 2022
11Apr22 Herman Missouri Wurst House 3
Mike would not consider himself a professor, but a trip to this town will find him teaching classes about something he’s been doing just about his entire life.  It’s a story of the farm meting the classroom…

 

April 8, 2022
08Apr22 Herman Missouri Wurst House 2
Vending machines have been around for decades, so doing a show about such a machine seems to be nothing extraordinary.  But a trip to this town will find people constantly snapping pictures of Mike’s vending machine…

April 7, 2022
07Apr22 Herman Missouri Wurst House 1
Normally having the worst house in town would not be a good thing.  But when you spell “Worst” w-u-r-s-t, well now you have a place everyone wants to be…

April 6, 2022
06Apr22 Herman Missouri Stone Hill 4
John’s father was asked to take a risk free chance on what could be the dream of a lifetime.  That small farmer took the opportunity and today a well-known agricultural enterprise continues its proud history from well over a century ago…

April 5, 2022
05Apr22 Herman Missouri Stone Hill 3
It was beautiful artwork that was part of the underground cellars here at Stone Hill winery in Herman, Missouri.  But today there is a mystery.  While you can still tour those cavernous cellars that are over a century old and still in use, they are still searching for what left during prohibition…

April 4, 2022
04Apr22 Herman Missouri Stone Hill 2
We know that France is known for its vineyards but many of us don’t know that in the mid 1800s an unknown culprit put the future of those grapes in serious jeopardy. It was some folks from Missouri who figured out the mystery and saved the industry…

 

April 1, 2022
01Apr22 Herman Missouri Stone Hill 1
Mention the town of Hermann, Missouri and anyone who has heard of it will immediately know it’s known for this product.  It’s a crop that dates to the founding of this town…

March 31, 2022
31Mar22 Hot Air Balloon Pilot 2
Imagine a competition where you fly a hot air balloon equipped with survival gear over snow capped mountains in the dead of winter.  Perhaps it doesn’t sound like the smartest event for one to jump into, but that’s what today’s guest did…

March 30, 2022
30Mar22 Hot Air Balloon Pilot 1
What’s seven stories high and can hold two million light bulbs.  It may sound like the set up for a joke…but it’s a real part of Cheri White’s life…

March 29, 2022
29Mar22 Volstead Act Granite Falls 2
Just about all of us have heard of farm cooperatives and no doubt, many of you listening to this use one or are a member of one or more.  Today we look back to a man who had that vision to help bring people together as he saw that need in his own small town…

March 28, 2022
28Mar22 Volstead Act Granite Falls 1
If you know American history the name Andrew Volstead may ring a bell.  This US Representative from small town Minnesota has his name on two important pieces of legislation and there’s a good chance you know them both – but had perhaps forgotten…

 

March 25, 2022
25Mar22 Grand Falls Minnesota Arts 2
Drive into Granite Falls, Minnesota and you’ll soon see that this small town looks a little different than many.  You can tell by looking at the streets, the benches and even some of the walls in town. It’s a grassroots effort that has made a big difference here…

March 24, 2022
24Mar22 Grand Falls Minnesota Arts 1
In small towns in might be easy to say that things like the arts – galleries, music festivals, sculptors and such are just found in big cities that can support them.  But trip here will upend that notion and show you how a small town or city is probably missing out if it’s not considering the arts as a way to revitalize the place…

March 23, 2022
23Mar22 Landmark Inn
Gary says people should be wary of realtors who say, “Just make a bid on it.”  If you do make a bid – even a low bid – you might just wind up with it.  Gary’s bid was the winner, but he had no idea what to do with his purchase.

March 22, 2022
22Mar22 Big Ben the Steer 2
He is the biggest steer on record – a beef that was over 16 feet in length and weighed well over two tons.  In fact, he was such a site to see, the city of Kokomo, Indiana made sure you can still see him today…

March 21, 2022
21Mar22 Big Ben the Steer 1
Beef producers are usually looking for an efficient, high quality steer to feed.  Perhaps there was none better than Ben, for Ben grew faster than any calf anyone had ever seen…

 

March 18, 2022
18Mar22 Belmont State Park
In the short stretch of the Mississippi River where Missouri borders Kentucky is a spot where Civil War strategy was so important, one side stretched a chain across the mighty river to stop all the boats.  So how did the plan work?

March 17, 2022
17Mar22 Civil War Naval Museum 2
Imagine boys 11 to 15 years of age going to war.  It was reality for these young men and the conditions in which they served were the equivalent of riding inside a floating oven…

March 16, 2022
16Mar22 Civil War Naval Museum 1
Perhaps you’ve heard of the story of the Monitor and Merramack…the first two ironclad ships to do battle in the Civil War…but in a moment you’ll hear a much bigger story of the Civil War navy and the 450 pound cannonballs that were needed to even the match…

March 15, 2022
15Mar22 Copper Queen Mine
You’ll find plenty of wild mining stories in southern Arizona.  One of the biggest tales includes a mine where you can still ride the ore cars today…

March 14, 2022
14Mar22 Oklahoma State Capitol 3
This state’s government was ready to move out of its temporary home in a downtown hotel.  However, the route to building a grand and permanent capitol building still had several hurdles…including a stockyards and a World War…

 

March 11, 2022
11Mar22 Oklahoma State Capitol 2
It’s said, “home is where the heart is.”  And in this state it can be said, “The capitol is where the governor decides to put a handmade sign over the door.”  Today we head to the hotel room that one governor proclaimed as the seat of government…

March 10, 2022
10Mar22 Oklahoma State Capitol 1
Voters often face multiple choices when electing candidates for office.  But the residents of this state had a most unique multiple choice question to decide.  Which of the following cities should become the capital of the state?

March 9, 2022
09Mar22 Lake Superior Railroad Museum 3
Some people will go to great lengths to create something luxurious.  But have you ever heard of someone spending an entire year doing the interior painting for something the size of a large room, but only using turkey feathers as the paint brush?

March 8, 2022
08Mar22 Lake Superior Railroad Museum 2
What is the most powerful steam locomotive in U.S. history?  We may say the Big Boy and that answer would get you very close.  But if you want to know and see the correct answer, you can come here…

March 7, 2022
07Mar22 Lake Superior Railroad Museum 1
Many towns and cities have restored their old rail depots.  That’s the case in Duluth, Minnesota and the building is quite impressive in its own right.  Step inside and head down to the tracks you’ll find something world class…

 

March 4, 2022
04Mar22 Butte Montana Speakeasy 2
Today we head undergound…both literally and figuratively as we uncover some of this city’s history and dig up some of its interesting stories during the prohibition era…

March 3, 2022
03Mar22 Butte Montana Speakeasy 1
Beginning in 1920, the 18th Amendment made the manufacture and consumption of alcohol illegal until it was repealed in 1933.  During that time something known as a speakeasy became common place…a secret location to get a drink…we head underground…

March 2, 2022
02Mar22 Last Indian Raid
Americans are familiar with the fate of Custer and his men at the Little Big Horn.  It was far from the last conflict between tribes and settlers on the high plains.  Today we head to northwestern Kansas…

March 1, 2022
01Mar22 Bald Eagles 2
The Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield, MO is a great place to come and learn about a variety of animals.  One of the very important and challenging tasks the staff veterinarian has here though is caring for raptors that are in danger…

February 28, 2022
28Feb22 Bald Eagles 1
When I was a kid it was a big deal to see a bald eagle in the wild.  In fact, I don’t think I ever saw one until I was in my high school years or beyond.  Today the populations have risen but there are still challenges…

 

February 25, 2022
25Feb22 FFA History 2
You have to give Henry Groseclose a lot of credit.  Not only did he use his hospital stay to write the entire constitution, bylaws and ceremonies for a national organization, but when he returned home he even shot and stuffed an owl for them…

February 24, 2022
24Feb22 FFA History 1
The week of George Washington’s birthday is annually celebrated as National FFA week.  Today we trace the history of the Future Farmers to a small oak table in a classroom on the campus of Virginia Tech university…

February 23, 2022
23Feb22 Stockton Jailhouse Rock 2
Elvis once sang about the jailhouse rock.  In fact, many of us know that tune decades after it was first recorded.  Who knew it would also become a catchy title for some important work in the state of Missouri…

February 22, 2022
22Feb22 Stockton Jailhouse Rock 1
Randy Hayward says he’s always tried to follow what God wanted him to do with his life.  But what happened about three decades ago is still fresh in his mind.  It’s seemed God was telling him to go visit a place that seemed a world away from anything he knew…

February 21, 2022
21Feb22 Stockton Missouri 2
There were many reason the first pioneers selected specific spots to begin town and cities.  It’s easy to find the main reason in Stockton, Missouri – it’s still underneath this town…

 

February 18, 2022
18Feb22 Stockton Missouri 1
Today we say hello to our listeners on KYOO in Bolivar, Missouri.  Just up the road in Stockton, town residents once prepared to defend their city from raiders sweeping in to do harm to life and property…

February 17, 2022
17Feb22 Las Vegas Weddings 2
February is of course the month noted for love…it’s the month we celebrate Valentine’s Day.  There are many weddings that take place during the week of Valentine’s and today we head to a chapel that set a wedding record one February…

February 16, 2022
16Feb22 Las Vegas Weddings 1
This county performs more weddings than any other in the nation.  You probably have a good idea where that county might be located, but do you know why it became known as the place to tie the knot?

February 15, 2022
15Feb22 Clarksville Customs House
The local newspaper originally described it as “an eyesore and public laughing stock.”  Quite a tagline for a building that became one of the most popular and most photographed places in this state.  Where is it and what is it?

February 14, 2022
14Feb22 White Cloud Past and Future
Many of us like to reminisce about the way things once were.  They do that a bit in White Cloud, Kansas, but one difference is, those memories are being brought back to life…

 

February 11, 2022
11Feb22 White Cloud Piggy Bank 2
Maybe you had a piggy bank as a child, or perhaps you still do.  In a moment I’ll take you to the place  where the piggy bank was born.  It all began with a boy, a pig and an important need in the world…

February 10, 2022
10Feb22 White Cloud Piggy Bank 1
We all have causes that are close to our heart – organizations or individuals that we donate to in order to help a need in our community or world.  So, on the surface, it wasn’t unusual that young Wilbur wanted to help his mom raise some money for kids who needed help.  However, his story from over a century ago is one that lives on today…

February 9, 2022
09Feb22 White Cloud Kansas
When you drive into White Cloud, Kansas, along the banks of the Missouri River, some people will see a ghost town.  Others will see a town that is springing back to life.  Perhaps both are true at the same time and if you ask Deb Bryan about what’s taking place here, she’ll tell you her personal story of helping restore a place to vibrancy…

February 8, 2022
08Feb22 Patrick Henry 2
It may be one of the most famous speeches ever delivered.  Even if you know nothing else of about the life of patriot Patrick Henry you probably remember his words: “Give Me Liberty or Give me Death”…

February 7, 2022
07Feb22 Patrick Henry 1
His leadership skills rivaled those of Washington and Jefferson…and his speaking skills were superior…yet when you mention his home of Red Hill…you probably have no idea who he is.  That’s because he was on the move much more than the famous residents of Mt. Vernon and Monticello…

 

February 4, 2022
04Feb22 Fort Kent Maine 2
Some people like the sun, others like the snow and some need a little of both.  But when you live in Ft. Kent, Maine you better like blizzards and bitter cold…because you’ll see plenty of it…

February 3, 2022
03Feb22 Fort Kent Maine 1
Just as Route 66 is one of the most famous highways in American, this road running up and down the eastern seaboard, is a road with special ties as well.  In a moment we’ll head to the end of Route U.S. 1, or is it the beginning?

February 2, 2022
02Feb22 Faribault State Bank 2
I had heard stories about the State Bank of Faribault.  Sure you can deposit money there and get loans…but it’s everything else that no other bank has.  Grizzly bear, deer, museum items AND a beer bottling line that actually sends bottles down the track near where you visit with the tellers…

February 1, 2022
01Feb22 Faribault State Bank 1
Today we welcome our new listeners on the Mighty 920, KDHL in Faribault, Minnesota.  Across from the radio station you’ll find a bank that attracts some people just to see the interesting items inside – including something called “The Might Faribault” that helped do work on the farm before the days of tractors…

January 31, 2022
31Jan22 Fort Defiance
Most cities don’t renovate a Civil War fort that never fired a shot.  Then again, one could make the case that  because the fort never fired a shot, there was as a city left to renovate it…

 

January 28, 2022
28Jan22 Henry Wallace
This father and son pair both served as the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.  The son even became vice president of the United States and made an unsuccessful bid for president.  Although it’s been over a half century since either was in office, their work can still be seen today…

January 27, 2022
27Jan22 Jesse James Train Robbery
Great train robberies are the stuff of wild west movies.  In real life though, the first such event occurred here.  Today we travel to the spot were an infamous gang pulled the rails and waited for a big pay day…

January 26, 2022
26Jan22 Iowa Aviation Museum 3
For the past few days we’ve taken a look back at a stop I made in Greenfield, Iowa, home to the Iowa Aviation Museum.  You probably never realized how many aviation firsts are tied to Iowa, including a car company that decided to try its hand at making airplanes.  Its unique vision is preserved here…

January 25, 2022
25Jan22 Iowa Aviation Museum 2
Charles Lindbergh was the first person to fly an airplane across the Atlantic Ocean.  But lost in our history books in the name of a man who would most likely have beaten Lindbergh to the prize, if not for a court case that kept his plane from taking off from the very same airport…

January 24, 2022
24Jan22 Iowa Aviation Museum 1
Today, aircraft carriers and the planes they transport play a vital role in country’s military might.  However, have you ever given any thought to the first brave soul that attempted to take off and land a plane aboard a boat?  It takes a courageous or perhaps very crazy individual to try it…

 

January 21, 2022
21Jan22 Mark Hall Patton
It was Ray’s first time in the Oval Office and he did not want to mess up his presentation.  He thought all was going well until the president made a move that seemed to indicate the meeting was coming to a swift end…

January 20, 2022
20Jan22 Ray Starling 3
It was Ray’s first time in the Oval Office and he did not want to mess up his presentation.  He thought all was going well until the president made a move that seemed to indicate the meeting was coming to a swift end…

January 19, 2022
19Jan22 Ray Starling 2
During the middle of the farm crisis in the 1980s, those in agriculture lobbied to have a full time staff member to advise the president of the United States on agriculture issues.  It was part of the farm bill, but that one measure almost caused the collapse of the entire legislation…

January 18, 2022
18Jan22 Ray Starling 1
Ray was expecting a call from a guy trying to sell him some firewood.  When an unknown number popped up on his cell phone he thought he’d just call back later as he was busy at the time.  Turns out someone else was calling.  It was the White House…

January 17, 2022
17Jan22 Las Vegas Endurance Plane 2
If you’ve ever flown into the Las Vegas airport, you may have noticed a colorful Cessna airplane hanging from the ceiling over the baggage claim area.  Most people think it’s just an interesting prop.  However it’s actually a world record holder, for no other manned airplane has ever remained aloft for more continuous days that this one…

 

January 14, 2022
14Jan22 Las Vegas Endurance Plane 1
What’s the longest time a plane has stayed in the air without landing and with the same two men at the controls?  Would you believe the record is over two months in a small Cesna aircraft…

January 13, 2022
13Jan22 Faribault Woollen Mill 3
There are only two vertical woolen mills remaining in the U.S.  One has been in this town since the days just after the Civil War.  Chances are, if you have one of their blankets you’ve kept it – they tend to last a lifetime and the tag on the throw has built a brand…

January 12, 2022
12Jan22 Faribault Woollen Mill 2
Paul Mooty says if he drove his own car one day back in 2011 down to Faribault, Minnesota, he might not be the owner of one of the town’s century old businesses.  That’s because five minutes into his tour he already knew he was not interested in the place, but since he road with someone else he could not leave.  And because he stayed, this mill stayed put as well…

January 11, 2022
11Jan22 Faribault Woollen Mill 1
Imagine a time when a horse walked a treadmill to help power the machines that produced wool blankets for early settlers in the days just after the Civil War.  This company traces its roots to that horse named Jenny and they still have the harness to prove it…

January 10, 2022
10Jan22 Chattanooga Battlefield 2
Imagine being a slave at the beginning of the Civil War only later to have an opportunity to join the Union army and fight back at those who enslaved you. It is here that former slaves joined men from the Union army to wage war in some of the most difficult terrain of the Civil War…

 

January 7, 2022
07Jan22 Chattanooga Battlefield 1
Today it is a beautiful city perched along the hills and rivers of southeastern TN. But during the Civil War, it was the focal point of intense fighting…

January 6, 2022
06Jan22 Luna Cafe 2022
In front of the Luna Café, on old route 66 near Mitchell, Illinois, you’ll find a beautifully restored neon sign…the bright lights include a drinking glass with a red cherry that lights up  it was a beacon for infamous characters and that lit cherry had extra meaning as well…

January 5, 2022
05Jan22 Turkey Tracks 2022
There is definitely an art to tracking and calling a wild turkey.  Jerry Law had no trouble tracking this turkey.   That’s because the turkey’s tracks have been here for nearly a century now.  In a moment we visit those old turkey tracks and tell you why Jerry worked so hard to mark the spot so others could see them…

January 4, 2022
04Jan22 Turpentine Wildlife Refuge 2
Lots of people come to Eureka Springs, Arkansas every year to enjoy the Ozark setting and attractions.  One of the places that some might see if a farm of sorts that may seem out-of-place.  Rather than raising cattle, hogs or chickens, this farm is home to tigers, lions, bears and more.  It’s mission is one that is of critical importance…

January 3, 2022
03Jan22 Turpentine Wildlife Refuge 1
Occasionally you hear of a large truckload of cattle or hogs that is stranded on the highway and other trucks must come to offload those animals to get them feed and water.  Now imagine that truckload of animals is a trailer full of tigers…

 

December 31, 2021
31Dec21 Best of 2021 Macomb Illinois Monopoly
Charles Darrow had a great new board game he sold to Parker Brothers – Monopoly.  The only problem was, Charles didn’t invent the game.  Rather it was a lady from MaComb, Illinois who not only created it, but held a patent on it.  So what happened when she went to Parker Brothers?

December 30, 2021
30Dec21 Best of 2021 Evel Knievel Museum
There was no stunt he wouldn’t consider.  And because of his daredevil nature, some have called him the first, real-life superhero.  After all, he was the first to have his own action figure, just like superman and batman…

December 29, 2021
29Dec21 Best of 2021 Boise City Bombing
They made a mistake worthy of a court martial.  A bombing crew made a wrong turn and bombed their own country’s residents.  However, a mistake that could have ruined the careers of those aboard and cost lives on the ground actually challenged the team to become the best that ever flew…

December 28, 2021
28Dec21 Best of 2021 Bob Slater
It’s a big deal to meet the president of the United States.  Some people will do just about anything to travel to a place where they might get to shake the president’s hand.  That’s what Bob did.  He even hitchhiked to get there.  But what happened next was quite unexpected…

December 27, 2021
27Dec21 Best of 2021 Ben Hur
Some people fix up their office with pictures and knickknacks that remind them of their favorite things in life.  This man went a step further.  He made sure his office allowed him to do the thing he most enjoyed in life at the same time – fishing…

 

 

December 24, 2021
24Dec21 Algona Nativity 2
In Algona, Iowa there is a nativity scene that has been on display for over 75 years.  It was a gift from prisoners far from home, who were about to leave the friends they had made in a foreign country…

December 23, 2021
23Dec21 Algona Nativity 1
During the advent season, many families and churches will set up Nativity scenes.  The figures remind us of the birth of Jesus.  But here, the Nativity scene is always set up, for it is by far too large to ever be taken down…

December 22, 2021
22Dec21 Faribault Christmas Tree 2
Jerry Lageson is very well known for what he does every Christmas.  He never set out to be popular or draw attention to himself, but somewhere along the way, what is in his yard became an inspiration for countless travelers each season…

December 21, 2021
21Dec21 Faribault Christmas Tree 1
On the surface it would seem Jerry has an easy Christmas lighting situation.  He puts lights on just one tree in his yard each year.  But oh, if you’ve see that tree along Interstate 35, you know Jerry really takes time to make it look just right, and everyone remembers it…

December 20, 2021
20Dec21 LeRoy Keyes
In1968, O.J Simpson won the Heisman Trophy…but it was this man who was runner-up in the Heisman balloting that year.  He passed from cancer earlier this year but I thought it was fitting to back are recall his inspiring story – one still remembered in the Hoosier state…

 

December 17, 2021
17Dec21 Muscatine Car Dealer
For many years Marvin Kreiger operated a car dealership in Muscatine, Iowa. Today, we take a look back at a successful business…but also a time when it was not so easy to sell a car in this town…especially if you had this specific model on your lot…

December 16, 2021
16Dec21 Muscatine Quack Hospital
We appreciate the many stations that air our broadcast each day, but a century ago there was a station with a signal mightier than any in the country.  It was KTNT that flaunted the law and blasted their signal to most of the country touting a cure for a deadly disease.

December 15, 2021
15Dec21 Muscatine Pearl Buttons
There’s plenty of fertile farmland along the Mississippi River here.  But a century ago, this city was known for something else. It was not the land along the river, but something from the river that was putting the town on the map…

December 14, 2021
14Dec21 Blue Springs Heritage Center 2
Natural springs are a thing of beauty and also of mystery.  Attempts to find the source of this spring have led divers to incredible depths with few answers.  But one of the most interesting stories about this Arkansas spring is a connection with Alaska…

December 13, 2021
13Dec21 Blue Springs Heritage Center 1
Just outside of Eureka Springs, Arkansas you will find one of the largest natural springs in the area.  It’s captivating blue waters have been a place people have been coming for a centuries.  It’s a place John and his family know well….

 

December 10, 2021
10Dec21 American Ninja Warrior 2
We never give it a thought, but most of us perform our jobs with our feet on the ground.  Even if you fly airplanes, your feet are still on the floor of the airplane.  But now imagine a career in which your feet are almost always dangling in mid air and your strength to hold on will determine your success of failure…

December 9, 2021
09Dec21 American Ninja Warrior 1
In his early 20s Alex Weber realized that he was some sort of comedic sports actor.  Perhaps he wondered if the combination of those skills was really anything that one could turn into a career.  Then a most intriguing job offer came his way…

December 8, 2021
08Dec21 Pearl Harbor Sterling Cole 3
Sterling Cale acted with bravery and courage during the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Why then was he going to be court martialed.  He couldn’t believe what he was hearing…

December 7, 2021
07Dec21 Pearl Harbor Sterling Cole 2
He was an eye witness to history, a man who was in the waters of Pearl Harbor during and after the Japanese attack, doing his part to fight back and preserve life.  We look back at his heroic story…

December 6, 2021
06Dec21 Pearl Harbor Sterling Cole 1
He was a farm boy from Illinois who thought he’d received the prime spot for anyone to serve in the military.  On December 7th, 1941, he found himself surrounded by a day that will live in infamy…

 

December 3, 2021
03Dec21 Burnham Phillipine Hostages 4
Today’s story is about Thanksgiving.  Yes, it does involve the holiday, but in a much different way.  It’s the story of hostages celebrating a meager meal in the jungle and somehow keeping their faith even when events made it hard to simply survive…

December 2, 2021
02Dec21 Burnham Phillipine Hostages 3
In the Spring of 2001 several people were taken hostage in the Philippines by terrorist and held for over a year.  Two of those held against their will were Martin and Gracia Burnham.  We look back twenty years to an event that got the attention of the world

December 1, 2021
01Dec21 Burnham Phillipine Hostages 2
For a time the Burnham family few crop dusting jobs in western Nebraska.  Perhaps it was good training for flights they would someday be making in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  But the most dangerous part of the mission would be something they encountered on the ground…

November 30, 2021
30Nov21 Burnham Phillipine Hostages 1
It was a flight not for the faint of heart – flying small planes in and out of mountainous jungles.  But it was a life that Martin Burnham grew up with and a life he wanted to live as an adult…

November 29, 2021
29Nov21 Lanesboro MN History Alive
Jane loved history and the performing arts and when she found herself in this town of under 1000 people she had an idea of how the two might be combined for a unique production that today draws many here to see it…

 

November 26, 2021
26Nov21 Plymouth Plantation
We associate the first Thanksgiving with the Native American and Pilgrims living in Plymouth Colony.  However, we know very little about that event.  Today we head to Plymouth Plantation and look back about 400 years to a meal that we still celebrate…

November 25, 2021
25Nov21 Plymouth Rock
Each Thanksgiving we are likely to remember the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock.  But is that rock really the spot they disembarked and eventually celebrated a meal we trace to our holiday?  We’ll go rock hunting…

November 24, 2021
24Nov21 Hannibal Riverboat 3
When the nation was founded, waterways were the interstate highways of the day.  Today those rivers can still move a lot of cargo, but most of us don’t see it on the water unless we happen to be passing over a major bridge.  Today we head out on the river to see just how much those barges can move…

November 23, 2021
23Nov21 Hannibal Riverboat 2
Who is Mark Twain?  Perhaps the better question is “What is Mark Twain?”  Knowing what mark twain is will help you better understand who the man with the pen name Mark Twain really is.  This is the story of a name with an important meaning..

November 22, 2021
22Nov21 Hannibal Riverboat 1
Steve Terry grew up along the Mississippi River but he perhaps never imagined he would spend most of his career working on that river.  But a teenage job aboard a riverboat changed his ideas about what he wanted to do in life…

 

 

November 19, 2021
19Nov21 Waldo Missouri 1
When Union and Confederate sympathizers threatened to take this bankers money, he did something quite unique – he dressed as a woman and began transporting the cash underneath his skirt to secret locations where it could be safely kept until the end of the war…

November 18, 2021
18Nov21 Waldo Missouri 1
You may remember the popular Where’s Waldo books that had kids searching for a man hidden in pictures.  Today we search for Waldo ourselves – a real man with links to the presidency as well as the Midwest…

November 17, 2021
17Nov21 Lanesboro MN Stone Mill Hotel 2
Most farming towns have a least one feed mill and Lanesboro, Minnesota is no exception.  However, one of those feed mills looks a bit different on the inside.  For while the bins and augers are still here, there are people sleeping around all of that equipment…

November 16, 2021
16Nov21 Lanesboro MN Stone Mill Hotel 1
In southeastern Minnesota you’ll find a rolling landscape known as the Driftless area, and within that region there’s a town named Lanesboro that was established in the mid 1800s to draw east coast tourists.  The dream of a luring visitors did come true, but it took over a century…

November 15, 2021
15Nov21 Dayton Carillon Historical Park
If you’re over 40 years old, you probably remember aluminum cans that had the old pull off tabs.  Today of course we have pop tops on virtually every beverage can in the world.  May not seem like a big deal…but it adds up over time…

 

 

November 12, 2021
12Nov21 Wright Brothers Flyer
The Wright Brothers first took flight in 1903 and that plane is in the Smithsonian.  But the brothers said there was a much more important flight than that first one…and that plane is here…

November 11, 2021
11Nov21 Father John Cummings 2
Normally a priest’s words are to inspire the local congregation.  In this case, the priest’s words sent him to jail and then to the U.S. Supreme Court to decide his case.  The issue wasn’t so much about what the priest said, but rather what he refused to say.  This is the story of the ruling on a small town priest who wound up in the highest court in the land…

November 10, 2021
10Nov21 Father John Cummings 1
For many folks it seemed to be a good idea.  Have people take an oath of allegiance to the nation.  However, one man objected – someone who might have seemed an unlikely man to break the law and spend a long period of time in jail for doing so…

November 9, 2021
09Nov21 John Brooks Henderson 2
On a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River you’ll find a bust of a U.S. Senator who authored one of the most important pieces of our U.S. Constitution.  In fact, the plaque below his statue reminds us of the very words he wrote – words that govern us today…

November 8, 2021
08Nov21 John Brooks Henderson 1
There’s a good chance you’ve not heard of Senator John Brooks Henderson.  On the surface he seemed an unlikely man to write legislation that would become part of our U.S. constitution.  However, a series of events over a matter of weeks saw him become a U.S. Senator and then a regular visitor of President Abraham Lincoln…

 

November 5, 2021
05Nov21 New Mellary Abbey 3
When people began attending funeral’s here, many had the exact same reaction.  They mentioned that when they passed, they wanted a funeral just like that.  What resulted is a business with deep ties to the mission these men serve…

November 4, 2021
04Nov21 New Mellary Abbey 2
These men had about 3500 acres of farmland, pasture and timber.  However, tilling the land they owned was becoming more difficult as they grew older.  What they did next not only pays the bills, it has become a well-known enterprise

November 3, 2021
03Nov21 New Mellary Abbey 1
Who helped supply the Union army’s depot in Galena, IL during the Civil War?  The monks at this abbey of course.  Their work is why you’ll find many of the beautiful buidings that still stand on the hills just outside of Dubuque…

November 2, 2021
02Nov21 Mulvane Kansas Restaurant 2
If you love Italian food perhaps you dream of a trip to Tuscany in Italy to savor the true tastes of that country.  But if you are looking for a great experience closer to home, you might not expect to find it in one small, rural Kansas town…

November 1, 2021
01Nov21 Mulvane Kansas Restaurant 1
Nancy grew up in small town Kansas but had a desire to see the country and the world.  For several years, her home town was a place she occasionally travelled to see family and friends, but then something changed…