Storied & Scandalous Kansas City PDF Download

Author: Karla Deel
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493042440
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
Welcome to Kansas City—the best town this side of Hell. The Paris of the Plains. Home to the Wettest Block in the World. This collection celebrates a storied history of one notorious city. Meet the mobsters and victims, bootleggers, madams, political bosses and raucous entertainers who truly brought the party to the plains even during Prohibition. Witness the best parades, the wackiest costumes and the wildest scams. Kansas City’s sordid underbelly is full of surprises sure to delight and entice—the odd, macabre and delightful.

Author: William Ouseley
Publisher: Leathers Pub
ISBN: 9781585974801
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
Open City is an historical work detailing and analyzing the birth and growth of an organized crime "family" in Kansas City during the first 50 years of the 20th Century. It began with a Mafia-like clan labeled the Black Hand, its roots planted in the secret crime societies of Southern Italy and Sicily - a band of extortionists victimizing the city's "Little Italy" community in the early 1900s. From modest beginnings, the development of the criminal outfit is traced through prohibition, its alliance with the Pendergast Machine, the roaring 20s, Home Rule, the wide open 30s, the birth of La Cosa Nostra, and hard times in the 50s. It is the story of Kansas City, politics, powerful and colorful mob bosses, gangland murders, racket activities, and courageous police officers and reformers. Book jacket.

Author: Paul Kirkman
Publisher: Forgotten Tales
ISBN: 9781609496159
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Brief stories of Kansas City history, from the Beatles to Jesse James and Harry Houdini.

Author: Anne Kniggendorf
Publisher: Reedy Press LLC
ISBN: 1681062836
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
Most visitors know all about Kansas City’s barbecue, jazz, and football success, but there are hidden gems and wild pieces of trivia around every turn in Missouri’s largest city. Is the giant Hereford bull anatomically correct? Can a seed that’s been to outer space still grow into a normal tree? And who really killed President William Henry Harrison? You’ll find answers to the questions you didn’t know you had in Secret Kansas City: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure. Learn why three completely unrelated groups have chosen Kansas City as the center of the world and the place you want to be when the world ends. Between these covers, you’ll also find castles, a horse buried in a cul-de-sac, a ghost who likes a good laugh, and the world’s longest snake. This is not a tour guide for outsiders; it’s a scavenger hunt—insiders only, please. Longtime Kansas Citian Anne Kniggendorf is at your service to bolster your love and boost your respect for this middle-of-the-map city. With her eye for the odd leading the way, you’ll have a great time discovering Kansas City.

Author: Frank Hayde
Publisher: Barricade Books
ISBN: 9781569804438
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The story of the American Mafia is not complete without a chapter on Kansas City, MO. The 'City of Fountains' has popped up in The Godfather, Casino and The Sopranos, but many aren't aware that Kansas City is key in the history of organised crime. Events unfolding in this city affected the fortunes of all the 'families' and shaped the entire underworld. In The Mafia and the Machine, author Frank Hayde ties in every major name in organised crime - Luciano, Bugsy, Lanksy - as well as the corrupt Kansas City police force.

Author:
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
ISBN: 1618586459
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
By the mid nineteenth century, Kansas City was an important trading center for the westward movement. Through the late 1800s, two World Wars, and into the modern era, Kansas City has continued to grow and prosper by overcoming adversity through the strength and resolve of its citizens. This volume, Historic Photos of Kansas City, captures this journey through still photography from the city’s finest archives. From the Civil War, to the turn of the century, to the building of a modern metropolis, Historic Photos of Kansas City follows life, government, education, and events throughout Kansas City’s history. This book captures unique and rare scenes as depicted in nearly 200 historic photographs. Published in striking black and white, these images communicate historic events and everyday life of two centuries of people building a unique and prosperous city.

Author:
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
ISBN: 1618583999
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Positioned in the geographic center of the contiguous 48 states, Kansas has played a vital role in the nation’s development. From its Native American roots—the state is named for the Kansa tribe—Kansas has been both eyewitness and participant to history. No state, literally or figuratively, has been more in the middle of America’s fascinating story than the Sunflower State. Culled from Library of Congress and Kansas Historical Society collections, the nearly 200 striking black-and-white images in Historic Photos of Kansas trace a progression from “Bleeding Kansas,” a period of violent struggle between free-state abolitionists and pro-slavery sympathizers, to the state’s many contributions to westward expansion, railroads, agriculture, and America at war. Although these photos speak for themselves, when combined with captions and chapter introductions, they will transport curious readers to a close-up view of Kansans helping to write history.

Author: William M. Reddig
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 9780826204981
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
The Pendergast machine rose to power riding the industrial and business boom of the 1920s, strengthened its grip during the chaos of the depression years, and grew fat and arrogant during the spending spree that followed. It fell apart in a fantastic series of crimes, including voting fraud and tax evasion, that shocked the nation and resulted in the incarceration of Tom Pendergast in a federal prison in 1939. Now available in paperback with a foreword by Charles Glaab, William M. Reddig's political and social history of Kansas City from the mid-1800s to 1945, focusing on the lives of Alderman Jim Pendergast and especially his younger sibling, Big Tom Pendergast, chronicles both the influence of the brothers on the growing metropolitan area and the national phenomenon of bossism. "The story of the Pendergasts has been told ... in many places and in many ways. It has hardly been told anywhere, however, with more fascinating detail and healthy irony than in this volume of William M. Reddig." --New York Times "Reddig has written his history of the Pendergast machine in a reportorial style which manages to combine plain city desk prose with a great deal of humor, irony, and insight. He has dwelt with obvious delight on the local characters, the factions, and feuds, and has given several brilliant personality sketches." --Saturday Review of Literature

Author: William Ouseley
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781611690057
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This is the story of the rise and fall of Kansas City's longest-reigning mob boss, Nick Civella, and his powerful crime family, as told by the FBI agent who helped bring down Civella and his cronies. The book includes never-before-published detail of the crimes and investigations that led to the demise of Civella mob rule. The book also features 20 pages of archival photographs.

Author: Lawrence H. Larsen
Publisher: University of Missouri
ISBN: 9780826221148
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
More than a half-century after the death of Kansas City's notorious political boss, Thomas J. Pendergast, the Pendergast name still evokes great interest and even controversy. Now, in this first full-scale biography of Pendergast, Lawrence H. Larsen and Nancy J. Hulston have successfully provided—through extensive research, including use of recently released prison records and previously unavailable family records—a clear look at the life of Thomas J. Pendergast. Born in St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1872, Tom Pendergast moved to Kansas City around 1890 to work for his brother James, founder of the Pendergast "Goat" faction in Kansas City Democratic politics. In 1911, Pendergast became head of the Goats, and over the next fifteen years he created a powerful political machine that used illegal voting and criminal enforcers to gain power. Following a change in the city charter in 1925, Pendergast took control of Kansas City and ran it as his own personal business. In the 1930s, he received over $30 million annually from gambling, prostitution, and narcotics, putting him in the big leagues of American civic corruption. He also wielded great power in the National Democratic Party and started Harry S. Truman on the road to the presidency. In this well-balanced biography, the authors examine Pendergast's rise to power, his successes as a political leader, his compassion for the destitute, and his reputation for keeping his word. They also examine Pendergast's character development and how his methods became more and more ruthless. Pendergast had no use for ideology in his "invisible government"—only votes counted. In 1937 and 1938 the federal government broke the back of Pendergast's machine, convicting 259 of his campaign aides for vote fraud. In 1939 Pendergast, who was believed to be the largest bettor on horse racing in the United States, was jailed for income tax evasion, and he died in disgrace in 1945. An insightful and comprehensive biography, Pendergast! will surely serve for years to come as the most thorough investigation of the life and infamous career of Tom Pendergast.