Murder and Mayhem in Southwestern Illinois

Download or read book Murder and Mayhem in Southwestern Illinois written by John J. Dunphy and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2021-02-22 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Southwestern Illinois experienced a plethora of violence during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Settlers and Native Americans clashed at the Wood River Settlement, while Abraham Lincoln dueled on a Mississippi River island. Racial strife led to the lynching of a Black schoolteacher in Belleville in 1903 and a deadly riot in East St. Louis fourteen years later. Benbow City was a latter-day Wild West town of saloons, gambling dens and brothels, and Pere Marquette State Park screened a cache of Nike missiles. From the birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr.'s killer to the mystery surrounding Jean Lafitte's grave, John Dunphy examines the bloody ledger of southwestern Illinois.