The Great Hinckley Firestorm and the Killer of John Wilkes Booth

Prelude to Disaster The 1800’s was a time of great invention, westward migration, the American Civil War, industrial expansion and it also was a time of recklessness which all too often led to catastrophe. Such was the case in Hinckley Minnesota in the year 1894. Pine County Minnesota was going through a tremendous drought in …

Wellington Washington Avalanche 1910

Who Would Have Thought? Everyone has heard of avalanches and how dangerous they are. Avalanche disasters have taken place in the Alps and other very high mountain chains for centuries. Several years ago when I first read about a catastrophic event that occurred in 1910, I was quite surprised that such an avalanche disaster could …

The General Slocum / Little Germany

There is a memorial in Tompkins Park in Manhattan Island, New York City, which is there as a reminder of what was, prior to September 11, 2001, the worst disaster in terms of loss of life in New York. The disaster was the burning of the General Slocum steamboat on the East River of New …