Nigel, A few notes on The Horror.

[Adios]

Got me interested as well.

Every city, every small town, hamlet, and thorpe has it's dirty little secrets, it's horrors painted over and largely forgotten.  No matter how small the town you live in is, there's something awful in its past, and more than likely in its present.

You just have to find it.

What type of search string are you using?

I'm using a variety of sources, some IRL and some internet.  The fastest way to find weird shit is to search your city on wikipedia, look for odd things, or things that don't exist anymore, and then start google searching that item.

But if you really want to have fun with it, you're going to have to do a little legwork of one kind or another.  For example, I know that bad things happened in Scollay Square in Boston - or at least it had a reputation for that - but I'm not precisely sure WHAT was going on.  I'm going to find out, of course, because now I'm curious.

Thanks, now I am going to have to dig up Manhattan, Ks.

[Adios]

Manhattan is near the Nemaha Ridge, a long structure that is bounded by several faults. The nearby Humboldt Fault Zone in particular poses a threat to the city even today. Kansas is not known for earthquake activity, but an earthquake could occur at any time.

Despite the fact that Kansas is not seismically active, a strong earthquake could pose significant threats to the state. If an earthquake were to occur, it would likely be along the Nemaha Ridge, which is still active.[17] The Humboldt Fault Zone lies just 12 miles (19 km) eastward of the Tuttle Creek Reservoir. If an earthquake were to occur there, it would likely destroy the dam, releasing 300,000 feet (91,440 m) of water per second and flooding the nearby area, also threatening roughly 13,000 people and 5,900 homes. A moderate earthquake "between 5.7 to 6.6 would cause sand underneath the dam to liquefy into quicksand, causing the dam to spread out and the top to drop up to three feet."[18] A large earthquake would spawn gaps, forcing water to leak and eventually cause the dam to collapse.



I live right below the dam.

[Doktor Howl]

See?  I told you.  5 minutes is all it takes to get your daily quota of awful shit.

[Adios]

See?  I told you.  5 minutes is all it takes to get your daily quota of awful shit.

The state of Kansas falls within an area sometimes called Tornado Alley. The most recent tornado in Manhattan touched down at approximately 10:30 PM on June 11, 2008. Thirty-one homes and several businesses were destroyed by the EF4 tornado. Additionally, Kansas State University's campus incurred about $20 million in damage – a number of university buildings sustained significant damage and the Wind Erosion Laboratory's garage was destroyed by the tornado's winds.[11]  No one was killed.[12]

OFUK

[Doktor Howl]

Now try to find some awful old dirt.   

[Adios]

Now try to find some awful old dirt.   

Isaac Tichenor Goodnow (January 17, 1814–March 20, 1894) was an abolitionist and co-founder of Kansas State University and Manhattan, Kansas. Goodnow was also elected to the Kansas House of Representatives  and as Superintendent of Public Instruction for the state, and is known as "the father of formal education in Kansas."[1]

Dirt is hard to find dammit.

[Adios]

After the Territorial Legislature in Shawnee Mission began passing proslavery laws in July 1855, Free-Staters met to decide how to respond. In August 1855, Goodnow attended the first territory-wide meeting of Free-State leaders. Ultimately, the group decided to form a shadow government and drafted the Topeka Constitution

[Nast]

I could well imagine that Santa Barbara has some of horror, given the whole sordid history of Spanish colonialism. I wonder how many Indians really are buried under that mission...

And there is that bridge. Yes, I'll have to tell you about that bridge when I write back to your letter.

[Telarus]

Wow, good thread.

[Doktor Howl]

Wow, good thread.

There's going to be more.  I'm trying to find a way to format this sort of thing.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Holy shit! I love this.

The restaurant without a dumpster kind of gave me chills... 

[Remington]

Interestingly enough, it only took me 10 minutes to find some horrible shit about Boston...Portland took a little longer.

Now I'm interested, though, and I think I'm going to do a little digging on other cities, just to see what horrible shit lies underneath.

I'm not going to bother with London (except for that "lost" river), or New York, at least not yet, because the sheer volume of awful shit would take years to wade through.

This is actually the main subject of my letter to you. It deals with where I was born; a small rural town in southern Saskatchewan. Boston and New York are built on crime in the metaphorical sense, but my hometown was built on literal crime.

You'll find out in about a week.

[PopeTom]

Got me interested as well.

Every city, every small town, hamlet, and thorpe has it's dirty little secrets, it's horrors painted over and largely forgotten.  No matter how small the town you live in is, there's something awful in its past, and more than likely in its present.

You just have to find it.

Since you are not from Boston Doc I figured I'd make sure you knew about the Molasses Flood.

[Dimocritus]

This fread delivers  Goin' diggin', be back later...

[Juana]

There was an interesting man who taught at the local state university many years ago, where his subject was German contributions to America. He had been involved with the beginning stages of the Holocaust (specifically moving urban Jews into ghettos and then removing them all together), was hired by Hilter himself to write Nazi propoganda in English, and was Hilter's pet American prior to returning to the US.
He was later put in charge of city planning here in my hometown; what he did to this city is very much like what the Third Reich wanted to do to Berlin, and he managed to destroy the downtown area while he was at it (I always wondered who was responsible for the monstrous, towering jail near city hall and now I know). He dabbled in other aspects of city politics, giving the cops more power to enforce city hall's wishes, and we've always had a strong mayor position.
He became president of the university during the Vietnam war and brooked no opposition to his rule, firing staff and expelling students who disagreed with him and shutting down the school paper. Things got nasty after that and he had the campus police crack down on students and declared martial law.


_{edited for spelling}