Category Archives: History

Warnings against tainted Halloween candy have been around for decades, but confirmed incidents are far and few in between.

Despite its rarity, tales of razor blades in apples and poisoned candy have circulated enough to lead police departments and government agencies to release annual PSAs about the importance of candy inspections.

The worlds leading researcher on candy tampering Joel Best, a professor of sociology and criminal justice atthe University of Delaware has found little evidence to substantiate Halloween candy fears.

BEST AND WORST HALLOWEEN CANDY

"My research stretches back to 1958," Best told Fox News. "I have been unable to find any evidence that any child has been killed or seriously injured by a contaminated treat picked up in the course of trick-or-treating."

Warnings against tainted Halloween candy have been around for decades, but confirmed incidents are far and few in between. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Best has published multiple studies analyzing the legitimacy of Halloween candy tampering, including his research paper "The Razor Blade in the Apple: The Social Construction of Urban Legends" and his sociology book "Threatened Children: Rhetoric and Concern about Child-Victims."

To determine whether tampered candy holds any weight, Best examined 25 years of Halloween coverage from The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune. In his research, he found that there has only been one confirmed death from poisoned Halloween candy, and it wasnt from a nefarious stranger who wanted to harm trick-or-treaters.

'MEDICATED' HALLOWEEN EDIBLES RESEMBLING NAME-BRAND CANDY PROMPT INDIANA STATE POLICE WARNING

The fatal incident occurred in 1974 after a Texas man by the name of Ronald Clark O'Bryan poisoned his 8-year-old son with a potassium cyanide-laced pixie stick shortly after he took out insurance claims on his children. OBryan had reportedly given poisoned pixie sticks to his daughter and three other neighborhood children in Deer Park, but the candy had not been consumed.

OBryan was found guilty of capital murder and four counts of attempted murder. He was given a death sentence and was executed in 1984.

POLICE URGING PARENTS TO INSPECT HALLOWEEN CANDY AFTER ECSTASY DISCOVERED

The University of Delaware's Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice Joel Best has dedicated years of research to "Halloween sadism." He combed through 25 years of Halloween coverage to determine whether tampered candy is as common as rumors have led people to believe. (iStock)

Stories of "Halloween sadism" notably increased in the 80s around the time of the "Chicago Tylenol murders," according to Best and his research paper co-author Gerald T. Horiuchi. The unsolved high-profile crime resulted in the death of seven Americans through cyanide-laced acetaminophen tablets and led to the introduction of tamperproof packaging for over-the-counter drugs, but there was no reported spike in tainted Halloween candy.

"A review of news stories about Halloween sadism from 1958 to 1983 suggests that the threat has been greatly exaggerated," Best and Horiuchi wrote in their joint paper. "Halloween sadism can be viewed as an urban legend, which emerged during the early 1970s to give expression to growing fears about the safety of children, the danger of crime, and other sources of social strain. Urban legends, like collective behavior and social problems construction, are responses to social strain, shaped by the perception of the threat and social organization."

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Reports of tampered candy and close-calls with narcotics masqueraded as candy has come up in recent years, but luckily none have resulted in serious injuries.

In 2018, an 11-year-old was charged in North Carolina for putting sewing needles in Halloween candy, which were distributed to trick-or-treaters and injured at least one child in Rowan County, Fox News reported at the time.

Few reports of tampered candy involve sharp objects or poisonous substances. However, law enforcement agencies still warn parents to thoroughly check their chrildren's Halloween candy hauls. (iStock)

That same year, a couple from Oregon reportedly consumed methamphetamine-laced gummies that they obtained from their childrens Halloween bags, according to a press release published by the Washington County Sheriffs office.

Other police departments throughout the country have issued warnings about intentional or accidental distributions of drug-laced candy, including the Auburn Georgia Police Department and Indiana State Police. Ecstasy and THC are common culprits.

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While there are no records of a child being seriously harmed by drug-laced candies during Halloween, law enforcement and the FDA strongly urge that all candy be inspected as a preventative measure.

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Razor blades and poisoned candy: A history of Americans fearing Halloween - Fox News

Aisha Durham, associate professor of communications at the University of South Florida, was part of a group of advisers chosen by the Smithsonian Institution to curate its first multimedia hip-hop collection. The recently released Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap chronicles 40 years of hip-hop and rap music and the development of the localized culture as it emerged out of the Bronx into a global sensation.

Hip-hop culture is the most influential, cultural phenomenon to come from the United States and it remains one of the most transformative ways in which we can think about popular culture today, Durham said. We take for granted that hip-hop is a culture that was basically formed by working class youth of color, many of them first-generation immigrants.

In 2014, Durham was invited to work on the initial phase of the project, joining a star-studded cast of contributors that included LL Cool J, QuestLove and Chuck D. They received 700 songs and were asked to consider each songs significance in terms of politics and social issues in order to narrow the selection down to 100. Durham is a cultural critic and author best known for her research in hip-hop feminism. She uses auto/ethnography, performance writing and intersectional approaches refined in Black feminist thought to analyze media representations of racialized gender.

It was important that I, as a hip-hop feminist, make sure that I am attuned to the contributions of women and other gender minorities as well as thinking about what we might call misogynoir, or the hatred of Black women, as well as homophobia, Durham said. At the same time that I could call attention to the excellent lyricism, I also had to think about, what does this mean in terms of how I engage with hip-hop culture as a feminist.

This process allowed Durham to revisit old songs and reminisce about her coming of age in the 80s in Norfolk, Virginia, public housing with her brother, known as DJ Wood, and the space of creative ingenuity that was his one-bedroom apartment. I didnt know then that that would be one of those indelible markers of me thinking about how to use poetics and how to use my life story in order to talk about a broader culture, Durham said.

One of Durhams favorite songs featured in the anthology is The Rain by Missy Elliott, featured on Supa Dupa Fly, Elliotts 1997 debut studio album produced by Timbaland. This song personally resonated with Durham because it brought her home. Elliott is also from the Tidewater region of Virginia, and it is one of the locations showcased in the songs music video.

As far as the songs broader significance, Missy marks this shift in how we think about hip-hop as this northeast phenomenon and now we have the south rising, Durham said. Shes probably the most underestimated emcee, producer we have ever had. Her impact in terms of her production, writing and aesthetic quality cannot be matched.

The history of hip-hop and rap is a defining era of music not only because of the cultural formation that brought us fashion trends, dance and language, but also the way in which the music genre is known for challenging the systems of power and traditional or dominant narratives in a commercial space.

Racism, police brutality or even thinking about sexuality and owning ones sexuality, these are sometimes seen as taboo topics in popular culture, but theres a long tradition of amplifying these conversations within the context of hip-hop, Durham said. Hip-hops ability to do the remix invites us to think about the present moment, but also imagine the future.

The anthology is a collaboration between the Smithsonians National Museum of African American History and Culture and Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. The boxed set is sold online for $159.98 and features a collection of 129 tracks on nine CDs and a 300-page book of essays and photographs. This is the third major compendium produced by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings that tells the story of a defining era of music of, by and for the people.

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Smithsonian curates history of hip-hop and rap with help from USF communications expert - University of South Florida

The idea of a summit taller than any known peak has long held a special allure for mountaineers. Early surveyors had mistakenly designated various Himalayan peaks as the highest mountain in the world, including Nanda Devi, Kangchenjunga, and K2. Those errors were corrected in the 1850s after Indian mathematician Radhanath Sikdar and his colleagues at the Great Trigonometrical Survey finished calculating the elevation of Peak XV, the mountain Tibetans call Chomolungma, at 29,000 feet, and the summit gained its superlative status on maps. Sikdars British director, Andrew Waugh, recommended the peak be termed Mount Everest, after the previous Surveyor General of Indiamuch to the dismay of George Everest himself, who preferred the use of local names. Waugh also added two more feet to its estimated height for extra plausibility, giving it the more precise-looking number of 29,002. (Wags noted that Waugh was the first person to put two feet on the top of Everest, New Yorker writer Ed Caesar later quipped. As of 2020, Everests official height is 29,031.69 feet.) But some mountaineers still hoped that an even bigger peak existed in a remote corner of the world.

In March 1930, American mountaineers Terris Moore and Allen Carp lingered in The Explorers Club library in New York, transfixed by an intricately detailed map in Trailing the Giant Panda, a 1929 account by the brothers Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt Jr. of a hunting expedition along the border of China and Tibet. Is there really any chance Mount Koonka could be that high? Moore asked.

Carp pointed toward a short but beguiling paragraph: The altitude of this mighty peak is unknown, but there are those who claim that it rises more than 30,000 feet and is the highest in the world. A geologist from Chengtu [Chengdu] made a special expedition to establish Koonkas height, but after he had taken his observations, he refused for some entirely unaccountable reason to divulge them.

Minya Konka, as its more commonly spelled today, Moore and Carp soon learned, wasnt the only candidate for the true Roof of the World. Just a month prior, National Geographic had published an article by botanist Joseph Rock with an intriguing title: Seeking the Mountains of Mystery: An Expedition on the China-Tibet Frontier to the Unexplored Amnyi Machen Range, One of Whose Peaks Rivals Everest. Rock was sure hed reached 16,000 feet on his journey. The flash of snow at the apex of Amnyi Machen (or Amye Machen) appeared to be at least 12,000 feet higher. During an earlier trek, British Brigadier General George Pereira had reported a glimmer of uncertain height in the same region. According to Rock, Pereira informed him that the peak when surveyed, might prove higher than Everest. (Cecil Pereira, the late brigadier generals brother, disputed this statement, which he attributed to an optimistic reporter who sprang upon the explorer while he was ill.)

A 1925 map in The Explorers Club library, based on Pereiras report, generated even more questions. The contour intervals implied that the broader massif of Amye Machen was only about 25,000 feet high, though no elevation number appeared on its actual summit point. And at the location where Moore and Carp expected to see Minya Konka, they found contour lines that indicated nothing above 16,500 feet. Perhaps, they thought, clouds had hidden its summit when Pereira plodded by. A National Geographic Society cartographer told them that Rock had originally announced an elevation of 30,000 feet for Minya Konka. But since Rock had relied merely on guesswork, a simple aneroid barometer, and a pocket sighting compass, the editors refused to publish any estimate above 28,000 feet.

The only way to find out the real numbers, Moore determined, was to climb the peaks and remeasure them. He planned to start with Amye Machen. Although Carp was tempted to come along, he decided to head to the Alaska Range instead, with a grant to research cosmic rays. Jack Young, a Chinese-American college student who had guided the Roosevelts on their hunting expedition, took his place. By January 1932, Moore and Young had arrived at a hotel in Shanghai, and they were lunching with their teammates when the blast wave of a bomb shook the walls. A battle had just broken out between China and Japan. Several of the climbers joined a volunteer force to patrol the American-controlled sector of the city. Young went to help the Chinese army. After the conflict lulled, four weary members still wanted to look for the worlds highest summit: Moore, Young, Arthur B. Emmons, and Richard Burdsall. By then, theyd switched their objective to Minya Konka, which theyd come to believe was the most promising option.

After weeks of traveling by riverboat and bus, and trekking through misty foothills, they saw Minya Konka for the first time: cloud-white and unknowably high. Here was one of the greatest mountain giants of our planet, Burdsall declared in the teams coauthored memoir, Men Against the Clouds. No wonder its call had been powerful enough to summon us from so far. To local Tibetans, the peak was the abode of a deity, Dorj Lodr. A sunlit plume of spindrift seemed to extend its apex ever higher into the sky. Climb it? Emmons thought. It seemed almost a desecration even to attempt such a thing. When Burdsall and Moore reached the top of Minya Konya, the elevation proved to be more than 4,000 feet lower than that of Everest. Nonetheless, the rest of the world sank so far below them they might have been gazing at the earth from outer space. Large snowy mountains shrank to tiny puffs of white against the gold-brown swath of the Tibetan Plateau. The horizon formed an indigo ring, uninterrupted by any view of higher peaks.

In the wake of their expedition, rumors continued to build about Amye Machen, which Moore and Carp had identified as the other contender for the worlds highest peak. For more than a decade afterward, reports by pilots still hinted that it might be above 30,000 feet. To Moore, however, the next best hope for a mountain taller than Everest lay in the mysterious interior of Antarctica. There, tales of unseen ranges, subterranean summits, and uncanny light effects lent themselves to bizarre fantasies, such as H. P. Lovecrafts infamous Mountains of Madness, where a lost extraterrestrial civilization lurked beneath the ice.

During the 1940s, American explorers Richard Byrd and Paul Siple reported sighting a cone-shaped mountain that soared higher than their plane. The peak became known as Mount Vinson. Yet in 1959, when Scottish mountaineer John Pirrit and his teammates lumbered into the area on snow tractors to verify its existence, they found no sign of the mountain. Another high summit, Mount Nimitz, was also missing. The original discoverers of these nonexistent mountains had likely mistaken clouds and mirages for actual rock, ice, and snow.

The designation of Vinson eventually moved to a 16,046-foot summit in the Sentinel Range, the continents true highest point. While surveyors kept correcting elevation errors of other Antarctic peaks well into the 21st century, by the culmination of the multinational expeditions of the 19571958 International Geophysical Year, one fact seemed clear: Among the many unclimbed summits that corrugated the southernmost continent, no greater elevations than that of Everest existed. In 1957, Russia launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite. Soon after, US scientists began the research that led to the creation of GPS and the spread of satellite mappingtechnologies that would generate a sense of cartographic omniscience even greater than airplane photos could achieve.

Decades later, as Moore looked back on the long history of quests for the highest mountain in the world, he thought of new interpretations. The tallest peak could be the one that pokes out farthest from the surface of the earth when viewed from space (Chimborazo in the Andes). Or it could be the one that has the highest vertical relief from its terrestrial base to its summit (Denali in the Alaska Range) or from the ocean floor (Mauna Kea in Hawaii). Moore recalled a story told by his departed friend Allen Carp, who had vanished into the depths of the Muldrow Glacier during his 1932 Alaskan expedition, leaving behind only the faint trace of ski tracks that faded into snow and shadow. During the 18th century, as Carp recounted, while carrying out experiments near Chimborazo, French geophysicist Pierre Bouguer realized that the topography beneath his observation points, as well as the altitude of where he stood, affected the measured value of gravity. It was as though high peaks really did create their own world.

So relax, Moores wife, Katrina, told him. There is no highest mountain on earth. Was the quest over? Moore wondered. He remembered standing outside the Minya Konka base camp under a sky that trembled with stars. The upper regions of the peak seemed suddenly close by, like a blazing white fata morgana in the clear night air. In the presence of this vision, Moore wrote, ellipsoids of reference, Bouguers Anomaly, centrifugal force from the unfelt thousand-mile-an-hour spin of the earths rotation, all seem to vanish into unimportance: there before us rises our reality.

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The Long History of the Quest to Find a Peak Taller Than Everest - Atlas Obscura

One week after the Los Angeles Rams humbled the reigning Super Bowl champions, the Arizona Cardinals walked into SoFi Stadium and humbled the Rams. Four weeks after starting the season projected for the NFC Wests basement, the Cardinals stand undefeated atop the division (and the league).

The Cardinals dont look strong just because they happened to have the most points at the end of their games against the Rams, Jacksonville Jaguars, Minnesota Vikings and Tennessee Titans. They have the leagues No. 1 yardage and scoring offense and rank third in Football Outsiders total Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA) and fifth in Pro Football Focuss power rankings. Theyre currently fifth in FiveThirtyEights quarterback-adjusted Elo ratings, with a 52 percent shot to win their division.

But the Cardinals surprise success doesnt mean their division rivals are any weaker. All four teams are in our top 14 and the squad least likely to make the playoffs still has a 42 percent chance.

Many advanced team-strength metrics tell the same story: The entire division is in the top half of the NFL, if not in the top 14, in most of the systems. Jeff Sagarins USA Today rankings have the 49ers just outside the top half, at 18th, while Pro-Football-Reference.coms Simple Rating System ranks the Niners down at 21st. But while Football Outsiders DAVE metric, which blends its DVOA with preseason projections, drops the Cardinals to 10th and the Rams to sixth, it boosts the other two teams into the top 12. To borrow a phrase from international soccer tournaments, the NFC West is the NFLs Group of Death:

Rankings in team-strength metrics for NFC West teams through Week 4 of the 2021 NFL season

Sources: Football Outsiders, PFF, Pro-Football-Reference.com, USA Today

And top 14 is significant because thats how many teams make the NFL playoffs. In just the second season since the league added a third wild-card berth to each conference, the NFC West could be the first division in NFL history to have all of its teams qualify for the postseason.

In fact, this years NFC West could be the strongest division since the NFL expanded to 32 teams in 2002 and settled into its current alignment.

Through four games, according to Football Outsiders total DVOA, the average NFC West team has been 20.1 percent more efficient than the average NFL team. Its well ahead of the second-place AFC North, at 12.6 percent, and far ahead of the third-place AFC West, at 5.9 percent. If that holds up over the next 13 games (and 14 weeks) of the NFL regular season, the 2021 NFC West would be the strongest DVOA division of the 32-team era.

But not all the numbers agree that the NFC West is that far ahead of the rest of the league. SRS and Sagarins rankings take dimmer views of the Niners and Seattle Seahawks than FiveThirtyEight and PFF do. In fact, Sagarin doesnt even rank the NFC West as the best conference this year. Its average divisional rating is 22.51, behind the top dog AFC West (23.81).

At this point in the season, any way of ranking NFL team strength will either be leaning heavily on preseason expectations or extrapolating based on less than a quarter of a seasons results. No matter what system or rankings you used, though, the NFC West was expected to be a very strong division, and the results so far have borne that out.

The Cardinals surprising 4-0 start has boosted their Elo rating to a third-best 1607, and we give them an 87 percent chance of making the playoffs. Despite falling to the Cardinals, the Rams still have a 73 percent chance of qualifying for postseason, and the Seahawks also have better-than-even odds to make it. At 42 percent, the 49ers are the NFC West team least likely to qualify from here on out but theyve still got brighter hopes than 14 other NFL teams.

Its still early in what will be the longest NFL season ever, though, and almost every scenario for these four teams is still on the table. In fact, FiveThirtyEights model projects a 5 percent chance that all four teams from the NFLs Group of Death make it out alive for the playoffs. And on Thursday night, our predictions will get a very valuable data point when the Rams face the Seahawks in the Emerald City.

Check out our latest NFL predictions.

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Is The NFC West The Toughest Division In NFL History? - FiveThirtyEight

Yet while the gee shucks, Im just a country chief financial officer new to the big city schtick might have worked in the past, its not clear hell be able to rely on it again. For starters, as his former colleagueMichael Cohenhasput it, the idea that Weisselberg isnt keenly aware of every nickel that goes in and out of the Trump Organization is bullshit. Allen Weisselberg[knows] every single dollar in, and every single dollarnot even dollar, to the penny. Every single penny in and every penny out [goes] through Allen Weisselbergs desk, and then [is] reported, before and after, to Donald J. Trump,Cohen said in May. That sentiment is backed up by his former daughter-in-law (and Barrys ex-wife), Jennifer Weisselberg, who told the Daily Beast, of Weisselbergs bumbling accountant routine: Hes a liar. Allen is controlling. He has to know where every dollar goes. He cant handle not overseeing every dollar. And hes not going to sign something unless he knows what it says. He knows exactly whats going on. He doesnt want any loose ends.

And then, again, theres the idea that any of the criminal activity laid out by prosecutors could have gone down without Weisselbergs knowledge, which legal experts say there is not. I am optimistic hell be convicted. The law is fairly clear on what is income & what is taxable, former U.S. attorneyPreetBharararemarked after Weisselberg was charged. Hes a sophisticated executive; mistake is implausible. The company booked much of it as income. And juries hate rich tax cheats.

Also not to be discounted is the fact that, according to the Manhattan D.A.s office, Weisselberg literally kept spreadsheets of his and the Trump Organizations crimes. As theindictment helpfully points out:

For certain years, the Trump Organization maintained internal spreadsheets that tracked the amounts it paid for Weisselbergs rent, utility, and garage expenses. Simultaneously, the Trump Organization reduced the amount of direct compensation that Weisselberg received in the form of checks or direct deposits to account for the indirect compensation that he received in the form of payments of rent, utility bills, and garage expenses. The indirect compensation was not included on Weisselbergs W-2 forms or otherwise reported to federal, state, or local tax authorities, and no income taxes were withheld by the corporate defendants in connection with the indirect compensation.

So yeah, the idea that Weisselberg will be able to just play dumb on this one seems slightly to extremely implausible, likely upping the chances hes at least entertaining the idea of telling prosecutors everything he knows re: Trump. As former federal prosecutorCynthia AlksnetoldMSNBC shortly after the charges were unveiled, I think he will be a very hated defendant, Mr.Weisselberg, and Im sure his defense attorneys have told him so.

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Allen Weisselbergs History of Playing Dumb Probably Wont Save Him (or Trump) This Time - Vanity Fair

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Handsell to host Jamboree of living history presentations - MyEasternShoreMD

STRATFORD Hauntings. Witches. UFOs. Pirates. Poltergeists. Sea serpents.

Those are just a few of the topics that will be covered on an upcoming bus tour around town called Strange Stratford, the proceeds from which will benefit Perry House, Stratford Historical Society, and Friends of Boothe Park.

Two tours each are scheduled for Oct. 24 and Halloween, at 1 and 3:30 p.m. Admission is $16. Registration is required at perryhousestratford.org/strangestratford.

The tours will be hosted by Mary Ann Vlahac, a Stratford resident and Housatonic Community College business professor who has what she calls a keen interest in mystery and history.

For several years Vlahac has been conducting walking tours around Academy Hill to benefit the Stratford Historical Society.

There was a lot of interest in what Id call the strange history of Stratford, she said. And let me just say that it is strange.

There are many famous events from the towns past that would fall into the heading of strange, such as the trial and execution of Goody Bassett for alleged witchcraft in 1651, or the mystery of the long-destroyed Phelps Mansion on Elm Street, the site of a series of strange occurrences in the 19th Century, which was once called the most haunted house in America.

But theres more that not so many people know about, Vlahac said.

Theres a lot of unique history that we have thats beyond the obvious, she said.

The tours, featuring continuous narration from Vlahac, will depart from Perry House on West Broad Street before stops at Stratford Point Lighthouse, Judson House and Boothe Park.

Though confined to Stratford, Vlahac will also touch on stories from communities that used to be part of Stratford, including Bridgeport, Shelton, Trumbull and Monroe.

And not all of the discussion will be about witches, ghosts, or other spooky happenings.

Guests will hear stories of sea monsters in Lordship and buried treasure of the famous pirate Captain Kidd.

Or Deacon John Birdseye, who, according to legend, was living in Milford but moved to Stratford via a swim across the Housatonic because he was caught kissing his wife on a Sunday.

But there will also be plenty of spookiness too, Vlahac said.

Where are the haunted spots in Stratford? Lift any rock and youll find one, she said.

Those attending will also get a list of reference materials Vlahac has used in her research for further reading.

In addition, the Stratford Historical Society will also be offering a program on Halloween at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.

The free program will begin with an ice cream social from Goody Bassetts, of course before a presentation on some of the scary legends and sights in Stratford, to be followed by a walking tour of the immediate area.

There are a number of for lack of a better word haunted locations around the Judson House, said the historical societys David Wright.

In addition to Phelps Mansion, there are also ghost stories associated with the former Shakespeare Theater as well as the white house on the theater property.

The program is titled Specters and More from Forest to Shore, a play on the towns motto. No advance registration is necessary.

It should be fun for anybody who wants to visit with us, Wright said.

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October tours highlight the strange in Stratfords history - CTPost

J.R. Gonzales,Staff Writer

Oct. 7, 2021

Houston Chronicle front page for Oct. 7, 1971.

Oilman and developer George Mitchell announced plans for a 17,000-acre "satellite city," aka The Woodlands, in Montgomery County.

The development was established four years later. And though Houston hasn't annexed The Woodlands, residents there will consider whether to form a city in November.

* In other news, Chronicle book editor Ann Waldron says Thomas Thompson's book "Hearts" paints doctors Denton Cooley and Michael DeBakey in an unflattering light.

I'm sure many here have read his later book, "Blood and Money," but have you read "Hearts"? If so, what did you think of it?

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J.R. Gonzales, a native Houstonian, is a web producer for HoustonChronicle.com. Before that, he was a news copy editor. Since 2006, he has overseen the Bayou City History blog, which covers various aspects of Houston's history.

Prior to joining the Houston Chronicle, Gonzales worked as a night cops reporter at The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C., and later as a copy editor. He has also worked as a courthouse reporter for the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. Gonzales is a journalism graduate of the University of Houston.

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Today in Houston history, Oct. 7, 1971: City asked to annex future site of The Woodlands - Houston Chronicle

News 12 Staff

Oct 07, 2021, 5:09pm

Updated on: Oct 07, 2021, 5:09pm

One of the American Museum of Natural History's most popular exhibits is finally reopening after years of being closed for renovations.

The Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals dazzles with more than 5,000 gems and minerals from 98 countries.

The main attractions include a fluorescent rock that glows in the dark, and two giant amethyst geodes that formed millions of years ago.

"What it is supposed to do is give you an idea of what minerals are, what they look like, and what their role is on the planet," says George Harlow, the exhibit's curator.

He says the hall is part of the museum's education program through which students and instructors can come to learn more about the thousands of specimens.

The exhibit features interactive installations and videos throughout the hall to assist in education.

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Gems and minerals shine at the American Museum of Natural History - News 12 Bronx

The mostly-forgotten history of Tennessees convict leasing, which used prison labor to mine coal in the mountains during the 1800s, is being brought to light by a team of professors and genealogists across the state.

Dr. Camille Westmont, a postdoctoral fellow in historical archaeology at Sewanee, is searching for answers to the Lone Rock Stockades dark past in Grundy County.

Westmont started the project a couple of years ago after a volunteer at the local museum told her coal in Tracy City had been mined by prisoners.

Today, ovens where the coal was processed, called coke ovens, are still visible from the roadside while driving through the mountains. It was in these mines and coke ovens that African American men were often forced to work after being imprisoned on racially-based charges like interracial marriage.

After the Civil War, prisons began to lease prison labor to private companies, Westmont said. These targeted laws called Black codes, were designed to keep Black men in jail so they could provide free labor to companies. Conditions in these prisons were often horrific and included violence, starvation, cramped quarters and disease.

On the western edge of the Cumberland Plateau in the southeastern part of Middle Tennessee, one mining company replaced a former Union Army stockade called the Lone Rock Stockade, which had been built when the Union Army took over the local coal mine. The inadequacies of the military stockade as a prison are likely what led to the construction of the Lone Rock Stockade around 1872to have a purpose-built prison located right next to the new Lone Rock Mine.

Through the selective application of the law and increased penalty, they were able to trap African American men into these cycles of incarceration, Westmont says. They could sell [them] as part of the convict lease system.

Not every Tennessean was a fan of the practice, even during the 1800s. According to a November 16, 1891 article in The Sun, the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railway Company owned the mines where the prisoners worked, and other mines nearby employed free men who worked for wages. These miners were angry at the prisoners treatment and took up arms against the company, which leased as many as 1,500 convicts per year. The article says the Lone Rock Mine had been worked by convicts since 1871, and Westmont says it was burned down by locals on August 13, 1892.

A great white sepulchre on the mountainside where shame and brutality stifle all manhood, The Suns headline reads. The story includes bloody descriptions of beatings and death.

Westmont is currently searching for signs of a cemetery outside the stockade, where its estimated as many as 800 prisoners died and were buried. Westmont has original prison records with the names of the men who died, and says she has spoken with locals who have seen bones and grave markings in the ground.

Its unclear exactly where the cemetery is and who is still in it, or if there are any gravestones left. Westmont has been using a combination of technologies to try and find the location, including lidar, which stands for light detection and ranging. According to the National Ocean Service, lidar is a remote sensing method that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure ranges to the Earth. Westmont will wait until the leaves fall off the trees to try and use lidar to locate any potential grave sites or a cemetery, she said.

In the meantime, with no physical location, shes partnering with Taneya Koonce, Tennessee chapter president of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society in Nashville. Koonce is working to search through family trees to connect potential surviving family members and descendants of the men who died in the stockade.

Koonce first learned of Westmont a year ago when they were introduced through a mutual colleague, and says raising awareness is a priority on this project because so many people dont know the history of convict leasing or its impact. She says that during one meeting with Westmont and volunteers at the genealogical society, there was a heavy moment when it became clear these men needed to be remembered properly.

Theyre not just names on a page, Koonce says. We would know their families, who their future generations were. One of our participants said, Can we just stop and read the names? So we just read the names. Its just acknowledging them, putting a stamp on their history at a time they were discarded.

Koonce and Westmont are also joined by Dr. Christopher McDonough, Alderson-Tillinghast chair in the humanities at Sewanee, who is filming a documentary about the mines and convict leasing. He says that as we recover this history it shouldnt be forgotten again. McDonough made an award-winning documentary called Mine 21 about a mining disaster in East Tennessee. McDonough says he is seeking more funding and may expand the documentary into a miniseries because the story is so important.

We live in the shadow of such stories, and we are not at liberty to ignore them, McDonough says. Lone Rock is a story of great misery for many, and great profit for others. We need to think about what we will do with that knowledge.

Koonce agrees. Although finding the cemetery wont change the genealogical societys goals, shes hopeful it will give more context to African American history in the United States. Most importantly, she wants to continue working with Westmont on a project that may take many years because of just how many men were imprisoned and enslaved at the stockade. She says we can learn lessons from the past and hopes to unify the Black community through archeological and genealogical work.

I hope it just continues to contribute to the national consciousness of what has happened to African Americans in this country, Koonce says. Its a conversation that can never stop being held. Theres so many injustices and this is another layer of it.

More:

Tennessee professors and historians uncover history of convict leasing in the state Tennessee Lookout - Tennessee Lookout