Episode 28: Richard Willoughby and “The City in the Mist”
“Did Richard Willoughby really photograph a mirage in the sky, or was he conning the residents of Juneau, Alaska, and the many people who paid dearly for a copy of his photograph?”
Episode 20: The Most Lovable Conman of the Alaska Gold Rush
One of the most scandalous persons to be associated with Nome was Wilson Mizner, a loveable scoundrel. Mizner was involved with gambling and prize fighting in Nome, and it was said he was probably the only man with the reputation of being able to “borrow money from a lamppost and is said to be the only man who ever hired the Nome brass band on credit.” In addition to these northern distinctions, in the course of Mizner’s life, he was also a mining engineer, actor, playwright, Fifth Avenue art dealer, husband of the “second richest woman in the world,” proprietor of the legendary Brown Derby in Los Angeles and, with his brother Addison, a founder and promoter of Boca Raton, Florida.
Meet Steve Levi, your host for Episode 20: The Most Lovable Conman of the Alaska Gold Rush
Steve Levi is a 70-something writer in Alaska. He specializes in the impossible crime and the Alaska Gold Rush. An impossible crime is one in which the detective must figure out HOW the crime was committed before he can go after the perpetrators. As an example, in THE MATTER OF THE VANISHING GREYHOUND, the detective must figure out how a Greyhound bus with four bank robbers, a dozen hostages, and $10 million can vanish off the Golden Gate Bridge. Steve’s books can be seen at www.authormasterminds.com/steve-levi and www.steverlevibooks.com. He also does two historical uploads a week. Send Steve your email, and he will include it in the mailings.
Now Available:
The historical key to understanding the Alaska Railroad is that it started as a Socialist dream. It was a profit-making instrument owned by the government. By the time the railroad finished, the dream of socialism as a governmental form had died. The Russian Revolution showed how flawed socialism by a national government was, the hard-core socialist, anarchist, and syndicalist radicals had been deported on the BUFORD, and the end of World War I flooded American stores with consumer goods. The Roaring Twenties had started, and everyone was making money, and there was no longer a need to have a ‘socialist’ government.
In May of 1973, the chief mate and two sailors on the Alaska State ferry Malaspina saw a sight about which they are undoubtedly still telling their grandchildren. On a clear Sunday morning near Twin Island in the Revillagigedo Channel north of Ketchikan, a huge vessel suddenly appeared dead ahead. Lying broadside to the path of the ferry, it was about eight miles away and was an “exact, natural, and real” ship.
The three men, in two different locations on the ferry, reported the same sighting. With binoculars, they scanned the strange vessel and saw sailors working on deck. The ferry crew watched the strange ship for ten minutes, and then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, it vanished into thin air.
Steve Levi is a 70-something writer in Alaska. He specializes in the impossible crime and the Alaska Gold Rush. An impossible crime is one in which the detective must figure out HOW the crime was committed before he can go after the perpetrators. As an example, in THE MATTER OF THE VANISHING GREYHOUND, the detective must figure out how a Greyhound bus with four bank robbers, a dozen hostages, and $10 million can vanish off the Golden Gate Bridge. Steve’s books can be seen at www.authormasterminds.com/steve-levi and www.steverlevibooks.com. He also does two historical uploads a week. Send Steve your email, and he will include it in the mailings.
Now Available:
The historical key to understanding the Alaska Railroad is that it started as a Socialist dream. It was a profit-making instrument owned by the government. By the time the railroad finished, the dream of socialism as a governmental form had died. The Russian Revolution showed how flawed socialism by a national government was, the hard-core socialist, anarchist, and syndicalist radicals had been deported on the BUFORD, and the end of World War I flooded American stores with consumer goods. The Roaring Twenties had started, and everyone was making money, and there was no longer a need to have a ‘socialist’ government.
Episode 9: The Phantom That Came Aboard: A True Gold Rush Saga
Perhaps the most famous Alaska Ghost ship story is that of the Eliza Anderson. Here is the saga of a ship in distress, forced to choose between being battered to splinters by the savage sea or running around on the rocky shoals of Kodiak Island. Instead, a tall, gaunt, wind-swept, rain-soaked giant of a stranger seized control of the ship’s wheel and steered her safety. Then, his job completed, he vanished as mysteriously as he had arrived. For fifty years, the legendary “Stranger Who Came Aboard” was grist for the supernatural mill of Alaska Gold Rush stories.
Meet your host for Episode 9: The Phantom That Came Aboard: A True Gold Rush Saga
Steve Levi is a 70-something writer in Alaska. He specializes in the impossible crime and the Alaska Gold Rush. An impossible crime is one in which the detective must figure out HOW the crime was committed before he can go after the perpetrators. As an example, in THE MATTER OF THE VANISHING GREYHOUND, the detective must figure out how a Greyhound bus with four bank robbers, a dozen hostages, and $10 million can vanish off the Golden Gate Bridge. Steve’s books can be seen at www.authormasterminds.com/steve-levi and www.steverlevibooks.com. He also does two historical uploads a week. Send Steve your email, and he will include it in the mailings.
Coming Soon:
“Did you know anarchists and socialists and Bolsheviks and syndicalists built the Alaska Railroad?”
It’s true! The route between Seward and Fairbanks was approved in 1912, just before the First World War, and not completed until 1923. During the most violent period of American history, 1910 to 1920, which saw FOUR major terrorist bombings – Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York!
AND the Russian Revolution!
The Alaska Railroad was a socialist dream! It was owned by the government, all workers were paid by the government, and all benefits would go to the people, not private enterprises.
What more could a socialist or an anarchist or a syndicalist or a Bolshevik ask for?!
What could go wrong?
Want an in-the-weeds snapshot of what it was like to work on the Alaska Railroad with anarchists, socialists, syndicalists, and Bolsheviks?