The Istoriaphile’s Corner

My husband collects disaster stories.   I think it goes back to his childhood when he read A Night to Remember.  The account of Titanic’s sole voyage was so researched, so well-written and evocative, he’s been chasing disaster accounts ever since.   Me, I like these books for the slice-of-life history that comes with each account, the context of how people lived in some different time and era and who they were.  For whatever reason, we both love disaster accounts and this summer I found a good one.  Under a Flaming Sky (by Daniel James Brown) is one of those books that flies under the radar until the author gets a hit later on.  Here’s hoping the author’s good luck with his current release will give this story a deserved second look. UAFS is the story of Hinkley, Minnesota, a town on the edge of the prairie near the end of the Guilded Age.  Hinkley had done well as a town, booming along with the twin streams of business and labor.  Lumber was the town’s biggest business and a steady stream of immigrants kept it moving from forests through the sawmills to the trains.  Everyone was in a hurry to…