Try free for 30 days
-
The Collinwood Tragedy
- The Story of the Worst School Fire in American History
- Narrated by: Tom Lennon
- Length: 5 hrs and 10 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from Wish List failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $22.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also picked
-
The Winecoff Fire
- The Untold Story of America's Deadliest Hotel Fire
- By: Sam Heys, Allen B. Goodwin
- Narrated by: Bruce Conger
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As America slept in the pre-dawn hours of December 7, 1946, 280 of its citizens awoke suddenly in a hotel already burning out of control. Like the unsinkable Titanic, Atlanta’s Winecoff Hotel had been billed as “fireproof.” And, in fact, it did not burn. Its guests did. Or they died on Peachtree Street, or in quiet clusters, huddled together for courage against the silent, suffocating smoke. It was the worst hotel fire ever, anywhere. The fact that today it is still the worst hotel fire in North America — and the second worst in the world — is testament to its horror.
-
Burn Boston Burn
- The Story of the Largest Arson Case in the History of the Country
- By: Wayne M. Miller
- Narrated by: Chris Monteiro
- Length: 15 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Burn Boston Burn is an astounding true crime narration. A conspiracy of nine men, including three Boston cops and a Boston firefighter, burned Boston and surrounding communities in the early 1980s due to tax-cutting measures that caused layoffs of hundreds of police and firefighters. Over two years, these fire buffs-turned-arsonists torched 264 buildings, causing millions of dollars in damages and hundreds of injuries. The city was ablaze with nightly fires, sirens wailing through the streets, and people too afraid to sleep.
-
The Teacher's Pet
- By: Hedley Thomas
- Narrated by: Hedley Thomas
- Length: 18 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you thought you knew the story of The Teacher's Pet, get ready to be shocked. Hedley Thomas takes you behind the scenes with a blow-by-blow account of one of the most intriguing and enduring murder mysteries of our time - the crime, the podcast investigation, the sexual exploitation of teenage students, the courtroom drama - and how justice was finally delivered.
-
-
What a journey!
- By Anonymous User on 12-11-2023
-
Burnt
- A Memoir of Fighting Fire
- By: Clare Frank
- Narrated by: Clare Frank
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Burnt is a book about finding your calling, even if it's an unexpected one. It's about finding your home, even if you aren't immediately welcomed. And it's about reaching the top and making a difference, even if you don't look like you fit in.
-
The Deerfield Massacre
- A Surprise Attack, a Forced March, and the Fight for Survival in Early America
- By: James L. Swanson
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the tradition of the New York Times bestseller Empire of the Summer Moon comes a spellbinding account of a forgotten chapter in American history: the deadly confrontation between Indians and colonists in Massachusetts in 1704 and the tragic saga that unfolded, written by acclaimed historian James Swanson.
-
-
Why use 10 words when 60 will do
- By Rowey555 on 08-04-2024
-
Rockin' Around the Chickadee
- A Meg Langslow Mystery
- By: Donna Andrews
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meg's sister-in-law, Delaney is pregnant. Since her due date is on or around Christmas Day, this is putting a bit of a damper on the usual holiday festivities. Meg and Michael are NOT hosting the usual house full of relatives and parties. Instead, Meg, along with her mother, her grandmother, her cousin Rose Noire, and her good friend Caroline, are militantly doing everything they can think of to keep Delaney quiet and healthy.
-
The Winecoff Fire
- The Untold Story of America's Deadliest Hotel Fire
- By: Sam Heys, Allen B. Goodwin
- Narrated by: Bruce Conger
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As America slept in the pre-dawn hours of December 7, 1946, 280 of its citizens awoke suddenly in a hotel already burning out of control. Like the unsinkable Titanic, Atlanta’s Winecoff Hotel had been billed as “fireproof.” And, in fact, it did not burn. Its guests did. Or they died on Peachtree Street, or in quiet clusters, huddled together for courage against the silent, suffocating smoke. It was the worst hotel fire ever, anywhere. The fact that today it is still the worst hotel fire in North America — and the second worst in the world — is testament to its horror.
-
Burn Boston Burn
- The Story of the Largest Arson Case in the History of the Country
- By: Wayne M. Miller
- Narrated by: Chris Monteiro
- Length: 15 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Burn Boston Burn is an astounding true crime narration. A conspiracy of nine men, including three Boston cops and a Boston firefighter, burned Boston and surrounding communities in the early 1980s due to tax-cutting measures that caused layoffs of hundreds of police and firefighters. Over two years, these fire buffs-turned-arsonists torched 264 buildings, causing millions of dollars in damages and hundreds of injuries. The city was ablaze with nightly fires, sirens wailing through the streets, and people too afraid to sleep.
-
The Teacher's Pet
- By: Hedley Thomas
- Narrated by: Hedley Thomas
- Length: 18 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you thought you knew the story of The Teacher's Pet, get ready to be shocked. Hedley Thomas takes you behind the scenes with a blow-by-blow account of one of the most intriguing and enduring murder mysteries of our time - the crime, the podcast investigation, the sexual exploitation of teenage students, the courtroom drama - and how justice was finally delivered.
-
-
What a journey!
- By Anonymous User on 12-11-2023
-
Burnt
- A Memoir of Fighting Fire
- By: Clare Frank
- Narrated by: Clare Frank
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Burnt is a book about finding your calling, even if it's an unexpected one. It's about finding your home, even if you aren't immediately welcomed. And it's about reaching the top and making a difference, even if you don't look like you fit in.
-
The Deerfield Massacre
- A Surprise Attack, a Forced March, and the Fight for Survival in Early America
- By: James L. Swanson
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the tradition of the New York Times bestseller Empire of the Summer Moon comes a spellbinding account of a forgotten chapter in American history: the deadly confrontation between Indians and colonists in Massachusetts in 1704 and the tragic saga that unfolded, written by acclaimed historian James Swanson.
-
-
Why use 10 words when 60 will do
- By Rowey555 on 08-04-2024
-
Rockin' Around the Chickadee
- A Meg Langslow Mystery
- By: Donna Andrews
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meg's sister-in-law, Delaney is pregnant. Since her due date is on or around Christmas Day, this is putting a bit of a damper on the usual holiday festivities. Meg and Michael are NOT hosting the usual house full of relatives and parties. Instead, Meg, along with her mother, her grandmother, her cousin Rose Noire, and her good friend Caroline, are militantly doing everything they can think of to keep Delaney quiet and healthy.
-
Between a Flock and a Hard Place
- A Meg Langslow Mystery
- By: Donna Andrews
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meg's neighbors, the Smetkamps', have won a makeover for their old home from Marvelous Mansions, a flashy, yet dubious company, focused on making historic homes more "modern." The company is already several days into its makeover of the Smetkamps' house, and tensions are running high—not only between the officious, demanding Mrs. Smetkamp and her neighbors, but also between her and the renovation crew.
-
The Last Voyage of the Andrea Doria
- The Sinking of the World's Most Glamorous Ship
- By: Greg King, Penny Wilson
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1956, a stunned world watched as the famous Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria sank after being struck by a Swedish vessel off the coast of Nantucket. Unlike the Titanic, this sinking played out in real time across radios and televisions, the first disaster of the modern age. Audiences witnessed it all: the unthinkable collision of two modern vessels equipped with radar; perilous hours of uncertainty; the heroic rescue of passengers, and the final gasp as the pride of the Italian fleet slipped beneath the Atlantic, taking some 50 lives with her.
-
Maniac
- The Bath School Disaster and the Birth of the Modern Mass Killer
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Braden Wright
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1927, while the majority of the township of Bath, Michigan, was celebrating a new primary school - one of the most modern in the Midwest - Andrew P. Kehoe had other plans. The local farmer and school board treasurer was educated, respected, and an accommodating neighbor and friend. But behind his ordinary demeanor was a narcissistic sadist seething with rage, resentment, and paranoia. On May 18 he detonated a set of rigged explosives with the sole purpose of destroying the school and everyone in it.
-
ShadowMan
- An Elusive Psycho Killer and the Birth of FBI Profiling
- By: Ron Franscell
- Narrated by: Patty Nieman, Chris Berger
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On June 25, 1973, a seven-year-old girl went missing from the Montana campground where her family was vacationing. Somebody had slit open the back of their tent and snatched her from under their noses. None of them saw or heard anything. Susie Jaeger had vanished into thin air, plucked by a shadow. As days stretched into weeks, and weeks into months, Special Agent Pete Dunbar attended a workshop at FBI Headquarters in Quantico, Virgina, led by two agents who had hatched a radical new idea: What if criminals left a psychological trail that would lead us to them?
-
-
it was just ok
- By Angela Grimes on 10-04-2023
-
Sheltering Angel
- By: Louella Bryant
- Narrated by: Melinda Cumming
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From a working-class family, Scotsman Andrew Cunningham stewards for wealthy travelers aboard elegant cruise ships of the early 20th century, but he resents those who flaunt their inherited wealth. New Yorkers Florence and Bradley Cumings, first-class passengers traveling aboard Titanic, are the exception, and the three discover an ancestral connection. As the ship sinks on the fateful morning of April 15, 1912, Florence watches in horror from her lifeboat.
-
Flight 232
- A Story of Disaster and Survival
- By: Laurence Gonzales
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As hundreds of rescue workers waited on the ground, United Airlines Flight 232 wallowed drunkenly over the bluffs northwest of Sioux City. The plane slammed onto the runway and burst into a vast fireball. The rescuers didn't move at first: nobody could possibly survive that crash. And then people began emerging from the summer corn that lined the runways. Miraculously, 184 of 296 passengers lived. No one has ever attempted the complete reconstruction of a crash of this magnitude.
-
Little Girl Blue
- The Life of Karen Carpenter
- By: Randy L. Schmidt
- Narrated by: Cheryl Bentyne
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Little Girl Blue is an intimate profile of Karen Carpenter, a girl from a modest Connecticut upbringing who became a Southern California superstar. Karen was the instantly recognizable lead singer of the Carpenters. The top-selling American musical act of the 1970's, they delivered the love songs that defined a generation. Little Girl Blue reveals Karen's heartbreaking struggles with her mother, brother, and husband; the intimate disclosures she made to her closest friends; and much more.
-
Murder Under God's Eye
- The Nightmare Killing in Stanford's Church
- By: Scott Herhold
- Narrated by: Harry Shaw
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The murder of Arlis Perry inside Stanford Memorial Church flummoxed detectives for nearly 44 years. Then the case ended with a bang. Early on the morning of Oct. 13, 1974, a security guard found the body of 19-year-old Arlis Perry underneath a pew inside the historic church at the heart of Stanford's campus. The deeply religious wife of a Stanford sophomore, Arlis had gone to pray in the sanctuary late the night before.
-
Willful Misconduct
- The Tragic Story of Pan American Flight 806
- By: William Norris
- Narrated by: Tom Beyer
- Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1974, Pan American Flight 806 was hoping to land safely in Pago Pago, Samoa, but instead plummeted at 140 miles per hour into the jungle floor. The 101 passengers and crew members all survived this devastating crash. Unfortunately, only four of them escaped the wreckage before the ensuing fire that followed and lived to tell their story. After the disaster, Pan American was found guilty of "willful misconduct" after the longest and most expensive trial in aviation history.
-
Over My Dead Body
- Unearthing the Hidden History of American Cemeteries
- By: Greg Melville
- Narrated by: Will Tulin
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The summer before his senior year in college, Greg Melville worked at the cemetery in his hometown, and thanks to hour upon hour of pushing a mower over the grassy acres, he came to realize what a rich story the place told of his town and its history. Thus was born Melville’s lifelong curiosity with how, where, and why we bury and commemorate our dead. Melville’s Over My Dead Body is a lively (pun intended) and wide-ranging history of cemeteries, places that have mirrored the passing eras in history but have also shaped it.
-
Child Last Seen
- The Search for Patty Desmond
- By: Maureen Boyle
- Narrated by: Tom Lennon
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On an unseasonably warm winter evening in Pennsylvania, 15-year-old Patty Desmond sneaked out through the basement of her house. She had a history of running away, and that, combined with an argument with her mother, gave police reason to suspect she’d come home in a week or two.
-
American Demon
- Eliot Ness and the Hunt for America's Jack the Ripper
- By: Daniel Stashower
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On September 5th, 1934, a young beachcomber made a gruesome discovery on the shores of Cleveland’s Lake Erie: the lower half of a female torso, neatly severed at the waist. The victim, dubbed “The Lady of the Lake,” was only the first of a butcher’s dozen. Over the next four years, twelve more bodies would be scattered across the city. The bodies were dismembered with surgical precision and drained of blood. Some were beheaded while still alive.
Publisher's Summary
Children at Lakeview Elementary School were at work on their lessons when fifth-grader Emma Neibert noticed wisps of smoke, a discovery that led to a panicked stampede inside the school—the chaos of nine teachers trying to control and then save pupils in overcrowded classrooms. Outside, desperate parents and would-be rescuers fought to save as many children as possible, while Collinwood’s inadequate volunteer fire department—joined by members of the Cleveland fire department—fought a losing battle with the rapidly spreading blaze.
While some inside jumped from the building to safety, most were trapped. Ultimately, 172 children, two teachers, and one rescue worker were killed, and the Collinwood community was irrevocably changed.
The Collinwood Tragedy: The Story of the Worst School Fire in American History describes not only the events of that fateful day but also their lingering effects. James Jessen Badal’s extensive research reveals how the citizens of Collinwood were desperate to find someone to blame for the tragedy. Rumor and suspicion splintered the grieving community. And yet they also rose to the challenge of healing: officials reached out to immigrant families unsure of their rights; city charities, churches, and relief agencies responded immediately with medical help, comfort for the bereaved, and financial support; and fundraising efforts to assist families totaled more than $50,000—more than $1 million in today’s terms.
The book is published by The Kent State University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.
“A meticulously researched, clearly rendered narrative...that will appeal to not only historical researchers and history buffs, but to general readers as well.” (Ron Rozelle, author of My Boys and Girls Are in There)