A look back at New Orleans's early wicked days and historic crimes Since as early as the 1700s, New Orleans has been a city filled with sin and vice. Those first pioneering citizens of the Big Easy were thieves, vagabonds, and criminals of all kinds. By the time Louisiana fell under American control, New Orleans had become a city of debauchery and corruption camouflaged by decadence. It was also considered one of the country's most dangerous cities, with a reputation for crime and loose morals. Rampant gambling and prostitution were the norms in nineteenth-century New Orleans, and over one-third of today's French Quarter was considered a hotbed of sin. Tales in this volume include that of the notorious Axeman who plagued the streets of the Crescent City in the early 1900s and Kate Townsend, a prostitute who was murdered by her own lover, a man who later was awarded her inheritance.

Troy Taylor is an occultist, supernatural historian, and the author of seventy-five books on ghosts, hauntings, history, crime, and the unexplained in America. He is also the founder of the American Ghost Society and the owner of the Illinois and American Hauntings Tour companies. Taylor shares a birthday with one of his favorite authors, F. Scott Fitzgerald, but instead of living in New York and Paris like Fitzgerald, Taylor grew up in Illinois. Raised on the prairies of the state, he developed an interest in "things that go bump in the night" at an early age. As a young man, he channeled that interest into developing ghost tours and writing about haunts in Chicago and Central Illinois. Troy and his wife, Haven, currently reside in Chicago's West Loop neighborhood.

ISBN: 9781596299450

Paperback

6 x 9

128 pages

The History Press, 2010