Böcker av Mark W Koenig

"A roving, shiftless fellow..." That's how the newspapers described Jesse C. Walker, who in 1908 was served with an arrest warrant by Brunswick County sheriff Jackson Stanland, with tragic results. Little did Walker know that he was about to set off on twenty-five years of headline-grabbing exploits. Two murders, two wives, three prison escapes, and thousands of miles of travel across eight states are only the surface of the adventures of this North Carolina desperado. Local author Mark W. Koenig relates the untold saga of a man who rocketed to notoriety in the first years of the twentieth century and found atonement decades later.

At the turn of the twentieth century, railroads meant progress, growth and development.In the 1890s Southport, North Carolina became the target destination for a major coaling terminal for ships sailing the Atlantic coast. A new terminal would require a railroad to bring in coal and other supplies. More than twenty companies were formed to pursue this idea over the years, with a few actual accomplishments, but most were purely speculative. Wearying the expectant town for more than twenty-five years, the vision for a great port was whittled down until local entrepreneurs finally built a 30-mile rail line to connect the town to Wilmington. Local author and railroad historian Mark Koenig chronicles the short life of a short line and the long process of making it a reality.