Ghosts of the Duluth, Missabe, and Iron Range Railroad

Northern Minnesota's economy has been powered by locomotives for over one hundred and thirty years. The ensuing boom after the nineteenth-century discovery of iron...
Walter Hinick, AP

Casualties of Copper: The Berkeley Pit, Montana

Tales of gold rushes and silver booms are often recounted from a nostalgic perspective, driven by tall tales of adventures into the lawless Wild...

Hottest Inhabited Place on Earth: Dallol, Ethiopia

The Afar Region of Africa, named for the people who call it home, encompasses Djibouti, Eritrea, and the northeast corner of Ethiopia. A notable...

Turkmenistan’s Door to Hell

Turkmenistan is seventy percent desert – the Karakum Desert, to be exact. The nation is divided into five provinces, the second largest being the...
Centralia

The Ground is Smoking in Centralia, Pennsylvania

Centralia was incorporated as a borough in 1866 when coal was discovered in the area. Coal mining gave birth to the town and it...
Phineas Gage

Medical Firsts: The Story of Phineas Gage

The year was 1848, and 25-year-old Phineas Gage was earning wages as a railroad worker in Vermont. His task was to blast rock to...