Yore Town

On October 17, 1814, a 700-pound iron hoop fell from a massive wooden vat inside London’s Horse Shoe Brewery. The vat held more than one million pints of porter. The workers noticed the problem. They reported it. But hoops had slipped before, and nothing catastrophic had happened. About an hour later, the vat exploded. The resulting flood tore through the brewery, brought down a wall, and poured into the neighboring St. Giles area, where families lived in cramped homes and basement rooms directly in its path. Eight people were killed, including children and a 14-year-old girl working at a nearby pub. Pasted text But that's only part of the story. Over the next two centuries, the London Beer Flood became a legend filled with stories of people rushing into the streets with buckets, drinking free beer and turning the disaster into a giant drunken party. The contemporary historical record tells a very different story. This week on Yore Town, Matt and Megh dig into the true story of the London Beer Flood of 1814, including the enormous wooden vats used by London breweries, the warning that came before the disaster, the people caught in the flood, the myths that developed afterward, the bizarre legal verdict, and the financial relief eventually granted to the brewery. In this episode: 00:00 The London Beer Flood 01:57 Why London Built Enormous Beer Vats 04:36 The 700-Pound Warning 08:01 The Vat Explodes 10:59 A Neighborhood in the Path 13:50 Eight People Are Dead 16:55 The Legend vs. What Really Happened 19:46 Nobody Is Held Responsible 22:54 What the Beer Flood Left Behind Eight people died. Nobody was held responsible. And somehow, the brewery eventually received tax relief for the beer it lost. Pasted text Sometimes history doesn't need help being weird. Yore Town The strange, dark, and unbelievable true stories of real places. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Virginius Island was built because of the river. Factories harnessed the power of the Shenandoah. Workers followed the factories. Homes, roads, gardens and a school followed the workers. Before long, a tiny island beside Harpers Ferry, West Virginia had become a thriving industrial community. Then, on September 30, 1870, the river rose. Fast. Reports preserved by the National Park Service describe water rising six feet in just four minutes. Bridges connecting Virginius Island to higher ground were destroyed. Around 70 houses were swept away, industries were devastated, and 42 people died around Harpers Ferry. Jonathan and Emily Child survived with their family while trapped inside their home as the flood raged around them. And somehow, people came back. They rebuilt their homes. Industry returned. Life continued. Then came another flood. And another. And another. In this episode of Yore Town, Matt and Megh follow Virginius Island from its rise as a water-powered industrial village through the Civil War, the catastrophic flood of 1870 and decades of repeated destruction that eventually forced people to abandon the island altogether. Today, Virginius Island is part of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. Visitors can walk through the woods and discover stone foundations, old waterways and industrial ruins left behind by the community that once lived there. The Shenandoah River gave Virginius Island everything. Eventually, it took it back. Yore Town tells the strange, dark, and unbelievable true stories of real places. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

THE GREAT DIAMOND HOAX OF 1872 What if you traveled hundreds of miles into the American West, discovered genuine diamonds with your own hands, and still got scammed? In 1872, Philip Arnold and John Slack convinced some of California's wealthiest businessmen that they had discovered an enormous diamond field. Their evidence was convincing. They had real gemstones, a secret location, and a mining engineer who personally inspected the site. But the entire discovery was a carefully constructed fraud. The two prospectors had purchased genuine diamonds and other gemstones, buried them in remote Western terrain, and guided investors directly to the planted treasure. Even Charles Lewis Tiffany examined the gemstones as the investors prepared for what they believed would be an extraordinary mining fortune. Then geologist Clarence King arrived. A strange pattern involving gemstones, disturbed anthills, and an empty trench exposed what everyone else had missed. The diamonds were real, but the supposed mineral deposit was not. In this episode, Matt and Megh uncover: • How two prospectors convinced wealthy investors they had discovered an American diamond field. • Why genuine gemstones made the deception so convincing. • How the investors unknowingly financed the evidence used to fool them. • Why the Tiffany appraisal and mining inspection failed to establish the truth. • How Clarence King and his team exposed the fraud. • What happened to the men behind the Great Diamond Hoax. Hundreds of thousands of dollars changed hands, and an even larger proposed stock offering was stopped before it could move forward. The diamonds were real. The field was real. The fortune was not. ABOUT YORE TOWN Yore Town explores the strange, dark, and unbelievable true stories of real places. Join Matt and Megh as they uncover the history hiding behind extraordinary locations, forgotten events, and stories that sound too unbelievable to be true. Subscribe or follow Yore Town so you never miss an episode. QUESTION OF THE WEEK If you personally found diamonds in the ground and an expert confirmed they were genuine, would you have invested your money? Share your answer with us! Yore Town is part of the Bleav Network. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On Sunday night, September 5, 1926, the people of Dromcollogher, County Limerick, gathered for something special: a night at the movies. There was no cinema in the village, so roughly 150 people climbed into a wooden loft above a hardware store where a traveling film show had been set up. The room had a narrow staircase, barred windows, highly flammable nitrate film and candles being used near the projector. Then one of those candles fell. Within moments, the nitrate film ignited. Fire spread through the loft, the main staircase became impassable, and desperate moviegoers turned toward the windows. Some managed to escape. Others found themselves trapped as one possible way out after another disappeared. By the following morning, 46 people had died in the ruins. Two more later died from their injuries. 48 people were dead in a village of roughly 500. Fifteen of them were children. In this episode of Yore Town, Matt and Megh tell the story of the Dromcollogher cinema fire, the families devastated by the disaster, the questions over how such a dangerous screening was allowed to happen, the bizarre fate of organizer William "Babe" Ford, and what became of the site afterward. Because this story has one remarkable final chapter. The place where dozens of people died while gathering to watch stories eventually became a place where the village could gather for stories again. A library. One hundred years later, Dromcollogher still remembers September 5, 1926. They call it The Burning. Yore Town tells the strange, dark, and unbelievable true stories of real places. New episodes weekly. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In 1901, Buffalo, New York, built a city that wasn't supposed to last. The Pan-American Exposition was a spectacular World's Fair designed to show millions of visitors what the new century could become. Enormous buildings surrounded illuminated fountains, hundreds of thousands of electric lights transformed the grounds after dark, and the power of nearby Niagara Falls helped create a spectacle unlike anything many Americans had ever experienced. Then the President of the United States walked into the Temple of Music. On September 6, 1901, William McKinley stood inside the exposition greeting members of the public. One man approached with a handkerchief wrapped around his right hand. McKinley apparently assumed the hand was injured and reached out to greet him. Hidden beneath the handkerchief was a revolver. Two shots changed American history. McKinley survived the initial shooting, and for several days it appeared that he might recover. The news became optimistic enough that Vice President Theodore Roosevelt eventually left Buffalo for the Adirondacks. Then McKinley's condition suddenly collapsed. In this episode of Yore Town, Matt and Meg uncover the incredible story of the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, the assassination of President William McKinley, the medical battle to save his life, Theodore Roosevelt's frantic journey back to Buffalo, and the private home where a 42-year-old Roosevelt unexpectedly became the youngest person ever to assume the presidency. We also dig into the strange Robert Todd Lincoln connection, what happened to McKinley's assassin, how the assassination helped change presidential security, and the bizarre fate of the World's Fair itself. Because just weeks after one of the most important moments in American history unfolded there, Buffalo's spectacular temporary city began to disappear. The Temple of Music vanished. The Electric Tower vanished. Most of the exposition grounds were dismantled and eventually replaced by Buffalo neighborhoods. But not everything disappeared. More than a century later, Buffalo still holds pieces from both sides of the story: the place where one presidency ended and the home where another began. Yore Town explores the strange, dark, and unbelievable true stories of real places. Big towns. Small towns. Big stories. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.