The Kitchen Table Historian

I am an author and historian who writes about long-forgotten and out of the way events and places. I love the bizarre, the unusual, and the downright weird. I write a regular blog at my website, www.johnbrassardjrcom.wordpress.com, and also manage a facebook page about things of historical interest called The Kitchen Table Historian.

Episode 110: Fire, Murder, and Spirits: The Last Days of the Claypool Hotel

When it was built in 1903, the Claypool Hotel was designed to be the best and brightest of Indianapolis’ hotels. And, for forty years, it was. Then, starting in 1943, a serious of tragic events that included two murders and a fire led to the Claypool’s dramatic destruction in the 1960’s. But does something of …

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Fire, Murder, and Spirits: The Last Days of the Claypool Hotel

  Bates House had to go. It was beautiful and famous, but it had faded. There were modern amenities that it couldn’t offer, not to mention the fact that it just wasn’t big enough to accommodate the growing number of people that were coming into the city. The owner, Edward Claypool, knew that. When he …

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Episode 109: The Murder of Dorothy Poore: The Girl in the Drawer

In 1954, two maids found a horrible odor coming from a dresser in one of the rooms at the Claypool Hotel. When the dresser was searched, hotel staff found the badly decomposed body of a woman in the bottom drawer. Her name was Dorothy Poore, an 18-year-old trying to build a future in Indianapolis. What …

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Episode 107: The Truck Stop Killer: Robert Ben Rhodes

In 1990, a highway patrolman in Arizona stopped to check on a semi pulled off to the side of the road. Inside he found a woman who was naked, handcuffed, and wearing a horse bridle. While the driver, Robert Ben Rhodes, said that everything was consensual. The patrolman suspected otherwise. The investigation would turn into …

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Episode 106: Delivery Driver Has Premonition of Terrible Accident; Proven Right By Flaming Car and Bodies on Ground

In January of 1926, Ed Rinebold was driving his normal newspaper deliver route in western Illinois when he had a strange feeling. The car at the railroad crossing had just been in an accident. He hadn’t heard or seen anything, but just knew that’s what happened. When he went back, the flaming ruins of the …

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Delivery Driver Has Premonition of Terrible Accident; Proven Right By Flaming Car and Bodies on Ground

Ed Rinebold drove his delivery truck carefully down the icy roads toward the railroad tracks at Poppy Crossing, about twelve miles from Moline, Illinois. He had driven that route dozens of times as a driver for the Daily Times, a local newspaper. But he wasn’t taking any chances. The last thing that he wanted to …

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