Hank Nuwer Alaska Yarns

Do the Crime, Do the Time By Hank Nuwer             About the time Butch Cassidy and his gang robbed banks for fun and profit out West, Ohio also had its own dirty, lowdown bank robber.             Only difference, instead of stickups, Zachariah T. (Z. T.) Lewis of...

Timothy K. Rodeheffer. by Hank Nuwer On February 21, 1998, a 19-year-old gentle soul named Lynn Top from North Star, Ohio, walked for exercise on a less-traveled road off Ohio 49. A student at Wright State University’s Lake Campus in Celina, she had thick, abundant...

Many years ago, on assignment for the AARP, Country Gentleman, and Outside magazines, I stayed at more than a dozen century-old hotels in the American West. Some like the Copper Queen in Bisbee, Arizona, were under renovation at the time, but their lobbies and dining...

Link to the video review with photos

On November 11, 1942, an escaped elephant stole headlines, including a story with an oversized photo in the Union City Times-Gazette. The Great American Circus with three starring elephants came to Wabash to put on a show as a fundraiser at the local high school...

When Fight Night Led to Mob Mayhem.  By Hank Nuwer                   Randolph and Shelby County served as home to many distinguished citizens in the 1890s.                     However, rowdies also roamed the area. A custom on weekends in both counties for a time...

Alaska’s state bird is the “moose-quito,” so named by me because of their immense size and toughness.   Our state’s mosquitoes are so mean that when you slap them, they slap you back.   A 2017 report in the Cordova Times blamed climate change for sturdier...

                  My wife Gosia and I love visiting small cities in Alaska. The last two years, we’ve popped over to Sitka, King Salmon, Kodiak, Seward and Nome.                   This time we chose Cordova, Alaska.                   On the plane to Cordova we met our...

For my wife Malgorzata’s recent birthday, I bought a floral bouquet and, trying to be creative, a black-and-tan Louie’s Lunch Bucket from Duluth Trading Company ($89.95) to take to work.                   The bucket proved big enough to hold a six pack of soda pop,...