Advertise on podcast: It’s History

In the rolling foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, the Longaberger Basket Building in Dresden, Ohio, stands as an architectural anomaly and a monument to American consumer culture. The building was created after the company's founder demanded a headquarters that looked exactly like his product. This "duck" structure required groundbreaking engineering to form its tapering shape, 75-ton handles, and woven-pattern facade. This documentary traces the Longaberger Company’s rise and fall: from a small-village origin to a billion-dollar private firm, how a home-party sales model built an empire, why the digital revolution precipitated a sudden collapse, and how a $30 million architectural masterpiece eventually sold for a fraction of its value. Scriptwriter: Ryan Socash Editor: Karolina Szwata Host: Ryan Socash #history #architecture #abandoned Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Long Island is home to roughly 5,000 miles of hand-carved canals — an extensive drainage network that began as ditches dug by early Dutch and English settlers to harvest salt hay and was expanded during the New Deal when workers dug millions of feet of trenches to control mosquitoes. This documentary examines how those drainage systems ultimately backfired: they caused soil subsidence, introduced legacy chemicals into the local food chain, and created a "highway" for ocean surges that now threaten suburban neighborhoods. It traces the history of human intervention that transformed a natural coastal barrier into a modern environmental crisis. #longisland #history #environment Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Plunging 900 feet into the earth, the Lavender Pit is a 300-acre open pit in the Mule Mountains near Bisbee, Arizona. Opened in the 1950s as an extension of the underground Copper Queen Mine, it extracted copper while physically erasing portions of the nearby town. This episode explores the pit’s century-long mining saga, its transition into a toxic waste basin and controlled environmental containment area after underground veins were exhausted, and the lasting runoff and landscape changes. Also covered: local minerals, including Bisbee Blue turquoise. #MiningHistory #BisbeeArizona #IndustrialRuins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I didn’t know carriers sailed on Lake Michigan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Times Beach, Missouri, grew in the early 20th century from a newspaper marketing stunt into a bustling Route 66 weekend destination with over 2,000 residents. A dust-control campaign led a local waste-oil hauler to secretly mix industrial dioxin into road spray, causing one of the United States’ most devastating environmental disasters. The documentary examines the contamination’s impact on residents, the 1982 flood that sealed the town’s fate, and the large federal operation that buried the town’s remains under a man-made hill. #timesbeach #route66 #history Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I explored Chicago’s most dystopian tower 🏙️ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1718, French settlers built New Orleans in a delta swamp to secure vital trade routes. The city sits in a natural depression—up to twenty feet below sea level—and is surrounded by the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. This documentary explores the engineering measures that keep the city alive: Wood Screw Pumps that move billions of gallons of water daily, canals that run higher than the land they protect, and how land subsidence compounded disaster during the failures of Hurricane Katrina. #NewOrleans #Engineering #History Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I can’t believe this mansion was built nonstop for 38 years Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Beneath the sands of Brooklyn, Dead Horse Bay is a massive time capsule of New York City’s industrial past. This documentary examines how a pristine marshland became a municipal dumping ground—revealing rotting remains of 19th-century horses, millions of discarded household artifacts, the "Barren Island War," the forced removal of immigrant communities by Robert Moses, and the discovery of radioactive military waste that led to the beach being sealed off by the federal government. #history #newyorkcity #documentary Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I found Ohio’s secret nuclear tomb 😳 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1961, a 23-year-old McGill student proposed Habitat 67: a vertical village of interlocking concrete boxes. Commissioned by the Canadian government for the 1967 World’s Fair, the project evolved from a student thesis into a construction experiment and heavy engineering laboratory. This episode explores its history—how a design meant to democratize working-class housing became a structural challenge and an accidental enclave for the wealthy. #architecture #history #urbanplanning Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Inside Joliet’s abandoned army arsenal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Dangerous Military History of California's Mare Island Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I never knew the navy flew a mid-air hangar Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before the Willis Tower, Chicago had a different architectural titan. Built in 1905, the original Sears Tower was the centerpiece of the Homan Square mega-complex — then the largest commercial complex on Earth. This episode explores the forgotten history of the original Sears Tower and Homan Square: how Richard Warren Sears built an industrial empire from small-town rail depots; the logistical engineering behind the first "same-day shipping" system; and why the retail giant eventually collapsed into a record‑breaking abandoned ghost town. Henry Ford famously visited to study its mass-production methods. #sears #chicago #history Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices