Author Talk: Michelle Brooks

Quite a bit has happened in Missouri's capital city since Lewis and Clark passed through the area on their famous journey. And some of that history has remained hidden. Being the center of politics in the state and possessing a small-tow mindset, the city has a dual identity. Burr McCarty turned his humble home and stagecoach stop into a political gathering place. Ferryman Jefferson T. Rogers was elected major ten times. Calvin Gunn established the tow's first newspaper and was the state's first printer. Join Michelle Brooks as she tells these and more forgotten stories from her new book, Hidden History of Jefferson City. 

Brooks has a long and distinguished career in central Missouri newspapers, having served as a reporter for the Jefferson City News-Tribune and editor of the California Democrat. She has also worked on larger research projects, including the identification of members of the Sixty-Second U.S. Colored Troops, founders of Lincoln University; finding men who attended Lincoln University and also served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II as Tuskegee Airmen; and discovering the broad and pioneering career of her grandfather, who was a country music promoter across the Midwest from 1938 to 1993. She is working on another book about Jefferson City's history.