Mark Shuman

Special to USA TODAY
Two hundred feet below ground level at Mammoth Cave National Park, Park Ranger Jerry Bransford shines his flashlight on the cave's wall and illuminates an inscription: "Mat 1850."
"Mat" was Jerry's great-great-grandfather Materson Bransford, one of three African-American enslaved guides who were the first to introduce tourists to the cave.
Our family lucked into Bransford's two-hour "Historic Tour" coming home from a road trip to Nashville and learned that slaves were key...

By MARK SHUMAN
Special to the Journal & Topics
If the names Astor, Drake, Swift, or Wacker, don’t ring a bell, maybe Schwinn, Schlitz, Maytag, or Wrigley do. All these families — titans of Chicago industry — have roots tied to Geneva Lake, 83 miles from Chicago, but closer, of course, to the northwest suburbs. These families, their mansions, and histories are all part of the narrative on sightseeing cruises operated by Lake Geneva Cruise Line, a company that has operated tours on the lake, in...

Minnesota’s legendary Boundary Waters Canoe Area can be scary big. The lakes are sometimes huge, or an angry gothic green, and canoe trips there are the stuff of family legend.

With around 1 million acres and 1,000 lakes, size is part of what makes the Boundary Waters such a treasured site for canoe and kayak trips in the Midwest.

A lesser-known alternative, however, is the Sylvania Wilderness and Recreation Area in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It’s a much smaller gem offering many of the Boun...

Covering more than a million acres and boasting more than a thousand pristine lakes, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) in northeastern Minnesota is the largest wilderness area in the Midwest. Visitors might encounter Northern Lights, languid moose, howling wolves, sky blue days or frustrating rain. Loons, solitude and a sense of accomplishment are guaranteed. The late writer and philosopher Sigurd F. Olson helped preserve the Boundary Waters and said that it’s the memories of particular B...

By MARK SHUMAN
Special to the Journal & Topics
Pepp & Delores restaurant in the gentrifying OTR neighborhood has homemade pasta, family recipes, and great people-watching. (Photo by Mark Shuman)
Victorian and contemporary architecture, a thriving restaurant scene, and the Reds, with their serious playoff run, make Cincinnati a good choice for visitors this summer and fall. The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, first opened in 1875, keeps making national news, and in September...

After six years of mystery, authorities have identified a woman whose scarred and battered body was discovered in a North Chicago forest preserve.

Relatives and sources close to the investigation said Thursday that Mary Kate Sunderlin, 34, a former Carpentersville resident, was the “Jane Doe” whose identity had stumped authorities even though three men were convicted in connection with her slaying.

“Here they had the crime solved in 1999, but nobody knew who the victim was,” said Carpentersvi...

Two faculty members of the Romance Languages and Literatures Department have been named recipients of the 2010 Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C. Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.

Literary Models

Maria Rosa Olivera-Williams, associate professor of Spanish and director of the Latin American Studies Program, and Catherine Perry, associate professor of French, were among 20 Joyce Award winners selected from across campus. The awards honor faculty who create environments that stimulate signif...

You can find Notre Dame graduates with degrees in English almost everywhere—and not just working in the classroom as teachers or professors. Indeed, according to a survey of alumni, they are thriving in a broad range of professions.

“Our graduates are in just about anything you can imagine,” says English Professor Chris Vanden Bossche, who serves as the department’s director of undergraduate studies and recently surveyed alumni on their career choices. While the most common post-graduation pa...

Des Plaines downtown rehab proposed

An Indiana Jones-style expedition might be one way to locate 5,000-year-old Early Bronze Age artifacts like those University of Notre Dame Associate Professor Meredith S. Chesson studies.

Logging onto eBay, however, is the cheaper, easier route. On eBay and similar auction sites, Chesson says, web surfers can all-too-easily find such artifacts using search terms like “Early Bronze Age pots” and “holy land.”

Her ongoing project, “Follow the Pots: The Social Lives of Early Bronze Age Artifacts ...

Notre Dame alumnus Mike Leary ’71, a history major, led a team at the Philadelphia Inquirer that won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for public service journalism. Photo courtesy of Eileen Barroso/Columbia University.

In the lobby of the Baltimore Sun offices, beneath a photo of the newspaper’s late, legendary journalist and essayist H.L. Mencken, there is a quote: “As I look back over a misspent life, I find myself more and more convinced that I had more fun doing news reporting than in any other en...

A 30-year-old woman was jailed Wednesday in lieu of a $30,000 bond for allegedly accepting $20 to have sex with an Elgin man and failing to warn him that she was infected with the AIDS virus.

Dawn Fry, who authorities said has been arrested at least once before for prostitution in Elgin, was charged with one count each of criminal transmission of HIV and prostitution.

She was being held in Kane County Jail following her arrest Tuesday night near the Fox River Bike Trail and U.S. Highway 20, p...

The newly approved casino planned for Des Plaines should generate $9 million a year for the northwest suburb and create at least 1,200 jobs, casino officials say.

The first slot machines are expected to be up and running in 21/2 years, officials of Midwest Gaming and Entertainment told City Council members and residents at a briefing Monday. Midwest’s bid for the state’s 10th and last available casino license was approved in December by the Illinois Gaming Board, though the project faces addi...

Like the made-up country depicted in the Richard Dreyfuss movie called “Moon Over Parador,” real-life Ecuador is a sort of South American combination plate.

“Parador,” the movie, deserved to be a box-office bomb, but as a tourist destination, Ecuador ought to be grossing big and isn’t.

The people who do see Ecuador wonder why this safe and friendly country is so strangely forgotten by North American visitors. It offers much of South America’s best, including mountains, jungles, beaches and an...