The 10 most misleading American historical sites | James W Loewen
When I was a kid, my dad stopped the car at every historical marker on our family vacations. He thought he was educating us. But too often these markers were telling us things that never happened and leaving out important things that did. Here’s a quick tour of 10 of the worst historic sites in the US.
1 Wrongest
In Almo, Idaho, a slab of stone carved into the shape of Idaho memorializes a shocking incident in the history of the west: “Dedicated to the memory of those who lost their lives in a horrible Indian massacre, 1861. Three hundred immigrants west bound. Only five escaped.”
The only problem with this marker is that 300 immigrants were killed in 1861. Thirty were not; three were not. It never happened at all. A fine western historian, Brigham Madsen, devoted years of research to showing that
