Friday, April 24, 2009

Cool interactive map

Not to mention a fine bit of writing, an excellent website design, a great story, an intriguing mystery, and a good example of a mostly-law-abiding citizen using a concealed handgun to defend himself right here in Lincoln.

It’s all here, at Gilded Age Plains City, a remarkable web site built around UNL historian Timothy R. Mahoney’s 2001 article, The Great Sheedy Murder Case and the Booster Ethos of the Gilded Age in Lincoln, Nebraska.

I have a lifelong passion for history, and own several Lincoln history books. How I missed this I do not know, but a colleague, Capt. Joy Citta stumbled upon it, and sent me the link. The story features two of my predecessors as chief of police, Samuel Melick and James Malone. It’s a great read, and I was blown away and the design and execution of the website, with back stories, biographies, a document archive, and a timeline.

Readers of the Chief’s Corner also know that I’ve got a thing for geography and cartography, so I enjoyed the map. You can zoom way in for great detail.



I have seen this beautiful birds-eye view of Lincoln in 1889 before, but what really knocked my socks off was the interactive version, where many individual buildings and address are identified with a rollover, and the information box displays a period photograph, where available. My congratulations to the project team that put this all together.

13 comments:

Grundle King said...

I immediately sent the link to friends and co-workers...what an excellent website. Thanks for posting that!

Kim said...

This great project was brought to you by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Center for Digital Humanities Research. Thanks for giving it wider circulation as it is indeed, very cool.

that's what she said...

So what year did Lincoln add the first ultra-confusing layout subdivision?

Tom Casady said...

Kim-

Never seen anything quite like this. I assume you're the Kim on the project team. Bravo!

I nominate Gale Christianson's The Last Posse as the next project!

Steve said...

Very intesting, but for some reason the "2001 article" link didn't work for me.

Anonymous said...

wow! Thanks for that link.... what a great project for those of us who appreciate the history.

Karin Dalziel said...

Thanks for linking this up. :) This is one of my favorite projects. Those interested might want to check out other Nebraska related projects put out by the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities: http://cdrh.unl.edu/projects/nebraska_portal.php

Disclosure: I work for the Center.

Steve said...

The link that I reported not working for me is working now. I don't know if it was something on my end, or if you "fixed it" somehow. Regardless, it was a very interesting story.

Thanks

Anonymous said...

2040hrs to about 2100...one of your officers was on the radio making an ass of him self. He was making odd noises and had much backround noises.
You all sound very professional most all the time, I have never had an ear for this kind of radio behavior in 20 years. i bet if you check up on this you will find it is one of your problem employees

Grundle King said...

9:01,

How is your comment in any way related to this article?

You managed to find Casady's blog, I'm certain you could have found a better way to contact him via InterLinc.

Tom Casady said...

9:01-

That sounds incredobly unlikely. Every radio transmission specifically identifies the sender, so a supervisor (not to mention a dispatcher!) would have been on that like an odor. I'm wondering if we had:

1.) an intermittent stuck microphone.

2.) a lost/stolen radio that it took a few minutes to disable.

Haven't seen anything in the reports, but I'll ask around.

Anonymous said...

People in scanner land kinda make me chuckle.

Anonymous said...

I've taken a class with Tim Mahoney, and he is a brilliant man and a wonderful person.