How did a titan of Wall Street manage to attain his success coming from a rural dairy farm in the eastern Connecticut town of Sterling? Charles Dow’s only education was in a one-room schoolhouse, and yet managed to start the Dow-Jones Company, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the Wall Street Journal. The improbable journey makes for a great story, told by the Sterling Town Historian and the President of the Sterling Historical Society, Megan McGory-Gleason.

The oldest volunteer fire department in the nation is in Wethersfield. They’ve fought fires with leather bucket brigades and hand-drawn pumpers. Chiefs used to bark orders through “speaking trumpets” before 2-way radios were available. Responders wouldn’t even try to extinguish your fire if you didn’t have a certain plaque on your house. Towns used to obtain protection for just $1/night. Hear how the technology and approaches for fighting fires has improved steadily over the centuries, with Wethersfield Volunteer Fire Department Chief Brian Schroll.

Back in 1939, a ferocious creature (nicknamed Glawackus) terrorized the mid-Connecticut town of Glastonbury for several months. Pets were mauled. Livestock went missing. Quite a few residents saw the mysterious creature, but the descriptions didn’t match that of a mountain lion, bobcat, lynx, or any other animal known to inhabit the extensive woodlands in the rural community. Fabled hunting parties, reported on by multiple newspapers (including The New York Times), came up empty handed. What was it? Hear from the undisputed expert on the story, Mike Berdan, former Board member of the Glastonbury Historical Society.