The ghost road is an old strip of asphalt that nestles into a farmer's field on the outskirts of Windsor, Ontario. It's overgrown. It connects to nothing. The people who stumble upon it guess at its purpose, sometimes, but mostly it just lies there: unnoticed, abandoned, deteriorating. To look at it you'd never know this quiet road in a quiet field was once a roaring weekend hub, where thousands of people from across the county would gather to cheer on Windsor's famous weekly drag races. The stories in this book are like the ghost road itself: they may have faded from view, but they carry with them traces of a weird and wonderful history. These forgotten tales of Windsor will show you devastating tornadoes, explosions at the riverfront symphony, and 19th-century race riots. They'll show a police force at war with corruption, both inside and out. And they'll show the murderers and war heroes, the presidents and prime ministers, the sports legends, faith healers, ambassadors and artists, who have all left their mark on the place we call home. Eccentric, unexpected, and told by the city's most popular historian, Ghost Road and Other Forgotten Stories of Windsor is the city like you've never seen it before.

Marty Gervais was appointed Windsor's first Poet Laureate in 2011. Gervais has written more than a dozen books of poetry, as well as two plays and a novel. He is an award—winning journalist, poet, photographer and editor. In 1998, he won Toronto's prestigious Harbourfront Festival Prize for his contributions to Canadian letters and to emerging writers. He has won more than two dozen journalism awards for his work with the Windsor Star where he was best known for his "My Town" column. As a poet, Gervais was awarded the Milton Acorn People's Poetry Award in 1996 for his book Tearing Into A Summer Day. That same book was also awarded the City of Windsor Mayor's Award for literature. Gervais won the same award again in 2003 for To Be Now: Selected Poems. He received the Queen's Jubilee Medal in 2012.

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