Author name: Michael Earl Simmons

In the years following the Civil War, the railroad running north from Pensacola helped change West Florida. Charles Pollard, the father of the Alabama Railroad, helped establish the new way […]

In case you missed the meeting of the Pensacola Police Historic Society, I presented the heartbreaking story of the night that Officer Tommie Hatcher was killed in the line of

In the heart of the Florida Panhandle lies the rural community of Bear Head, named for its location near the head of the creek that flows into Bear Head Pond.

August in Pensacola can be downright hot. Fortunately, there’s a perfect way to spend part of your Saturday in comfort, good company, and suspense.  On Saturday, August 22, 2026, at 2:30 p.m., I’ll be presenting Midday

John Wesley Hardin insisted that he never killed anyone who did not need killing—but the story of Charlie Webb tells us otherwise. Webb was only 26 years old, a former

What did a Pensacola man’s death have to do with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy? In this special Sweet Tea Murders LIVE presentation, former homicide detective and police

Something I’ve been working on quietly is now available on Amazon. The Last Stop: The Final Capture of Ted Bundy in Pensacola tells the story of how one alert Pensacola

Looking for a unique way to spend a Saturday afternoon? Escape the Florida summer heat and step into one of Pensacola’s most fascinating true crime stories with Michael Earl Simmons

A New Sweet Tea Murders Walking Tour You can walk down Palafox Street a hundred times and never realize what happened just a few steps away. Behind the storefronts, restaurants,

History remembers John Wesley Hardin as a gunfighter. It remembers the pistol strapped to his side, the men he killed, the aliases he used, and the Texas Rangers who finally