The National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, Maryland has in its collection a glass vial filled with a silvery salve that was used to wage a battle against a medical nightmare. The Charles E. Young Research Library at the University of California-Los Angles has a colorful canvas that hides an artful truth. And the Finney County Historical Museum in Garden City, Kansas contains a boot worn during a notorious murder that shook a small town to its core and inspired an American literary masterpiece.

Don Wildman examines a pistol linked to a legendary love story, a plant specimen that points to a toxic tale of abuse and a pair of cement shoes from a prison used to punish a convict.