Mark Twain's boyhood home of Hannibal, Missouri, often brings to mind romanticized images of Twain's fictional characters Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer exploring caves and fishing from the banks of the Mississippi River. In City of Dust, Gregg Andrews tells another story of the Hannibal area, the very real story of the exploitation and eventual destruction of Ilasco, Missouri, an industrial town created to serve the purposes of the Atlas Portland Cement Company. In this new edition, Andrews provides an introduction detailing the impact of this book since its initial publication in 1996. He writes of a new twist in the Ilasco saga, one that concerns the Continental Cement Company’s attempt, not unlike Atlas’s one hundred years earlier, to manipulate the sale of a piece of land near its plant in the town. He explores the uneasy relationship between preservationists and the plant’s CEO and officials in St. Louis; the growing movement to preserve Ilasco’s heritage, including the building of a monument to commemorate the early residents of the town; and the grassroots petition drive and letter-writing campaign that stopped the Continental Cement Company’s machinations. " City of Dust, a well-researched account and powerful testimonial, will strike a particularly strong chord with working people who have suffered the trauma of the devastation of their communities and ways of life."— H-Net Book Review "Throughout this book, the author draws on his own experience growing up near Ilasco and the personal accounts of people who lived there to create a sensitive and vivid portrait of working- class life in a small company town."— American Historical Review "This book is a superb example of what historians can do to preserve the history of company and industrial towns whose existences are now endangered by rapid economic change. City of Dust is a significant contribution to the social and industrial history of the trans-Mississippi West."— Missouri Historical Review "Clearly written, nicely illustrated, and well-edited, City of Dust is well worth the attention of those interested in labor relations and the process of industrialization in rural areas."— Agricultural History "Gregg Andrews provides a fascinating story. . . . [His] account of Ilasco emerges as a model of capturing the personal lives and public events of a working-class community. He profiles representative figures, recounts cultural patterns, explicates the company's economic and labor policies, surveys workplace conditions, and weaves those local insights into the larger framework of the national scene and the entire cement industry. Finally, he enlivens his narrative with vivid quotes. . . . City of Dust stands as a remarkable achievement."— llinois Historical Journal Gregg Andrews was born in Hannibal, Missouri, and grew up in Ilasco. He is Professor of History at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos and the Assistant Director of the Center for Texas Music History. Andrews is also the author of Insane Sisters, or, the Price Paid for Challenging a Company Town (University of Missouri Press) and Shoulder to Shoulder? The American Federation of Labor, the United States, and the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1924.