The Source: An American outbreak of death and panic
On the eve of America’s Bicentennial, a mysterious illness terrifies the country and sends disease detectives racing the clock to find answers.
Published in
57 min readMar 30, 2020
This American Legion conference did no credit to the splendor of the Bellevue-Stratford, Anna Taggart huffed to herself as she surveyed the scene in the opulent hotel she loved as though it were her own home.
The elaborately gilded and marbled threshold of the grand hotel had been crossed by every American President since Teddy Roosevelt, and its French Renaissance style architecture and opulent décor played host to the city’s glitterati on a regular basis at champagne brunches and high-society benefits. True, the 754 plush guest rooms rarely filled up these days, but the Bellevue remained a cultural monument in Philadelphia.
