A narrative history podcast

Every place has a story.
Some are buried deeper.

Where It Happened begins with a real location—a street corner, a neighborhood, a building, a riverfront—and follows the crime, conflict, scandal, or history still attached to it.

Where It Happened podcast cover art showing a dark historic building and a marked street map
The premise

An ordinary place can hold an extraordinary story.

We pass the same buildings, roads, vacant lots, and riverbanks every day without knowing what happened there. This show goes back to those places, separates the documented record from the legend, and reconstructs the people and events that gave them meaning.

The result is true crime, local history, and narrative documentary storytelling rooted in geography. The location is not just the backdrop. It is where the story begins.

How the show works

The map comes first.

Each story begins somewhere real.

01

Start with the place

A building, street, neighborhood, riverbank, or place that no longer exists becomes the way into the story.

02

Follow the record

Newspapers, court records, archives, maps, and firsthand accounts help separate what is documented from what became legend.

03

Bring it back to life

The history is told as a human story, with atmosphere, context, and the details that make the past feel close again.

“The past is not gone. Sometimes it is sitting behind a new coat of paint, beneath a parking lot, or at an intersection you have driven through a hundred times.”

Portrait of host Jeff Allen smiling against a purple background

Your host

Jeff Allen

Jeff is a St. Louis-area videographer, podcast producer, musician, and lifelong collector of stories.

His professional work centers on documentary-style video and nonprofit storytelling. Where It Happened brings those instincts to the microphone: careful research, a strong sense of place, and an interest in the gap between what really happened and what people remember.

He is especially drawn to stories from St. Louis and the Midwest, but the map can lead anywhere.

Get in touch

Contact Jeff

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