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From Guale Indians and Spanish explorers to its glory days as the queen of south Atlantic beach resorts and beyond, Tybee Island's quiet charm hides a rich and occasionally violent history. Soldiers, rebels, and rumrunners all found their place in history here as great battles, fires, and hurricanes played out over time. Through centuries of change, Tybee has remained one of the South's most popular resorts.

Few would guess from looking at the resplendent Virginia Beach shoreline-its stretches of fine sand, sloping dunes, and rolling waves-that the city has experienced anything but peace and tranquility since the history of its native Chesapeake tribe collided with the ambition and vision of new European settlers on the colonial coastline. But turmoil and conflict, as well as progress and achievement, are all a part of the area's unique story.

Virginia Beach: A History of Virginia's Golden Shore brings to life the people, places, and events that contributed to the city's celebrated reputation. Through stories and memories, readers are introduced to the varied citizens who called this land home, including such characters as Sarah Offley who married three of early Virginia's most powerful settlers, and to the city's illustrious visitors. This volume also details, in both word and image, the influential resort age, which began in 1880 and saw the community flourish as people flocked to the Atlantic shore to dance, picnic, and enjoy the surf at the Princess Anne Hotel. Everyday vacationers mingled with notables such as Alexander Graham Bell and John, Lionel, and Ethel Barrymore at the landmark hotel with the railroad at its front door. Although little of the golden shore remains unchanged, modern residents continue to preserve what they can-especially their memories, pride, and love for the city.

Although known as the retail capital of Rhode Island, Warwick is much more than a conglomeration of shopping centers, malls, and industrial parks; it is a city marked by an extraordinary history and in many ways, serves as a mirror of the American experience. Like many communities across the United States, Warwick developed from a rural hamlet into a town distinguished by a variety of industries in the nineteenth century, attracting immigrants from across the globe desiring a new beginning within its mill villages. These industries brought wealth and opportunity, and paved the way for Warwick's transformation from small town to cosmopolitan center. Warwick: A City at the Crossroads is not a stale chronology, but is a work that breathes new life into the memorable characters and events that shaped the community's history over the past four centuries. Taking readers on an exciting journey through Warwick's past, this unique illustrated history begins with the first Narragansett Indian tribes that hunted amidst the virgin wilderness and details an evolving landscape touched by colonial settlement, wars, storms, depressions, resort development, and industrialization up through the present day. However, the true measure of a community is in its people, and Warwick possesses a remarkable cast of colorful characters, such as controversial city father, Samuel Gorton, Revolutionary War heroes Nathanael Greene and James Varnum, textile magnate Robert Knight, and scores of other distinct personalities, ranging from privateers and bootleggers to feared political bosses and industrial giants.

From early encounters with Native Americans to today's thriving tourism industry, Watertown, Wisconsin has proven itself a friendly and welcoming city. The large German population belies the fact that New Englanders actually began the process of taming the Rock River and the land that would become Watertown. This land, surrounded by an oxbow in the Rock River, began calling to American pioneers such as Timothy Johnson in 1836, a siren song of rolling hills and grand rapids. Sawmills, plank roads, and the railroad spurred the town's growth and prosperity, but the people still had obstacles to overcome. Watertown's resolute citizens now work hard to preserve their history while encouraging growth and change.

Watertown: A History is the story of how a serene village became a center for industry, shopping, and recreation while focusing on its best asset-the energetic and hardworking people who lived the Watertown story. Readers will discover how riots broke out when politics took center stage just before the Civil War due to strong anti-Republican sentiments. The bond scandal only decades later is highlighted as the event that plunged Watertown into her darkest days. This volume recounts these stories and more through both images and narrative, fostering a deep respect for the commitments and sacrifices made by its residents of today and yesterday.

The people of Waxahachie, Texas, have always been at the heart of a thriving community that was once the largest cotton-producing county in the nation. As county seat, Waxahachie burgeoned into a bustling center for business and education and carved out a unique niche in the growing landscape. But its citizens overcame significant obstacles as well, facing such challenges as a massive slave revolt during the Civil War and the economic bust of the 1930s. Reflecting both the glory and hardship of these struggles, Waxahachie today stands as a testament to Southern determination and how a town came to be defined by a crop on which America still relies-cotton.

Always with an eye on their future, the people of Waxahachie, in 1912, supported the development of an interurban electric railway system linking them to Dallas and Waco. Each July between 1900 and 1930, Texans from all over the state came to Waxahachie by covered wagon, on horseback, and later by automobile to participate in the national Chautauqua phenomenon and hear such great orators as William Jennings Bryan and Will Rogers. Waxahachie's Chautauqua Auditorium, still in use today, is one of the few national survivors of this educational movement. This tradition of community and culture survives to the present day in such events as the Scarborough Fair, the National Polka Festival, and the Gingerbread Trail of Homes. In this new historical account, Waxahachie, Texas: Where Cotton Reigned King, the town springs to life in a blend of more than 100 vintage photographs and stories that chronicle the perseverance and love of a people for their town.

Western Siskiyou County spreads its picturesque bounty across the mountains of California between the Sacramento Valley and the Oregon border. Encompassing such magnificent wonders as the Klamath National Forest and the Marble Mountain Wilderness-Primitive Area, Western Siskiyou County enjoys a rich history. The Shasta and Karuk tribes have inhabited the area for thousands of years, and they thrived in this rugged landscape before Russian fur trappers arrived in the 1830s. The dauntless Native Americans and subsequent settlers have employed gold, timber, ranching/farming, and recreation to support their community since 1850. A new history, Western Siskiyou County: Gold and Dreams pays homage to the citizens who made this land home. These captivating stories are revealed through both word and image, echoing the voices of the past that speak of struggle, sacrifice, and the courage and perseverance needed to triumph over the wilderness. Stunning photographs and heartfelt narrative commemorate the people, places, and events that set this diverse community apart. Readers will be enchanted by tales of the largest gold nugget discovered during the gold rush in Scott Bar, the destructive great flood of 1861-1862, and the baseball craze that seized the county in 1911 when the Etna team won 13 games in a row. Western Siskiyou County: Gold and Dreams introduces new generations of Californians to an abundant paradise boasting green 500-foot canyons and snowcapped 8,000-foot peaks.

From the days of the Powhatan Indians to the establishment of Middle Plantation nearly 400 years ago, from its rise to power for a hundred years as the capital of England's largest North American colony to its decline into as many years of obscurity, Williamsburg has been shaped by the forces of history. Beneath the remarkable surface of today's restored colonial city lies an even more fascinating glimpse into the life of a community that has weathered the full sweep of American history.

Nestled at the foot of the Appalachian mountains and divided by the West Branch of the Susquehanna River, Williamsport's striking landscape provided inspiration as well as protection even before the town's inception in 1796. What was once the beacon of a thriving lumber industry and in time became the cradle of our nation's pastime with baseball's Little League World Series, has evolved into a city with a dynamic story rich in culture and tradition.

Comprised of ten distinct communities, Woodbridge Township, New Jersey nevertheless has a unified identity with historic roots reaching back more than 330 years. Originally populated by Native Americans, the Dutch claimed the area in the early seventeenth century before the English established the religious, political, and educational heritage that Woodbridge boasts today. In the 1800s, the township flourished under the leadership of residents who provided strong social ties and entrepreneurs who developed the clay and brick companies as well as the once popular Boynton Beach resort in Sewaren. Dedicated citizens continued their commitment to Woodbridge's progress and prosperity through the years.

Woodbridge: New Jersey's Oldest Township takes readers on a trip through an ever-changing community. Vintage photographs, maps, and a lively narrative reveal the heroic actions of citizens such as Janet Pike Gage, who raised the town's first liberty pole, and Reverend Azel Roe, the minister who defied the British during the Revolutionary War. Readers accompany the town's growth through the rise and fall of the clay and brick industries that once defined the local economy from 1825 to the onset of the Great Depression. Voted "All-America City" in 1964 by the National Municipal League, the community continues to uphold the legacy of the people who made it such a great place to live and work. Woodbridge: New Jersey's Oldest Township is a memorable tribute to this tradition.

Like many Southern states, South Carolina is a vivid mosaic of urban centers and pastoral landscapes, a unique blend of New South advances and agrarian traditions. It is within the Palmetto State's countrysides that many of its leaders in education, industry, and politics emerged, marked by an enduring pride of home and its importance and relevance in the shaping of the state's history and future.

York County is representative of the Carolina experience and its dual identity, with its "big city" opportunities along its eastern boundaries and its rustic, austere charm lingering in its western sections. This volume explores the county's bucolic setting from the centrally located county seat of York to its western border along the Broad River and traces the history of the county from an era dominated by early American Indian tribes, to the arrival of the first Scotch-Irish settlers, across three centuries of struggle and progress, to the present. York and Western York County: The Story of a Southern Eden brings to life, through word and image, the personalities and events that shaped York and its western rural paradise, including the small towns of Sharon, Hickory Grove, Smyrna, McConnells, and Bullock's Creek.