Beginning in 1974 with 504 students, Atlanta Junior College (AJC) became the 31st institution of the University System of Georgia and the only public two-year college within Atlanta's city limits. The college has evolved during its 50-year history. AJC grew into Atlanta Metropolitan College in the 1987-1988 academic year. The school underwent another name change in 2012, becoming Atlanta Metropolitan State College (AMSC), an institution that offers bachelor's degrees alongside associate degrees and certificate programs. The college reached its highest enrollment (to date) of 3,129 in 2013. With a championship-winning intercollegiate men's basketball team, AMSC became the first Georgia institution to rank among the nation's top five Division I junior colleges for academic performance. Although it has grown from one building to seven facilities on 65.4 acres, the institution remains committed to its mission of being a gateway to an affordable, accessible, and quality college education for students in the Atlanta area and beyond.

Predating the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Appalachian Trail was established in the 1920s. Yet even after volunteers had begun the pathway's construction, its southern terminus was still undetermined. The more than 200 vintage photographs of Images of America: Along the Appalachian Trail: Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee have been culled from the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, National Park Service, local trail maintaining clubs, state archives, and historical societies. They illustrate the sweat, toil, and dedication that went into building the trail over some of Eastern America's highest and most rugged terrain. Also chronicled are the people who lived along the trail's route, those who volunteered to physically build it or lobby for its creation, and the many relocations that have moved the pathway to optimal locations.

Author Amy Petulla uncovers the curious case that left two men dead and the incredible story still surrounded by controversy, speculation and myth.

In 1982, Tony West and Avery Brock made a visit to notorious Corpsewood Manor under the pretense of a celebration. They brutally murdered their hosts. Dr. Charles Scudder and companion Joey Odom built the "castle in the woods" in the Trion forest after Scudder left his position as professor at Loyola. He brought with him twelve thousand doses of LSD. Rumors of drug use and Satanism swirled around the two men. Scudder even claimed to have summoned a demon to protect the estate. The murders set the stage for a trial vibrant with local lore.

Andersonville (Camp Sumter) Civil War prison was only in operation for little more than one year, from 1864 into 1865. In just a few of those months, however, it became the largest city in Georgia and the fifth largest city in the Confederate States of America. During that time, it also became America's deadliest prison. Of the almost forty thousand captured Federal soldiers, sailors and civilians who entered its gates, some thirteen thousand died there. Thousands more died as a result of their time in this stockade of legend in deep southwest Georgia. Join historian Robert Davis as he tells the story of this infamous Confederate prison.

The State of Georgia chartered the Western & Atlantic Railroad in 1836. The railroad aided in the development and growth of many communities between Atlanta and Chattanooga, Tennessee.

In constructing the railroad, workers created a winding route that cut its way across the North Georgia landscape. During the Civil War, both armies used this vital artery, and it was the setting for one of the war's most iconic events, the Great Locomotive Chase. The state still owns the Western & Atlantic and has leased it since 1870. The line remains an essential part of North Georgia and is a backbone of the region's industry. As Atlanta ponders its transportation future, it is important to remember that without the Western & Atlantic, Atlanta would not be the city it is today.

Macon is certainly not the largest railroad hub in the country--not even in Georgia. Yet in the early 1900s, with nearly 100 daily passenger trains, it had nothing about which to be ashamed. In those years, the nation's railroads dominated and, as was befitting, they flaunted their grandeur by building lavish passenger stations. In the South, virtually all of Macon's counterparts had been blessed with new eye-inviting stations. Macon, however, was still being served by what the local media described as a "ramshackle structure" (the 1855 Union Depot) and a "little dingy smoky structure" (the equally embarrassing Southern Railway depot). This all changed on December 1, 1916, when Macon Terminal Station's doors were thrown open to an eagerly awaiting populace. This book traces the events that began some 78 years before, in 1838, with the entry of Macon's first railroad line and led to the creation of Macon's downtown treasure.