Images of America Sale

Step into the future of the past in Chicago's 1893 World's Fair!

What came to be known as the World's Columbian Exposition was planned to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's 1492 landfall in the New World. Chicago beat out New York City, St. Louis, Missouri, and Washington, DC, in its bid as host - a coup for the Windy City. The site finally selected for the fair was Jackson Park, a marshy area covered with dense, wild vegetation. Daniel H. Burnham and John W. Root were selected as chief architects, creating the famous White City. The fair featured several different thematic areas: the Great Buildings, Foreign Buildings, State Buildings, and the Midway Plaisance, a nearly mile-long area that featured exotic exhibits. The exposition also showcased the world's first Ferris Wheel and introduced fairgoers to new sensations like Cracker Jack, Pabst Beer, and ragtime music. Unfortunately, by 1896, most of the fair's buildings had been removed or destroyed, but this collection takes readers on a tour of the grounds as they looked in 1893.

The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair was the largest international exhibition ever built in the United States.

More than one hundred fifty pavilions and exhibits spread over six hundred forty-six acres helped the fair live up to its reputation as the Billion-Dollar Fair. With the cold war in full swing, the fair offered visitors a refreshingly positive view of the future, mirroring the official theme: Peace through Understanding. Guests could travel back in time through a display of full-sized dinosaurs, or look into a future where underwater hotels and flying cars were commonplace. They could enjoy Walt Disney's popular shows, or study actual spacecraft flown in orbit. More than fifty-one million guests visited the fair before it closed forever in 1965. The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair captures the history of this event through vintage photographs, published here for the first time.

The Chicago World’s Fair lifted a city, state, and nation and helped visualize a lift post-Great Depression. Revisit the Fair in this visual history!

It took six years and cost $100 million, but on May 27, 1933, the gates swung open on the biggest birthday party the city of Chicago had ever seen. The Century of Progress Exposition, better known as the 1933–34 Chicago World's Fair, commemorated the amazing progress that had been made since the founding of the city just 100 years earlier.

Many of America's largest companies joined with countries from around the world to showcase their histories and advertise their newest products. The road to opening day was not an easy one, with the Great Depression making it look like the fair might never be built, but thousands of small investors stepped forward to help close the financial gap. The fair went on to an unprecedented second season, and when the gates finally closed after the last of the 39 million visitors went home, it had achieved something quite rare among world's fairs: earning a profit.

This collection of rare photographs, previously unpublished, highlights the major attractions of the fair and the astonishing changes made between seasons. This book is a must-have for fans of Chicago, Illinois, and Great Depression-era history.

A collection of images celebrating the extravagant and historic mansions of Pittsburgh, PA.

In the 19th century, the positioning of Pittsburgh as a major manufacturing center and the subsequent rise of the area's steel industry created a wave of prosperity that prompted the beneficiaries of that wealth to construct extravagant residences. Wealthy enclaves sprang up in the city's East End, across the river in neighboring Allegheny City, and into the countryside. Pittsburgh's Mansions explores the stately homes of the area's prominent residents from the 1830s through the 1920s. Businessmen such as H.J. Heinz, Henry Clay Frick, and members of the Mellon family commissioned elaborate homes from the preeminent architects of their day. Firms such as Alden & Harlow, Janssen & Abbott, and Rutan & Russell left their marks on the city's landscape, often contributing iconic public buildings as well as expansive private homes. Though many of the residences have since been lost, Pittsburgh's Mansions offers a look back at the peak of the city's prominence.

The complete history of the home of Red Sox Nation.

Five days after the sinking of the Titanic, Boston's Fenway Park held its grand opening. Since that day, millions have witnessed the Red Sox play baseball. Their Royal Rooters evolved into the Fenway Faithful and are now commonly referred to as Red Sox Nation. Nine World Series have been staged upon Fenway's turf, along with three Major League All-Star Games. Aside from baseball, Fenway has been host to professional and amateur football games, ice hockey, basketball, soccer, lacrosse, hurling, boxing and wrestling matches, and even a circus. Music from concerts has reverberated across its lawn, religious services have been held, and political rallies staged - all adding patches to the quilt of Fenway's rich, illustrious history. The structure that noted author John Updike referred to many decades ago as a lyric little bandbox has become one of New England's most beloved historical landmarks.

Arlington National Cemetery illustrates the evolution of the Virginia cemetery from a potter's field during the Civil War to the most prestigious military cemetery in the United States.

The cemetery contains such significant monuments and sites as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the Rough Rider Monument, the mast of the USS Maine, the Confederate Monument, and Freedman's Village. Today not only can one visit the graves of Supreme Court justices, George Washington Parke Custis, Pres. William Taft and Nellie Taft, and Pres. John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, but one can also see the burial places of generals and admirals, Medal of Honor recipients, doctors and nurses, land and space explorers, inventors, and soldiers.

Held in Philadelphia from May 10 through October 10, the 1876 Centennial Exhibition celebrated the 100th anniversary of American independence.

Philadelphia hosted 37 nations in five main buildings and 250 additional structures on 285 acres of land. The celebration looked backward to commemorate the progress made over the 100-year period, and it announced to the world that American invention and innovation was on a par with that of our foreign counterparts. Patriotism abounded, as did messages of industrial and commercial prowess that promised a brighter future for all. Over nine million people attended this awesome consumer spectacle, an event that set the tone for a long series of world's fairs yet to come.

Westwood Memorial Park Cemetery, located on Los Angeles’s trendy west side, has been the leading choice for celebrity burials since Marilyn Monroe was interred here in 1962. The cemetery houses the remains of a plethora of household names, including Patty Andrews, Eve Arden, Lew Ayres, Jim Backus, Richard Basehart, Peter Bogdanovich, Ray Bradbury, Fanny Brice, Les Brown, Truman Capote, John Cassavetes, James Coburn, Jackie Collins, Richard Conte, Tim Conway, Bob Crane, Rodney Dangerfield, Richard Dawson, Kirk Douglas, Peter Falk, Farrah Fawcett, June Foray, Stan Freberg, Eva Gabor, Merv Griffin, Jonathan Harris, Hugh Hefner, Florence Henderson, Brian Keith, Stan Kenton, Jack Klugman, Don Knotts, Burt Lancaster, Peggy Lee, Janet Leigh, Jack Lemmon, Karl Malden, Dean Martin, Walter Matthau, Rod McKuen, David Nelson, Lloyd Nolan, Carroll O’Connor, Heather O’Rourke, Bettie Page, Wolfgang Petersen, Gregor Piatigorsky, Donna Reed, Buddy Rich, Minnie Riperton, Doris Roberts, Wayne Rogers, George C. Scott, Sidney Sheldon, Robert Stack, Dorothy Stratten, Alvin Toffler, Mel Tormé, Josef von Sternberg, Harry Warren, Cornel Wilde, Billy Wilder, Carl Wilson, Natalie Wood, Darryl F. Zanuck, Frank Zappa, and hundreds more.

n Legends of Westwood Village Cemetery, Hollywood film historians husband-and-wife team E.J. and Kim Stephens and Phil Lantis take readers on a fascinating tour of this unique Los Angeles burial ground.

Pictorial history of the grand estates, lush landscapes, and lavish lifestyles of wealthy families like the Vanderbilts, Rogerses, Roosevelts, Dinsmores, and Millses, who made Hyde Park famous.

Hyde Park was established in 1821 as a simple and small town on the Hudson River. Its claim to fame, however, and what attracts people still to this day, are the grand estates, lush landscapes, and lavish lifestyles of some of those who lived there. Wealthy families like the Vanderbilts, Rogerses, Roosevelts, Dinsmores, and Millses built homes to match their place in society. Hyde Park was a perfect location because of its easy access to New York City, where culture and society could be found, while providing country living along the Hudson for the many outdoor pleasures the wealthy enjoyed. One part of this collection by former town historian Carney Rhinevault and current historian Shannon Butler shows the wealthy river families, whose houses were built by prominent architects and filled with treasures from abroad while others show the families who worked as coachmen, gardeners, and parlor maids who made the lifestyles of the rich possible.

The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, is a monument to the nation’s 16th president, a commemoration of the country’s post–Civil War reunification, and a setting for national events and quiet visits.

Demands for a national memorial to Abraham Lincoln began shortly after his 1865 assassination but produced nothing substantial until the early 20th century. Elevation of Lincoln to legendary status and an extended debate over location and design finally led Congress in 1913 to approve a memorial at the west end of the National Mall. Construction took another eight years. Since its dedication in 1922, the Lincoln Memorial has hosted civil rights demonstrations, presidential events, national celebrations, and day and night visits by millions of people who come to reflect upon one of the most consequential leaders in American history.

Kevin S. Schindler is a historian at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and has written six books about science and history. Brian Anderson is a Washington, DC, lawyer and Ford’s Theatre Society trustee who previously wrote a book about the history of Ford’s Theatre. Drawing upon Washington-area museums and research libraries, Schindler and Anderson have assembled a rich collection of historical images to tell the fascinating story of this American landmark.

Danvers State Hospital revolutionized mental health care for more than a century, beginning in 1878. Today, it's buildings still have stories to tell.

Perched high on the top of Hathorne Hill in what was once the village of Salem, Danvers State Insane Asylum was, for more than a century, a monument to modern psychiatry and the myriad advances in mental health treatment. From the time it opened its doors in 1878 until they were shuttered for good in 1992, the asylum represented decades of reform, the physical embodiment of the heroic visions of Dorothea Dix and Thomas Story Kirkbride. It would stand abandoned until 2005, when demolition began. Along with a dedicated group of private citizens, the Danvers Historical Society fought to preserve the Kirkbride structure, an effort that would result in the reuse of the administration building and two additional wings. Danvers has earned a unique place in history; the shell of the original Kirkbride building still stands overlooking the town. Though it has been changed drastically, the asylum's story continues as do efforts to memorialize it.

The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair: Creation and Legacy uses rare, previously unpublished photographs to examine the creation of the fair and the legacies left behind for future generations.

When the gates of the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair swung open on April 24, 1964, the first of more than 51 million lucky visitors entered, ready to witness the cutting edge of worldwide technology and progress. Faced with a disappointing lack of foreign participants due to political contention, the fair instead showcased the best of American industry and science. While multimillion-dollar pavilions predicted colonies on the moon and hotels under the ocean, other forecasts, such as the promises of computer technology, have surpassed even the most optimistic predictions of the fair.

In this engaging pictorial history, discover the relationship between the exposition and its host city of Buffalo, and the triumphs and tragedies it endured.

One of a series of popular turn-of-the-century international expositions, the Pan-American Exposition of 1901 emphasized Western Hemisphere production and trade. William McKinley on its grounds in September. The Pan-Am flaunted America's status as a leading international power after the victory from the 1898 Spanish-American War. In this engaging pictorial history, discover the relationship between the exposition and its host city of Buffalo, and the triumphs and tragedies it endured. Discover the booming Buffalo of 1900, with its links to midwestern agriculture and eastern markets. The city had abundant electric power, was home to several important industries, and had a wealthy and influential leadership. A logical venue for the exposition, Buffalo became home to a fair that paid tribute to the nation's industrial, agricultural, and commercial dominance. Along with Chicago in 1893 and other fairs that followed, the Pan-Am combined high-toned self-promotion in the formal exhibits with midway displays that made sport of other cultures and races. The exposition came to a shattering close with the assassination of Pres. Neither the fair nor the city fully recovered. Buffalo's Pan-American Exposition explores a unique time in American history. Historians, scholars, and residents alike will delight in this fascinating collection of images from Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society.

Throughout Chicago, historic mansions built by legendary architects were the homes to characters just as great and whose impact is still felt today.

Chicago is known throughout the world for its architecture. Although many people are familiar with the city's skyscrapers and public buildings, they often overlook or are unaware of Chicago's mansions that are located throughout the city. These mansions represent Chicago's past and its future, and it can even be said that they are the very embodiment of Chicago and its architecture. These fashionable residences were built to make a statement, and what better way to have done this than to employ the leading architects of the time to design them. These architects included men such as Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Henry Hobson Richardson, Daniel Burnham, and John Wellborn Root. While the city's mansions are significant because of who built them, they are just as important because of who lived in them.  Many of these mansions were built for Chicago's elite businessmen and captains of industry-men who represented old money, new money and big money.  Just as important were the families of these men and the other residents who came to live in these mansions-for they left a legacy of their own that contributed to the city's history.

Manhattan has long been renowned for the diversity of its offering of hotels—from some of the best in the world to some of the worst.

Around 1880, the entire nature of the hotel experience began to change. Formerly, hotels had been just a place to stop between here and there for a hot meal and a warm bed. Suddenly, the hotel itself became the destination. New affluence, new technologies, and new fashion all came together in the decades between 1880 and 1920 to influence the demands of hotel guests, eventually changing the hotel themselves. This book gives a glimpse into the hotels of the super rich, the not-so-rich, the middle class, the Bohemians, and the workers. In a city as dynamic as New York, it should come as no surprise that so many hotels have a juicy tidbit or two of historical gossip attached to them. Manhattan Hotels: 1880‚–1920 may well be the most extensive work in print on the subject of the city's hotels in this period. Far From being a book for specialists, however, it is designed to bring Manhattan and its hotels of this era to life for all those who have been captivated by the electric excitement of the place.

While every cemetery has its own collection of stories, Savannah's Bonaventure Cemetery has an overflowing bounty of rich, enthralling tales to tell.

Each neatly laid out plot, each lichen-dotted headstone, each lovingly crafted monument, is a representation of a personal history. For more than 150 years, citizens of Savannah have buried their loved ones at Bonaventure Cemetery. Among its grounds, monuments bearing the names of such famous people as Johnny Mercer lie alongside markers bearing names of those known only to their family. Bonaventure's stately beauty seems the perfect setting for a cemetery. Historic Bonaventure Cemetery illustrates the development of Bonaventure as a Victorian-style cemetery and the
transformation from a private estate to a public cemetery. Historic Bonaventure Cemetery, the first book solely about Bonaventure, includes images of Bonaventure and Greenwich - the two plantations that became Bonaventure - and provides information about the people and the monuments there.

Washington Crossing is one of America’s most revered historic landmarks.

The crossing site is marked by the creation of two historic parks: Washington Crossing State Park, New Jersey, created in 1912, and Washington Crossing Historic Park, Pennsylvania, created in 1917. Washington Crossing illustrates how these two parks commemorate George Washington’s courage to lead his army across the ice-choked Delaware River on Christmas night 1776 to attack an isolated garrison of Hessians located at Trenton, which would turn the tide of the American Revolution. Filled with images from the collections of historian Peter Osborne, the Washington Crossing Foundation, the Bucks County Historical Society, the Trenton Free Public Library, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the book includes an exposé of Emanuel Leutze’s famous painting Washington Crossing the Delaware—a world-renowned symbol of freedom.

Robert W. Sands Jr. holds a master of arts in museum professions from Seton Hall University. He is the author of three previous Images of America books: Glassboro, Woodbury, and Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. Patricia E. Millen holds a degree in American studies. An author of two books and numerous articles, she began her career at Washington Crossing State Park and is a founding board member of the Washington Crossing Park Association.

Architect Horace Trumbauer (1868-1938) is well known for the wide range of residential, commercial, and civic structures he designed in and around Philadelphia.

His works can be found along Old York Road and the Main Line, as well as in Philadelphia and Springfield Township, Montgomery County. During the American renaissance in architecture, Trumbauer masterfully interpreted the classical styles, designing many of the area's most notable structures. Captured in stunning exterior and interior photographs, The Philadelphia Area Architecture of Horace Trumbauer highlights the architect's most significant works, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Keswick Theatre, the Widener Building, Whitemarsh Hall, Lynnewood Hall, and Ardrossan.

Los Angeles County’s San Gabriel Valley and the adjacent Inland Empire, encompassing San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, boasted a wealth of movie theatres throughout the 20th century. 

Entertainment options proliferated as people flocked to both areas, which were famed for their wealth-producing citrus groves and vineyards, their position along Route 66, and their mountain and desert resorts. Residents and vacationers could enjoy films at nickelodeons, picture palaces, drive-ins, and other venues; some still operate. Due to the regions’ proximity to Hollywood and their more rural and suburban settings, local cinemas frequently held studios’ test screenings (including for Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz); audiences there thus influenced what moviegoers elsewhere watched. Film exhibition’s history there reflects cultural, social, and demographic trends in these areas and the United States.

Kelli Shapiro, PhD, is a public historian and preservationist who has lived in both regions. She holds degrees from Pomona College, Texas State University, and Brown University. She wrote the Los Angeles Conservancy’s successful California Register of Historical Resources nomination for Route 66’s Azusa Foothill Drive-in Theatre—as well as Historic Movie Theatres of West Virginia, another Images of America book. This book’s images came from multiple museums, archives, and collections.

In contrast to and predating Long Island's famous Gold Coast (the North Shore), communities along the Great South Bay were home to hundreds of less publicized, yet equally impressive, mansions and historic houses

These homes were once owned by prominent captains of industry, popular entertainment figures, and movers and shakers of the day, such as the Bourne, Cutting, Gardiner, Gulden, Gustivino, Guggenheim, Hollins, and Vanderbilt families. Long Island: Historic Houses of the South Shore explores the South Shore's famous resident personalities, including Schuyler Parsons, Fred Astaire, Anita Stewart, and Robert Pinkerton. The lifestyle of the South Shore is also portrayed, including activities like hunting and fishing as well as the famous beaches that served as tourist attractions.

For the first time, the magnificent architecture of Chicago, spanning well over 200 years of building, is shown here in one collection.

Chicago's architecture has been called the most important in the United States by the American Institute of Architects, and perhaps no other type of architecture has had as significant of an impact on the city's look, feel, and character as classical architecture. Chicago's connection to classical architecture dates back to the famed 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, with its gleaming White City of ornate Beaux-Arts buildings. After the fair, the Plan of Chicago, developed by Daniel Burnham, the fair's lead architect, paved the way for the further spread of classical building not only in Chicago, but throughout the country. In the 21st century, Chicago still retains its classical look, much of which is either directly or indirectly linked to Burnham and the 1893 fair. Burnham's renowned plan influenced what Chicagoans now see in Grant Park, for example, as well as in other structures, homes, government and office buildings, monuments, hotels, schools, and museums-all inspired by Greek and Roman architecture. For the first time, these structures-spanning well over 200 years of building-are shown here in one collection.

Take a fascinating tour of the influential art deco movement and its manifestations in and around Detroit.

Since the 1920s, Art Deco, or The Modern Style, has delighted people with its innovative use of materials and designs that capture the spirit of optimism to create the style of the future. Although the Detroit metro area is primarily known as an industrial region, it boasts some of the finest examples of Art Deco in the country.

Through a panorama of photographs,Art Deco in Detroit explores the wide-ranging variety of these architectural marvels, from world-famous structures like the Fisher and Penobscot Buildings, to commercial buildings, theaters, homes, and churches. The grandeur evident in some of the major buildings reflects a time when artisans and architects collaborated to craft structures that transcend functionality - they endure as standing works of art.

Lighthouses were built on the Hudson River in New York between 1826 to 1921 to help guide freight and passenger traffic. One of the most famous was the iconic Statue of Liberty. This fascinating history with photos will bring the time of traffic along the river alive.

Set against the backdrop of purple mountains, lush hillsides, and tidal wetlands, the lighthouses of the Hudson River were built between 1826 and 1921 to improve navigational safety on a river teeming with freight and passenger traffic. Unlike the towering beacons of the seacoasts, these river lighthouses were architecturally diverse, ranging from short conical towers to elaborate Victorian houses. Operated by men and women who at times risked and lost their lives in service of safe navigation, these beacons have overseen more than a century of extraordinary technological and social change. Of the dozens of historic lighthouses and beacons that once dotted the Hudson River, just eight remain, including the iconic Statue of Liberty, New York Harbor's great monument to freedom and immigration, which served as an official lighthouse between 1886 and 1902. Hudson River Lighthouses invites readers to explore these unique icons and their fascinating stories.

The most significant building project of its time, Eastern State Penitentiary was designed to reshape the minds of its inmates, rather than break their spirits.

It was believed that by keeping prisoners isolated in the chapel-like cells the inner light of their souls would emerge, leading them to discover penitence. In reality, the isolation was nearly impossible to maintain, and the lofty goals of the founders crumbled in the 20th century, much like the building itself. Originally located on the outskirts of Philadelphia, the city eventually expanded and swallowed up the prison. Its unique location became problematic, and numerous escapes and riots threatened the civilian populace in the area. The prison was home to such well-known figures as Chicago mob boss Al Capone and bank robber Willie Sutton, once the most wanted man in America. Eastern State Penitentiary chronicles the history of this massive prison from its opening in 1829 to its closing and abandonment in 1971, and finally to the rebirth of the prison in the 1990s as a thriving historic site and national historic landmark

Several Georgia cities had already served as capital when in 1868 the controversial decision was made to move the seat of state government to the upstart city of Atlanta, a move that became permanent in 1877. When government offices outgrew temporary quarters, a grand new structure was commissioned. Designed to emulate the new US Capitol Building in Washington, DC, the Georgia State Capitol building plans carried an unheard-of price tag of $1 million, taking four years to construct. With its imposing edifice rising 272 feet above one of the highest spots in the city, the capitol was the tallest building in Atlanta when it was dedicated on July 4, 1889. The imposing dome at its center was white plaster, but in the 1950s, gold mined in north Georgia was used to guild it. The glimmering Georgia State Capitol now shines at the center of still growing Atlanta skyline.

Author Janice McDonald is fascinated by the rich history of her adopted city of Atlanta and has spent countless hours researching and exploring to learn more about it. The capitol’s origins, its construction, and the people who have walked its halls are just some of the stories that make the Georgia State Capitol so memorable.

African Americans have made rich contributions to Florida throughout its history in all avenues of public and private life, from education, to business, to politics, a keystone of which was the ability to own and sell property. Author Jada Wright-Greene showcases this legacy through historic photographs of black American’s homes, detailing the lives of the people who lived in them through engaging narrative.

For over 200 years the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse has resolutely cast its light over waters known as the “Graveyard of the Atlantic,” shepherding mariners along North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

In 1803, construction of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse completed. Standing just shy of 200 feet, it was—and remains—the tallest brick lighthouse in the United States. Due to politics, funding, and its precarious location, it took great effort to erect and protect a lighthouse built on a barrier island. The supporters and caretakers were many, including Alexander Hamilton in the 1700s and children donating coins to a statewide preservation campaign in 1982. Beginning in Augustin-Jean Fresnel’s lens laboratory in France and stretching across the Atlantic to the beaches of Hatteras Island where the lighthouse keepers labored, its history is punctuated by war, shipwrecks, hurricanes, and cutting-edge technology. In the 21st century, the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse continues to send out its beam to mariners.

Mary Ellen Riddle is the education curator at the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum on Hatteras Island. She is the author of Outer Banks Shipwrecks: Graveyard of the Atlantic from Arcadia Publishing. Douglas Stover served as cultural resources manager and historian at Cape Hatteras National Seashore. He retired from the National Park Service in 2013 after 32 years. Stover is an author and editor of several publications, including Cape Hatteras National Seashore from Arcadia Publishing. The Cape Hatteras National Park Service provided most of the historic images that bring to life the journey of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse from an early need to an epic relocation.

California is rare among states and nations in having two cultural capitals—Los Angeles and San Francisco—and San Luis Obispo is smack in the middle. In the middle of nowhere or equidistant from everywhere, its architecture is a riot of variety: samples of practically every 19th- and 20th-century form; experiments by local builders; and one-offs by nationally known architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, Julia Morgan, Richard Neutra, Edla Muir, and Warren Leopold (“Not A Licensed Architect” engraved on his tombstone), all without anxiety of influence from the outside. Where Santa Barbara, rebuilt after an earthquake during the City Beautiful movement, celebrates Spanish, Mission, and Moorish Revival, and Palm Springs embodies Mid-Century Modern, San Luis Obispo is California’s capital of the eclectic. Wright’s one Usonian office; Morgan’s biggest and smallest commissions: Hearst Castle and her cab driver’s daughters’ playhouse; the world’s only Greek Revival Streamline Moderne movie theater across from the Roman Revival PWA Moderne County Courthouse, like Ginger and Fred; the world’s first industrial desalinization plant in a power plant modeled after an Egyptian Temple and sheathed in aluminum; Art Beal’s bricolage Nitt Witt Ridge: all have an extraordinary story.

Author James Papp is an architectural historian and writer of walking tours as well as a principal with Historicities, a cultural resources consultancy in San Luis Obispo. He is a member of the Oceano Economic Development Council Advisory Board, the Education Committee of the California Preservation Foundation, and the City of San Luis Obispo Cultural Heritage Committee.

Life in colonial Charles Towne was dangerous—epidemic diseases, primitive medical practices, and a harsh environment led to the early demise of rich and poor alike.

When Charleston's founders moved their settlement across the Ashley River to the peninsula in 1680, they hoped for protection from pirate and Native American attacks, as well as increased trade and healthier living conditions. While they were able to secure more protection for the residents and improve trade, health conditions rapidly declined. The graveyards and public burial grounds quickly filled, and today, Charleston’s historic cemeteries are almost as common a sight downtown as the churches that define the city. These tree-shrouded glades invite tourists and residents to explore the resting places of Charleston’s most illustrious and interesting personalities.Charleston’s Historic Cemeteriesoffers a guided pictorial tour of the elaborate gravestones and elegant inscriptions dedicated to Charleston’s famous and infamous alike, including William Rhett and the pirate Stede Bonnet, Rhett’s adversary. With dozens of illustrated stories about the transformation of funerals, tombstones, and mourning customs in America over the past 300 years, this collection details how Charleston became the home of a historically unique, city-wide gallery of mortuary sculpture.

The Historic Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia is the final home to more than 70,000 residents in elaborate mausoleums and humble headstones alike. Explore the celebrated public figures who are interred here and the burial grounds in this unique book.

The first person buried at Oakland was laid to rest in May 1850, a month before the land was purchased by Atlanta to become its city cemetery. The fast-growing municipality eventually expanded the burial grounds to include 48 acres. Since then, what is now known as Historic Oakland Cemetery has become the final home to more than 70,000 residents. Among those are celebrated politicians, authors, and athletes and those whose impact has been felt but who are not as well recognized. A few of those residents include Gordon Burton Smith, who helped build the Panama Canal; Andre Steiner, who created the master plan for Stone Mountain; and Sally Connally Hardie, who helped run the National Trust of Scotland. They rest among gardened paths in elaborate mausoleums, exceptional funerary art, humble headstones, and sometimes unmarked graves.

Author Janice McDonald has spent countless hours strolling Historic Oakland Cemetery and delving into the stories behind its tombs. She believes that each of Oakland’s residents has a tale that should be told. In her seventh book for Arcadia, McDonald helps readers get to know some of the residents whose past helped shape our future.

Join author Susan Roark Hoyt as she explores the history of these remarkable structures, the courageous people who maintained them, and the harbors they safeguarded.

After the first settlers reached northwestern Michigan, the region's immense pine forests were quickly cultivated into a thriving lumber industry. Coastal towns sprang up to support sawmills, and soon lumber schooners arrived to carry large loads of timber to ports across Lake Michigan. Their journeys were not without dangers, however. Rudimentary harbors made docking and loading hazardous while shoals and reefs, hidden beneath the water's surface, threatened to ravage the unsuspecting vessels. The need for lighthouses to mark these dangerous waters and harbor entrances was crucial to prevent the loss of lives and valuable cargo. Through a unique collection of archival images, Lighthouses of Northwest Michigan takes readers on a stirring journey through the development of 27 lighthouses that secured the waters from Little Point Sable to the Straits of Mackinac.

The Memorial Coliseum's history spans eight decades, playing host to two Olympiads, two Super Bowls, one World Series, a multitude of concerts and political rallies, a Papal mass, and one of the most famous Democratic presidential nomination acceptance speeches of the 20th century by John F. Kennedy. Using photographs culled from its archives, pictured here are never-before-seen photographs of the Coliseum's construction; rare images of political and religious rallies held at the Stadium and the Los Angeles Sports Arena, and home to famous speeches by Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela; and a myriad of other sporting and entertainment events hosted by the Memorial Coliseum, including the Los Angeles Dodgers, motocross racing, and the Rolling Stones.

The impenetrable coast of Humboldt County has been a historic navigational conundrum for sea captains since the 16th century.

The Humboldt bar crossing, the lack of safe harbors, the storms, the unpredictable seas, and the rocky shores caused tragic shipwrecks, drownings, and maritime disasters. Beginning in 1850, the Department of the Treasury funded the construction of 11 lighthouses in California, including the Humboldt Harbor Lighthouse, the first one in Humboldt County. Due to its poor location in the sand dunes, the lighthouse was abandoned in 1892. New lighthouses were built in more appropriate locations such as Table Bluff, Cape Mendocino, Trinidad, and Punta Gorda. An increase in population on the north coast resulted in the reliance on passenger schooners and freight vessels, making these lighthouses critical to Humboldt County’s economic stability and success. The Trinidad Head Lighthouse is the only one in operation today, yet the lighthouses of Humboldt County and their keepers remain integral to California’s maritime history.

Julie Clark works for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) as a park ranger and is the author of Falk: Company Lumber Town of the American West in the Images of America series. The BLM currently manages the land where these lighthouses once stood and, in partnership with the Trinidad Museum and the Trinidad Rancheria, provides public and educational tours to the Trinidad Head Lighthouse. Images come from a variety of sources, including the Humboldt County Historical Society, Trinidad Museum, and Humboldt State University.

Between 1824 and 1840, Florida’s government functioned out of several log cabins and rented rooms in the newly established territorial capital of Tallahassee. In 1839, the federal government gave $20,000 to construct a permanent capitol building; the bones of the structure were laid by enslaved craftsmen. The first session took place in 1841, and additional funds requested each year ensured the capitol was complete when Florida entered the Union as the 27th state on March 3, 1845. Over the years, four significant capitol expansions reflected the needs of a growing state until a new and modern Capitol Complex, designed by architect Edward Durrell Stone, was completed in 1977. The aging former capitol was slated for demolition until the people of Florida spoke out in a successful campaign to save the historic building and restore it to its 1902 appearance. Highlighting the photographic collection of the State Archives of Florida, Florida’s Historic Capitol Building reveals stories about the state’s political past, the development of a capital city, and the legacy of an iconic Florida building.

The Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition, held during the summer of 1909, was the first world's fair held in Seattle.

Capitalizing on the popularity of the booming gold rush, the exposition was designed to showcase the riches of the Pacific Northwest and highlight trade with the Pacific Rim nations and beyond. Millions of visitors came to Seattle to experience the one-of-a-kind attractions, exhibits, and events held during the AYPE, which became the footprint for the modern University of Washington campus. Many of these visitors stayed to populate the growing metropolis. From the ornate European-style architecture to the fountains and gardens, the amusements of the Pay Streak, and the exotic Oriental exhibits, the AYPE entertained and educated while bringing needed business to Washington State.