Roads & Routes

Route 20 was named a federal highway in 1926, and for the first half of the 20th century, it was Massachusetts's most important east -west road. Extending from Boston's dynamic Kenmore Square to bucolic Hancock Shaker Village on the New York border, the road's history, beauty, and contribution to Massachusetts's vitality were unmatched. Fortunately, almost all of the original road still exists and can be traveled by the modern motorist seeking a nostalgic adventure. In Along Massachusetts's Historic Route 20, more than 200 vintage postcards tell the road's story. Included are scenes along the Boston Post Road and Jacob's Ladder Trail, two of the highway's most historic segments, and also images of main streets, village greens, historic sites, scenic rural vistas, and, of course, the roadside tourist courts, diners, and gas stations that made automobile travel possible.

The lighthouse is a pervasive icon in our culture, often used to symbolize positive qualities like faith, guidance, strength, and steadfastness. No structures embody these qualities more than wave-swept lighthouses, which were built to withstand the most extreme forces of wind and ocean waves, often in isolated, rocky locations far offshore. In the United States, the earliest attempts to build wave-swept lighthouses in the 1830s led to several masterpieces of engineering, a few of which are in the New England region. This book primarily focuses on six such structures: Whaleback (Maine), Saddleback Ledge (Maine), Minot's Ledge (Massachusetts), Halfway Rock (Maine), Graves Ledge (Massachusetts), and Ram Island Ledge (Maine). All of these wave-swept lighthouses stand in rugged testimony to the people who designed and built them, and they also serve to remind us of the struggles and sacrifices of the lighthouse keepers who "kept a good light" for so many years before automation.

A beautiful vacation destination today, the Berkshires has been the chosen enclave for many influential and artistic notables since the 18th century.

Those hustling to find lodging in the Berkshires today may not know they are repeating a two-hundred fifty- year-old ritual. In the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, the Berkshires played host to some of the most fascinating characters in American literature, politics, business, and the arts. They came with the warm breezes and left when they felt the first cold snap in the autumnal air. The Berkshires: Coach Inns to Cottages is a photographic record of Berkshire dwelling places from the rough simplicity of stagecoach inns to the glittering luxury of Gilded Age cottages. Come inside the Berkshire coach inns where ""one might be subjected to disagreeable exposures,"" as Timothy Dwight noted in 1823. Come inside the Berkshire cottages where the rich and powerful were entertained according to the precepts of fashionable society. Use this volume as a guide to the many structures that have been preserved.

Although humble in their function, these carefully crafted barns have shaped the landscape of Maine for centuries.

Built long before the days of plastic and plywood, the barns have survived for generations, each with a story to tell. In Bridgton, one barn offered comfort to a 16 year-old boy when his father was injured; another New Gloucester barn was so important to one family that its likeness was engraved on their headstones. Some owners said they would rather see their homes burn than their barns, and others have dedicated their lives and countless funds to restoring and preserving these buildings. From modest English to grand Victorian, Don Perkins examines the structures, origins, and evolution of Maine's barns, demonstrating the vital and precious role they play in people's lives.

The United States Naval Air Station at Quonset Point, Rhode Island, originally built as a Neutrality Patrol seaplane base, became a unique and fundamental asset to our nation's armed forces.

In World War II, more than half of all U-boats sunk by U. S. aviation were destroyed by Quonset-trained shore and carrier-based squadrons. In the years following World War II, Quonset Point Naval Air Station remained a premier industrial naval air station, sending squadrons or overhauling equipment for use in the Korean, Vietnam, and Cold War conflicts. For 34 years and through four wars, the Quonset Point Naval Air Station stood proud and tall on behalf of the U. S. military. This second volume of Quonset Point images uncovers nearly 200 more scenes of the installation's achievements and activities during the entire period of its service.

Route 6 in Massachusetts runs from Provincetown to Seekonk and passes through some of the most beautiful scenery in the state. What had once been a mere footpath for Native Americans, then widened for the use of stagecoaches, Route 6 would be officially designated the "King's Highway" in 1920. The moniker was extremely unpopular with the local residents, so much so that the governor officially changed the name to the Grand Army of the Republic Highway in 1937. Depicted from the author's personal collection of postcards from the 1920s to the 1960s, Route 6 winds its way around tiny fishing villages, sand dunes, marshes, beaches, lighthouses, campgrounds, hotels, restaurants, and historic cities. The combination of Route 6 and the automobile would make Cape Cod a world-renowned tourist destination.

At midcentury, two federal urban renewal projects in the gritty, blue-collar navy town of Portsmouth decimated two neighborhoods. But in the 1970s and '80s--thanks to an influx of artisans, chefs and entrepreneurs--the Port City emerged as a beacon of arts, culinary excellence and preservation. Iconoclast Jay Smith opened the Press Room, the celebrated music club. A group of concerned citizens saved the Music Hall, the last of Portsmouth's vaudeville theaters. And a Dutch family opened the Euro-style Café Petronella next to a biker bar. Author and historian Laura Pope edits a collection of essays detailing the changes in the last half of the past century that made Portsmouth a lauded arts- and food-lovers' hub and, finally, a diverse tourist destination.

From the 1890s through the 1920s, the postcard was an extraordinarily popular means of communication, and many of the postcards produced during this "golden age" can today be considered works of art. Postcard photographers traveled the length and breadth of the nation snapping photographs of busy street scenes, documenting local landmarks, and assembling crowds of local children only too happy to pose for a picture. These images, printed as postcards and sold in general stores across the country, survive as telling reminders of an important era in America's history. This fascinating new history of Route 7 from Norwalk to Canaan,
Connecticut, showcases more than two hundred of the best vintage postcards available.