The highest peak in the eastern United States, Mount Mitchell towers 6,684 feet over its home in Yancey County, North Carolina. It has borne silent witness to great scientific and personal achievements, tragic loss of life, heated debates, and a host of controversies both great and small. Once considered forbidding and remote, it claimed the life of its namesake, Elisha Mitchell, when he fell to his death in an attempt to firmly establish the mountain's height. In the early 1900s, entrepre...

This is the place. As Heriot Clarkson sat on his mule atop Grassy Mountain in June 1909, he looked out over a sea of mountains extending to the horizon in every direction, his dreams before him. Here was the spot for a retreat from the summer heat of the piedmont and coastal plain where simple living and nature�s beauty would combine to create an idyllic community. But the story doesn�t begin there. Hardy Scotch-Irish settlers moved into these same mountains some two centuries earlier, adm...

The author of Gold Rush Stories shares tales of the larger-than-life characters from the history of the legendary Sierra Nevada mountain range.With its 14,000-foot granite mountains, crystalline lakes, conifer forests, and hidden valleys, the Sierra Nevada has long been the domain of dreams, attracting the heroic and the delusional, the best of humanity and the worst. Stories abound, and characters emerge so outlandish and outrageous that they must be real...

The story behind the construction of the Oregon scenic highway and the men who made it happen.When nine-hundred-foot ice age floods carved the Columbia River Gorge through the Cascade Mountains to the sea, little space was left for man to form a highway of his own. It took an artist-poet-engineer extraordinaire to conquer this reluctant piece of real estate and produce the nation's first scenic highway. Meet Sam Hill, the mover and shaker, and Samuel Lancaster, the ...

In 1862, the Central Pacific Railroad was founded and began building eastward from Sacramento as part of the transcontinental railroad. This required a shop capable of keeping the railroad�s equipment in running order. So in 1867, in the swamps just north of town, the Sacramento shops were born. For well more than a century, this massive complex kept the Central Pacific and its corporate successor, the Southern Pacific, operating smoothly. For many decades, the shops were the largest emplo...

The Southern Pacific Railroad and its predecessors served Texas from 1853 to 1996. Stretching from El Paso to the Louisiana border and from the Rio Grande Valley to the Red River, Southern Pacific opened up vast areas of the state to settlement by transporting people, building materials, and livestock. The railroad fueled Texas�s economy by moving oil, timber, agricultural commodities, coal, automobiles, petrochemicals, cement, steel, consumer goods, and myriad other products. It hauled th...

A garnd tour to a grand country. All the facts, the flags, the symbols and much more - in one book.

The Sacramento Southern Railroad was born into a famous railroad family and a busy railroad town in July 1903. The mighty Southern Pacific, which controlled the new line from the outset, built south from Sacramento along the eastern bank of the Sacramento River into the delta's rich farmland area. At its zenith, the line was about 31 miles long, serving the communities of Freeport, Hood, Locke, Walnut Grove, and Isleton. Trains on what became known as the Walnut Grove Branch hauled pears, ...

Where The West Lives! Golden's motto sums up the colorful history of the small town set at the entrance to the storied gold fields of Colorado. The scenic valley that shelters Golden caught the notice of some of the most famed pioneers of the West: explorer Major Stephen Long, world traveler Isabella Bird, showman Buffalo Bill Cody, and brewer Adolph Coors. Chronicled here in over 200 vintage images is the history of this quintessential "rough-and-ready" Western town. Serving as the territ...

In 1768, Jacob Kimball moved to the shores of Long Lake in North Bridgton, building a store and providing boat service from Standish, at the southern end of Sebago Lake. Jacob Stevens soon followed, building a sawmill and gristmill on what became Stevens Brook in the center village. Ten power sites on this short brook ran lumber, textile, and other mills, as well as a tannery. Bridgton became the area�s commercial center as retail stores and businesses sprang up to support the many mill wo...

Tropical Storm Agnes, along with the unprecedented flooding which resulted from it, is arguably the most significant event to have transpired in the Harrisburg area in the last 150 years. Over the course of June 21 and June 22, 1972, Agnes drenched the region with more than a foot of rain. As a result, the Susquehanna River rose to record-breaking levels and backed into the already overwhelmed feeding creeks and streams. In Harrisburg, armed National Guardsmen patrolled the vacant streets ...

This lively collection of 34 of the best history walks in North Carolina highlights the richness and diversity of the state’s history, from the time of its first settlement to the present. Veteran guidebook author Lynn Setzer leads readers on short walks in state parks and natural areas, state historic sites, charming small towns from the mountains to the sea, and the state’s largest cities. Along the way, she brings to life some of our state’s most momentous events, most accomplished and ...