Shortly after settlement began along Chautauqua Lake, steamboats furnished transportation and the first hotel catered to visiting hunters and fishermen. Families escaping the summers in the city soon followed to enjoy the cool, healthy air. Chautauqua Institution and Point Chautauqua both began as religious assembly grounds. Celoron Park, often called the 'Coney Island of the West,' and later Midway Park provided entertainment for families and attracted thousands of visitors who traveled b...

The repercussions of a deadly crime of passion—the 1926 murder of a single mother—have shaped the present of this historic Pennsylvania town.On July 12, 1926, Frances Bowermaster McBride, a forty-year-old divorcee, called off her affair with twenty-seven-year-old Norman Morrison. Driven into a rage, Morrison tracked Frances to her home in Carlisle's East End, where she sat on the porch with her three-year-old daughter, Georgia, on her lap. Morrison shot and killed ...

Seaside Heights tells the history of a timeless seashore resort community located on a barrier island nestled between the Atlantic Ocean and Barnegat Bay. The 224-acre town was settled by residents of Philadelphia and Camden, who purchased white-sand lots to escape city life for the brisk ocean breezes and tranquility that Seaside Heights offered prior to World War II. Seaside Heights uses the scenes captured in vintage postcards, some of them very rare, as a study of the changes that have...

The Perkiomen Creek is a picturesque stream that drains a major portion of western Montgomery County. It begins just beyond the northern borders of the county and travels south. The creek empties into the Schuylkill River at the county's lower border. The old Perkiomen Railroad closely followed the same path. Along the Perkiomen showcases postcards of the Perkiomen Valley in Montgomery County as it existed during the first half of the twentieth century. Readers will visit the villages and ...

The Pennsylvania Railroad was incorporated in 1846 and immediately began the task of finding an all-rail route to connect Philadelphia with Pittsburgh. The Pennsylvania Railroad surveyed possible routes and arrived on a valley floor at the base of the Allegheny Mountains in 1849 that was primarily occupied by the David Robeson farm. As people arrived for employment opportunities, the railroad company purchased the Robeson farm, laid out the plan of a town, and named it Altoona. Shops were ...

The Allegheny River of western Pennsylvania and New York rises in Potter County, Pennsylvania, and flows 320 miles to its confluence with the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh. The Allegheny's southern watershed district begins in East Brady, Pennsylvania, and ends in Pittsburgh, and it includes the historic Redbank Creek, Mahoning Creek, Crooked Creek, and Kiskiminetas River valleys. Along the Allegheny River: The Southern Watershed features over 200 vintage postcards of the landscapes, peo...

Westwood has been 'the hub of the Pascack Valley' since the mid-1700s, when the region's first grain mill drew people from neighboring settlements. The town is known for the early establishment of a fire department, post office, and schools and for having the first bank, library, and hospital. Westwood has always attracted visitors to its businesses, places of worship, and social events. For a period of time, the quiet streams, ponds, and natural settings made it a country getaway destinat...

For nearly four centuries, St. Mary's County has been called "the land of pleasant living." The county's fertile fields and pristine waters invite visitors and natives alike to revel, relax, and renew. As the "Mother County" of Maryland, St. Mary's has a rich written history dating from 1634, when George and Leonard Calvert established the first American settlement founded on the principle of religious tolerance. After surviving British raids during the War of 1812 and divided loyalties in...

Wilkes-Barre, located along the Susquehanna River in the Wyoming Valley, is the county seat of Luzerne County. The city was founded in 1769 by John Durkee and was named for John Wilkes and Isaac Barr', both members of the British Parliament and supporters of the Colonists' fight for liberty. The city was incorporated as a borough in 1806 and as a city in 1871. Wilkes-Barre has undergone many changes in its long history, evolving from a farming community into the industrial city it is now. ...

The Delaware River has been home to steamboats and canoes, swimmers and fishermen, and shipyards and factories for generations. Recreation and industry have long coexisted along its changing banks. Along the Delaware River presents the Delaware River corridor-from Hancock, New York, in the Catskill Mountains, to the mouth of the Delaware Bay-at the beginning of the twentieth century. Postcards, many nearly a hundred years old, are used to show a river system that both resembles and differs...

Allentown is many things to many different people. It is a historical city, a city of churches, a city of immigrants, and a place that values hard work, education, and recreation. This is a city with rich and unique stories to tell. Allentown captures historical stories such as the hiding of the Liberty Bell, early railroad and canal transportation, and the training of World War I ambulance drivers. Other stories include how politics influenced the building of a world-class park system. Th...

Saugerties, nestled between Esopus Creek and the Hudson River on one side and the Catskill Mountains on the other, is an old village first settled by the Dutch. Following the opening of the Erie Canal, industrialist Henry Barclay set into motion plans to use the area's waterpower to turn Saugerties into an industrial community. The village became home to the Ulster Iron Works and Barclay's paper mill, and a rich supply of some of the world's most beautiful bluestone was discovered. Sidewal...