The History of Weiss Lake was filled with debate. Read how the past of this area was reshaped and the area matured. Until the late 1950s, the major body of water for residents of northeast Alabama was the Coosa River, which wove prominently through the rural landscape of the region. When Alabama Power Company decided to dam the river in order to build a thirty-thousand-acre reservoir, locals were divided about whether to welcome the hydroelectricity and potential prosperity or resist losin...

Beginning on Easter Sunday, March 23, 1913, Columbus and the Ohio Valley endured a downpour that would produce the largest flood in one hundred years. Heavy rains came on the heels of an especially cold winter, resulting in a torrent of runoff over saturated and frozen ground. Rivers and streams quickly overflowed and levees failed, sending tsunami-like floodwater into unsuspecting communities and claiming four hundred lives. There were ninety-six deaths in Columbus alone when the swollen ...

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...

Benson�s Wild Animal Farm in Hudson, New Hampshire, opened to the public in 1927. Due in part to the evolution of the automobile, the attraction grew in size and attendance to become one of New England�s major family destinations. Benson�s was a zoo to the public, a work station for many circus animal trainers and performers, and a source of summer employment for generations of local teenagers. The attraction closed in 1987 and a bit of Americana faded away, but its memory remains vivid to...

Detroit is known worldwide as the automotive capital of the world. What is not widely known is that, prior to the birth of the automobile, a tremendous diversity of manufactured goods transformed Detroit from a frontier town into a great industrial city. Another vital installment in a series of books about the Dynamic City, Detroit: City of Industry illustrates a slice of the city's history that is largely unknown. Through a collection of remarkable images that are among the oldest in the ...

Cleveland is home to many fascinating neighborhoods and districts. Perhaps the most intriguing, however, is an area known as the Flats. Typically, the term �Flats� refers to the northern portion of the Cuyahoga River Valley. The Cuyahoga River ceases to be the idyllic flow of water seen to the south of Cleveland as it approaches the city�s steel mills. The river is more man-made than natural where it meets the Flats, and a wide array of industries sit along its banks. The Flats have been a...

Start your engines and follow the backroads, the historical paths, and the scenic landscape that were fashioned by geologic Ice Ages and traveled by Big Thicket explorers as well as contemporary park advocatesall as diverse as the Big Thicket itself. From Spanish missionaries to Jayhawkers, and from timber barons to public officials, you will meet some unusual characters who inhabited an exceptional region. The Big Thicket and its National Preserve contain plants and animals from deserts a...

Join Ray and Diane Hadley as they retell the history of the communities that make up Jonesboro and Arkansas's Northeast Corner in vintage images. When Union soldiers returned North after the Civil War, they brought home stories of a sparsely populated area with bountiful timber and potential for homes and farms. Over the next 50 years, first by wagon train and then by railroads, settlers came to build not only homes and farms but also thriving communities in the Clay, Greene, and Craighead...

Detroit�s first mayor, Solomon Sibley, and his wife, Sarah (Sproat) Sibley, were responsible for organizing a group that set out in 1818 for a plot of land 30 miles north, at the confluence of the Huron River of St. Clair (now the Clinton) and several Native American trails. The future town would be named for Pontiac, the warrior chief of the Ottawa Nation, best known for his �Indian uprising� of 1763 against the British at Fort Detroit and Fort Michilimackinac. Many of Pontiac�s founding ...

Mastodons roamed the plains of Sequim and Dungeness in the years following the recession of the Cordilleran ice sheets. Millennia later, the villages of S'Klallam were home to those who saw settlers disembarking on the periphery of coastal wilderness. Ancient stands of spruce, cedar, and fir fell in the 1800s, clearing the land for agriculture. By the 1900s, the region exported wheat, potatoes, hay, and oats and became prime dairy land. This compilation of historic photographs illustrates ...

On July 22, 1796, General Moses Cleaveland established the mouth of the Cuyahoga River as the port of entry for the Ohio frontier. He could not have foretold the developments that would turn this hostile marsh into Thriving economic and community center. With its 200th anniversary, the port, now governed by the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority, is home to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the future Great Waters of the World Aquarium, and the Great Lakes Science Museum, as well as a Fo...

Author and naturalist Christopher Angus profiles for the first time the adventurous life of Clarence Petty, one of the great pioneer conservationists of the Adirondack Mountain region of New York State. Raised in the heart of the Adirondack wilderness between Tupper and Saranac Lakes, Petty overcame his humble beginnings and pursued a variety of careers as wilderness guide, forester, Civilian Conservation Corps camp director, World War II pilot, district ranger, and aerial forest-fire figh...