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...

Stretching midway across Wisconsin�s famous Door County peninsula, Sturgeon Bay has developed into the county�s business and industrial center. Divided by the waterway it�s named after, this small city provided a home to a working waterfront that once housed sawmills and docks for shipping ice, quarried stone, and, later, cherries. A canal dug from Sturgeon Bay to Lake Michigan in 1880 enabled ships to avoid the long passage over the tip of the peninsula. Sturgeon Bay became a shipbuilding...

“Reveals the beauty and wonder of one of America’s most familiar yet least appreciated waterways and shorelines.”—Ruth Messinger, former Manhattan borough presidentCy Adler authored the first complete guide to walking from the southern tip of Manhattan at Battery Park all the way up to Bear Mountain near West Point. With all the new changes to the West Side of Manhattan since that guide was published, Walking the Hudson, the new and fully revised guide to ...

With its prominent profile recognizable for miles around and featuring vistas among the most beloved in the Appalachians, North Carolina’s Grandfather Mountain is many things to many people: an easily recognized landmark along the Blue Ridge Parkway, a popular tourist destination, a site of annual Highland Games, and an internationally recognized nature preserve. In this definitive book on Grandfather, Randy Johnson guides readers on a journey through the mountain’s history, from its geolo...

The Pennsylvania Railroad's Horseshoe Curve is known worldwide as an engineering wonder. This landmark, located just west of Altoona, opened to traffic on February 15, 1854, and it enabled the Pennsylvania railroad line to climb the Allegheny Mountains and the eastern continental divide. The Horseshoe Curve's construction impacted railroad design and development for mountainous terrain everywhere, enabling access to coal and other raw materials essential for the industrial age. J. Edgar Th...

In the late 1890s, the Blue Ridge Parkway was envisioned by many as a great getaway and nature preserve. The concept materialized in the early 20th century, when John D. Rockefeller donated the first $5 million to begin purchasing land for the project. Located at the top of the great Appalachian ridges, the parkway covers 469 winding miles of mountains and meadows lined with lush wildflowers, old farms, and split-rail fences. Inspiring scenery makes for a journey rich in history and mounta...

Portland is located in �the big bend� of the Connecticut River near the center of the state, where natural resources provided a prosperous livelihood for generations of residents. First settled as part of Middletown, the area was incorporated as Portland in 1841. The town is known for its brownstone quarries, the Gildersleeve shipyard, and shade-grown tobacco. Meshomasic, the first state forest in New England, is located here. In Portland, historic photographs drawn from the archives of th...

Monticello was founded by the White County commissioners in 1834 on a bluff above the Tippecanoe River. They named it after the mansion ofThomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States. It was incorporated as a town in 1862. The county seat grew more rapidly when the railroads cameto town before the Civil War. Then the town grew large enough to become a city in 1909, and a mayor was elected. The area around the city became atourist destination in the 1920s after dams created th...

The land that became the city of Newberg played a crucial role in the founding of the state of Oregon. It provided the second permanent encampment after Fort Astoria for trappers coming to the Pacific Northwest. Ewing Young came to Oregon in 1834, claiming as his own a vast stretch of land around his home in the Chehalem Valley. When Ewing died without a will, nearby residents gathered to settle Ewing�s estate. This event led directly to the vote at Champoeg to make Oregon part of the Unit...

Now in its fourth edition, *Touring the Western North Carolina Backroads*has long been the go-to guide for folks seeking the unspoiled landscape and little-known cultural attractions of western North Carolina.This is a guide for those who want to travel the mountains of western North Carolina, who want to see the scenery but escape the crowds. The book’s 21 tours cover the entire mountain region of western North Carolina and provide numerous opport...

In 1968, Amesbury celebrated its 300th anniversary. Residents compiled a cookbook, commemorative coins were sold, dances and plays were held, and townspeople dressed in period costume as part of the many events for the town's tercentenary. Since then, Amesbury has grown considerably, with many new businesses--furniture makers, fine food products, Norman's Restaurant, and clothing shops--emerging. Old mills have been reinvented into spaces for artists, photographers, and other creative outl...