Capt. Benjamin Godfrey founded Monticello, which later became Godfrey, after he settled in present-day Godfrey Township in 1834. The rolling hills and genteel settlers, including E.A. Riehl and Charles Lock, reminded him of his native New England. The region's first families set the tone for what would become the village of Godfrey, which today is a sylvan community of growth and innovation. Benjamin Godfrey founded Monticello Female Seminary, the first such institution in the West, and it became the centerpiece of the town. The original buildings, now a part of Lewis and Clark Community College, remain the village's most distinctive landmarks. The Godfrey region also served as a vital link in transportation, with interstate steamboats and railroads. Today, Godfrey is a growing bedroom community along a new Illinois highway extension. Godfrey also preserves its magnificent bluffs along the Mississippi River through the Great Rivers Land Trust and other similar organizations, parks, preserves, and green space.
In Petula Clark's 1964 smash hit "Downtown," the singer describes a place where all troubles are forgotten and all cares are left behind with the glamour of bright lights, movie shows, and flashy neon signs that light up the city streets. During the 1940s and 1950s, downtown Tampa was a shining model of the American landscape. On every street corner, customers packed their shopping bags with the best to offer from dress shops, hat shops, shoe stores, and of course those beloved department stores of a bygone era, including Kress, Woolworth's, and Grant's. Locally owned stores and shops fueled by the entrepreneurial spirit of Tampa families also dotted the streets of downtown and flourished during Tampa's postwar population expansion, offering an endless bounty of possibilities for success. These historic storefront photographs, compiled from private collections and local library archives, present a walking tour of downtown Tampa and other popular neighborhoods during a simpler time that is so well-loved and remembered.
In the late 1800s, a new method to power streetcars ushered Florida's First Coast cities into the modern era. Earlier travelers moved around town on hay burners, but after the very first electric-powered trolley cruised up Jacksonville's Main Street in 1893, railways cropped up throughout the region. When the new railroad terminal opened in 1919, it handled millions of passengers, becoming the hub of the streetcar system and the largest railroad station in the South. With almost sixty miles of track, the Jacksonville Traction Company was the largest streetcar system in Florida. Award-winning author and historian Robert W. Mann chronicles the story behind Florida's bygone streetcar epoch and the dramatic history of city builders, financiers, organized labor, civil rights, fire, fever, nabobs and railway men.
Southward, along the east coast of Florida, stretches a series of long, palmetto-covered islands that beat back the thundering surf of the Atlantic Ocean. Located about midway on this coast, between the Indialantic Bridge in the north and Sebastian Inlet in the south, is the community of Melbourne Beach. Since the historic arrival of Juan Ponce de Leon in the New World on April 2, 1513, at a site now believed to be within the bounds of Melbourne Beach, the area has experienced more than four centuries of progress, <br />struggle, and success. Discover within these pages how the area's residents have made Melbourne Beach the strong and vital community it is today through a fascinating compilation of stories and recollections. Meet such colorful residents as bean farmer R.T. Smith, who had "In Beans I Trust" printed on his stationery, and the forward-thinking real estate developer Ernest Kouwen-Hoven.
This pictorial record of Morris County, New Jersey, traces the dramatic rise of America's least-known colony of millionaires during the Gilded Age. The area became a country retreat for the upper class. Families such as the Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, Kountzes, Wolffs, Dodges, and Claflins built impressive estates in the area referred to as the <br />"inland Newport." By the 1920s, the prominence of Morris County was eclipsed by the lure of Long Island, and its economy was being threatened by the Depression. Faced with high taxes from the newly established income tax, skyrocketing maintenance costs, and a dwindling reservoir of help, the wealthy residents began razing their mansions. Although many of these vast estates have been long gone and forgotten, author John W. Rae's collection of early Morris County photographs recaptures the area's palatial homes in their full grandeur. Within the pages of Morris County Mansions, Rae invites you to join him on a visual tour of the magnificent architecture of the Gilded Age. Meet the area's <br />prominent families and discover little-known facts about the homes in which they resided.