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Discover Baton Rouge's bygone days of booming growth and the influence of its renowned residents.

For nearly two centuries, Baton Rouge remained a sleepy little river town. Situated on the first bluffs of the Mississippi River north of the Gulf of Mexico, it was prime real estate for habitation. Images of America: Forgotten Baton Rouge collects a plethora of lost images of this city's greatest period of expansion: from the 1890s to the 1930s. This era began when Louisiana State University moved to the grounds of the old US Army arsenal, followed by a corporate decision from John D. Rockefeller to build a Standard Oil Company refinery at Baton Rouge. These historic decisions, coupled with the forward-thinking actions of bold businessmen and politicians like Robert A. Hart and Huey P. Long, changed the face of the city forever.

Through hundreds of scarcely-seen images, follow authors John E. Findling and Tom Morton as they take you around the booming neighborhood that was once a small agricultural community.

St. Matthews, once a prominent neighborhood of Louisville, is now a fourth-class city within metro Louisville. The first settlers came to the area in the 1780s, and for more than a century St. Matthews was largely an agricultural area where farmers specialized in growing potatoes. By 1900, a commercial district had grown at the intersection of several roads, known locally as the Point, and the land devoted to farming was gradually taken over by new commercial and residential development. After the great flood of 1937 and World War II, Shelbyville Road, the principal east-west street in St. Matthews, was the site of a commercial boom that included malls and other shopping centers, automobile dealerships, and a wide variety of other businesses. Today, the town of St. Matthews is a vibrant economic and cultural center that attracts people from all parts of metropolitan Louisville.

In rare and historic images, the stories and memories of Jackson from Pioneer days, booms and busts, come to life.

Michigan was not yet a state in July 1829 when Horace Blackman of Berkshire, New York, arrived in Ann Arbor to visit his friend Jonathan F. Stratton, who advised Blackman to make a location claim in a new county that had just been surveyed west of Washtenaw County. Blackman began traveling with Capt. Alexander Laverty, a woodsman and land surveyor, and Pee-wy-tum, a Native American guide. Along the way, they came to the mouth of the St. Joseph Indian Trail, which crossed the Grand River. The earliest pioneers of Jackson stayed there for the first night at what are now Jackson and Trail Streets. The town was first called Jacksonopolis. Later, it was renamed Jacksonburgh. Finally, in 1838, the town's name was changed to simply Jackson.

Historic photographs tell the story of the illustrious New London Police Department from 1868 to today.

New London, Connecticut, established its first permanent police force in 1868 when a nightwatch and police station were approved by city council. In the late 1800s and into the early 1900s, the busy port of New London doubled in population, reaching almost 20,000 by 1910 with just 17 patrolmen keeping order. In January 1924, the council approved the hiring of a woman as a police officer. In the early 1960s, a police union was formed by members of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association to provide better working conditions. By the early 1990s, the department had moved into its current building and updated its computer-aided dispatch, added mobile computers in police cars, digitized its maps, and created a new records management system. The current department chief's office overlooks a bus and train depot, a busy deepwater port, and a city that draws thousands of people every summer.

An engaging history of Florida's Citrus County.

Located on Florida's Gulf Coast, Citrus County boasts a rich and diverse landscape, where modern amenities are found side by side the traces of ""old Florida"" that remain. Opportunities to experience the natural beauty of ""the real Florida"" are plentiful, and the singular history of the region, including the prehistoric creatures, native cultures, and early settlers who called the region home, is accessible in the county's wide variety of historic sites and public resources. From the countless disappointments of Spanish conquistadors searching for riches in the region to the establishment of Fort Cooper during the Second Seminole War, from the hardy pioneers who carved an existence from the Florida wilderness to the thousands of others who took part in the boom-and-bust of industry, the unique story of Citrus County continues to unfold. Today, newcomers to the area find homes in the county's planned communities, while vacationers are drawn to ""Mother Nature's Theme Park."" Restored and preserved for future generations, significant historic structures such as the Old Courthouse Heritage Museum are receiving new life and the county's past is becoming recognized as a vital treasure.

Montvale is a small borough of approximately 4.5 square miles in the picturesque Pascack Valley in northeastern Bergen County, New Jersey.

How the borough grew from a small farming community to a population of nearly 9,000 in 2019 is told through the use of vintage photographs. Pictures of 18th-century Dutch Colonial sandstone houses, a 19th-century octagon house, a cider mill that made "Jersey applejack," horses and buggies, and antique cars all have stories to tell, as do advertisements and posters. In one for an 1896 social and basket picnic, folks were invited to "bring your team, wife and children," but there would be "no swearing or fighting.'' Turn-of-the-century postcards tell of the hundreds of summer visitors escaping the city heat. After Montvale became the last stop in New Jersey on the Garden State Parkway, the western section of the borough changed from farmland to the headquarters of some of the most prestigious national and international corporations, including Benjamin Moore, KPMG, Sharp Electronics, and Western Union, as well as home to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

The city of Bridgeton, New Jersey's largest historic district, was one of the state's leading commercial and industrial centers during the Victorian Era.

In this vibrant and exciting photographic history, local author Bill Chestnut brings to life the city's past from the advent of photography through the 1970s. Little-known historical facts about public buildings, recreational and cultural centers, schools, and churches are explored in the informative captions that accompany over 200 images in this collection. Memorable moments and events from the years gone by are illustrated in vivid detail, including the legendary Flood of 1934 that left the town without a span over the Cohansey River. Many scenes from Bridgeton's neighborhoods and neighboring communities reveal what life was like in the past of this old county town.

Join author James Anthony Schnur as he recounts the history of Medeira beach from its beginnings as a fishing haven to quiet residential city.

Long before condominiums appeared on the Florida coastline, itinerant fishing parties visited the barrier islands along the Pinellas peninsula. Fewer than 200 people lived in present-day Pinellas County in September 1848, when a destructive hurricane carved Johns Pass. Developers first focused their efforts along the inlet with a settlement known as Mitchell Beach in the early 1910s, but it had only limited success since no bridges connected the island to the mainland. The first bridge opened along Welch Causeway in 1926, and electricity came to the island a few years later. Small, scattered settlements took shape along Johns Pass and near 150th Avenue before World War II, but widespread development did not begin until the incorporation of Madeira Beach in 1947. By the 1950s, subdivisions sprouted up along islands dredged from Boca Ciega Bay. Today, condominiums have replaced most beach cottages.