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Portland Harbor is Peaks Island's front yard, providing islanders with water views and access to the city. Victorian beliefs about "healthy salt air" and newfound wealth combined to create a leisure class that flocked to the Maine seaside. Peaks Islanders replaced a hardscrabble life of fishing and farming with a tourism-based economy. They could not build fast enough. Dubbed the "Coney Island of Maine," Peaks Island at the turn of the 20th century boasted big hotels, grand theaters, posh restaurants, and a boardwalk full of amusements. The dawn of the motor age saw the pendulum swing once again toward austerity, as tourists abandoned the island to embrace automobile travel. Times were tough, and Peaks Island returned to a working-class neighborhood. Newcomers provided injections of life--the military in 1942, a wave of summer residents in the 1950s, and hippies in the 1970s. All fueled growth and left community organizations that survive today.

Cape Cod has been welcoming travelers and tourists for more than a century. From quaint historic inns to seaside resorts and family-run motels, the Cape has provided a unique mix of lodging found nowhere else on the coast of New England. The luxurious Wequassett Resort and Golf Club dates back to 1925, and this slice of paradise became the Cape's only five-star resort. The quaint Chatham Wayside Inn originated in 1859 as the home of Captain Joseph Nickerson and has been welcoming guests and diners ever since. The Lighthouse Inn in West Dennis offered guests some of the best entertainment on the Cape with singing waiters known as the "Inn-tertainers." Local author Christopher Setterlund shares the fascinating history behind some of the places that have made this tourist mecca feel like home.

The Lido Club Hotel officially opened in June 1928 as a swanky oceanfront resort adjacent to the world-class Lido Golf Course. Built by Sen. William H. Reynolds, who previously bought and developed nearby Long Beach, the Lido Club Hotel featured a striking architectural design with twin cupolas and became a playground for socialites, industrialists, and politicians. In 1942, the US Navy requisitioned the hotel as a naval training and separation center. After the war, the Lido Club Hotel was leased to the newly formed United Nations and housed over 500 of its personnel. The hotel returned to civilian hands in 1947 and was once again a fashionable seaside resort with a wealthy clientele. Over the next 30 years, many well-known entertainers such as Sammy Davis Jr. and Barbra Streisand performed in Lido's Starlight Room. In 1980, the Lido Club Hotel was sold to developers and converted into a luxury oceanfront condominium, Lido Beach Towers, that remains a local landmark with a fascinating past.

The Hotel Roanoke is as old as the city of Roanoke itself. It opened in 1882, when the city became the headquarters for the Norfolk & Western Railway, and signaled the city's progress. It has since survived a devastating fire, the Depression and closure after a century of operation. Thanks to the determination of the leaders of Virginia Tech and the Roanoke Valley, the hotel reopened in 1995. Today, the reimagined Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center is once again a symbol of the region's economic vitality. This revised and updated version of Donlan Piedmont's Peanut Soup and Spoonbread: An Informal History of the Hotel Roanoke captures the amazing history of not only a hotel but also the personalities and stories that have made the Hotel Roanoke what it is today--a remarkable blend of century-old tradition and state-of-the-art hospitality.