The History Press

Arlington began three centuries ago as the farm section of Alexandria County and emerged in the 1900s as a vibrant suburb of the nation's capital. Global notice came after the creation and expansion of Arlington National Cemetery, the Pentagon and Fort Myer, site of history's first airplane casualty--September 17, 1908. Add in some modern marquee employers--PBS, WETA, Nestlé, the Foreign Service Institute and Amazon--and it's a recipe for accelerating change. Unsurprisingly, residents are increasingly at odds over rising housing costs and demolitions of long-valued homes and businesses. A key to preserving Arlington's character is a deeper knowledge of history. Local journalist and author Charlie Clark provides a compendium of gone-but-not-forgotten institutions, businesses, homes and amusements.

The largest civilian cemetery in the Southeast holds the history of famous and infamous alike.

In 1884, several leading citizens purchased 577 acres to open Atlanta's Westview Cemetery. The rolling terrain, part of which was a site in the Civil War battle of Ezra Church, became the final resting place for more than 100,000 people. Prominent locals buried here include Grant Park namesake L.P. Grant, author Joel Chandler Harris, High Museum benefactor Harriet High, Coca-Cola founder Asa Candler Sr. and Havertys founder J.J. Haverty. The cemetery's Westview Abbey mausoleum is one of the nation's largest, with more than eleven thousand crypts. Throughout its history, Westview dabbled in other business ventures, including a cafeteria, a funeral home and an ambulance service. And for decades, the cemetery's Westview Floral Company sold flowers to lot owners and local businesses, leading to its own advice column in the Atlanta Constitution. Author Jeff Clemmons traces the complete history of this treasured necropolis.

Richmond is a classic Southern city, most notable as the Confederate capitol. However, the irony of Richmond is that much of its beautiful architecture was built by Black laborers.

The city's vast and varied collection of architecture provides an archive of African American history, both of enslaved and free peoples. Author Selden Richardson explains how iconic symbols of old Richmond and the generations of Black laborers who helped assemble it are embodied in both the preserved and the forgotten architecture of the city. After you finish this book, it will be as if the buildings in Richmond tell their own stories to you.

Charleston's "freedman's cottages" are some of the most understudied and undervalued vernacular buildings in the city, found as far south as Council Street and as far north as North Charleston. Though these cottages have long been associated
with African American history and culture, they in fact extend much further into the history and development of Charleston and deserve to be studied and understood. The predominant theory is that these tiny houses, often no larger than five hundred square feet, were constructed by and for freed slaves
after the Civil War, due to a rising need for inexpensive housing. Who occupied these houses over time? What were their lives like? Most of them were ordinary citizens to whom we can all relate. Each one of these houses has at least a hundred stories to tell, many of which have been uncovered and recounted here. Join local preservationist Lissa D'Aquisto Felzer as she elevates the freedman's cottages to their rightful place in the history of Charleston architecture.

Before radar, depth finders and satellite-guided navigation, long before the seafloor was charted with scientific precision, mariners relied on lighthouses to approach a coastline safely. South Carolina's history with lighthouses goes back nearly two and a half centuries. At Cape Romain, a windmill was converted into a lighthouse. St. Philip's Church in Charleston was converted into a beacon for seafarers to aid navigation to the Holy City. With such a long and storied past, the story of South Carolina's lighthouses is inseparable from its maritime history. Join author John Hairr as he recounts the fascinating history of these beacons that have shone above the shores of the Palmetto State.

Quirky, unique, and unexpected, the history of Ermony Key comes to life in rare historic images.

Egmont Key has been a sentinel for ships entering Tampa Bay from the Gulf of Mexico for hundreds of years. Early European explorers recognized the island's strategic location. Its story reflects major events in the history of the United States and Florida, as the island played a role in the Seminole Wars, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War and World Wars I and II. Its lighthouse, now automated, is still a beacon for ships. For many years, people have enjoyed the beaches of Egmont Key, walked the red brick ""roads to nowhere"" and explored the ruins of Fort Dade. Authors Don and Carol Thompson aim to foster an appreciation of the uniqueness and beauty of Egmont Key, as well as an understanding of its place in history.