The History Press

Northern Kentucky serves as the gateway between the North and the South. Explore its many places long-forgotten with Lost Northern Kentucky.

Many of Kentucky's historic businesses, religious structures, homes and buildings were lost to time. Just after the Civil War, Daniel Henry Holmes purchased a large Victorian-Gothic house he named Holmesdale, better known as Holmes Castle. By the 1890s, the Latonia Racetrackhad two hundred stables to accommodate horses and space for one hundred bookmakers. The Motordromeat the Ludlow Lagoon Amusement Parkhad seating for eight thousand people.

Authors Robert Schrage and David Schroeder detail the fascinating history of Northern Kentucky's lost treasures.

Locals and visitors alike will enjoy this step back through time into Put-in-Bay's forgotten past.

An island vacation getaway on Lake Erie, Put-in-Bay is known today for its family fun, cocktail culture, dining and live entertainment, but a deep-rooted history lies beyond. Grand hotels like the Hotel Victory and Put-in-Bay House were reduced to embers and ash and exist today solely in stories and song. Roller coasters, carousels and an electric railroad now rumble and sing only in memory. The many steamboats that brought visitors to the island run no more. Virtually no traces remain of a blockhouse and cemetery dating back to the War of 1812.

Join author and investigative historian William G. Krejci on this journey to an island of yesterday.

The Cannibal City

In the early days of the California Gold Rush, Sacramento City had several competing towns vying for the influx of newcomers. Many of its rivals not only had vibrant multicultural communities but also enjoyed superior geography for transportation and flood control. Even the initial land grant from Johann Sutter is considered controversial if not downright fiction, yet Sacramento thrived where others failed. Once-bustling Mormon Island was initially the proposed site of the railway that would end up bypassing it, and Brighton became a hotbed of agitation after the deadly “Squatters’ Riot,” leading to its decline. Hoboken, Prairie City and more were also wiped off the map.

The Special Collections of the Sacramento Public Library explores the history of these lost Sacramentos.

The untold story of the Bolsa Chica Gun Club, one of Southern California's most important power centers.

Before the rise of Huntington Beach, the Bolsa Chica Gun Club stood as a captivating testament to power and ambition. Influential figures like Jared Sidney Torrance and Henry Huntington were members of this exclusive haven where businessmen, politicians, and even stars of early Hollywood gathered to relax and socialize. Once rapid development and the discovery of oil began encroaching on the club lands, it slowly faded into memory, but its influence remains.

Join author Chris Epting as he explores the remarkable and sometimes controversial events that unfolded on the club's hallowed grounds.

The nightspots, rock clubs, arenas & more that made the city swing

Cincinnati in the ‘50s and ‘60s offered a stunning array of live music and entertainment venues. Though many of them no longer exist, their memories live on. Fulfilling an “obligation” to mobsters, blues crooner Charles Brown played a residency at the Sportsman’s Club in Newport. Incendiary comedian Lenny Bruce performed at the Surf Club on the city’s conservative west side. Jim Tarbell’s short-lived but iconic Ludlow Garage became a major stop on the national “ballroom” circuit that grew up around rock ‘n’ roll as it matured into its progressive, experimental era. Signaling an end to the ‘60s, Iggy Pop created a sensation at the 1970 Cincinnati Summer Pop Festival at Crosley Field.

Join seasoned journalist Steven Rosen on a tour through historically heady days in the Queen City’s music scene.

When the bustle of a city slows, towns dissolve into abandoned buildings or return to woods and crumble into the North Georgia clay. In 1832, Auraria was one of the sites of the original American gold rush.

The remains of numerous towns dot the landscape - pockets of life that were lost to fire or drowned by the water of civic works projects. Cassville was a booming educational and cultural epicenter until 1864. Allatoona found its identity as a railroad town. Author and professor Lisa M. Russell unearths the forgotten towns of North Georgia.

At the end of the nineteenth century, the U.S. Armory opened in Springfield, spurring rapid growth. With that golden age of progress came iconic buildings and landmarks that are now lost to time.

Railroads brought workers eager to fill Springfield's factories and enterprises like Smith & Wesson, Merriam Webster and Indian Motorcycles. The Massasoit House Hotel, the Church of the Unity and the Daniel B. Wesson mansion once served as symbols of the city's grandeur. Forest Park grew into an upscale residential neighborhood of Victorian mansions. Join local historian Derek Strahan as he returns Springfield to its former glory, examining the people, events and - most importantly - places that helped shape the City of Firsts.

Explore the stories behind Columbus' most stunning landmarks, both those sadly lost and others miraculously saved.

As the crossroads city of the Midwest, Columbus has always thrived. Over the years, many of the city's most important and most beautiful buildings--packed with marble, ornate metalwork, painted ceilings and glitz and glamour--have been reduced to dust or left in disrepair. Union Station and stately mansions of well-to-do industrialists are no longer there to tell the story of the city. The Alfred Kelley Mansion, the Chittenden Hotel, the Franklin County Courthouse, and the Walk of Wonders in the Great Western Shopping Center were lost, but the palatial Ohio Theatre and the modest Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker home, both designated National Historic Landmarks, were saved. Tom Betti and Doreen Uhas Sauer, authors of Historic Hotels of Columbus and Historic Taverns of Columbus, recapture stories and memories of a forgotten Columbus.

Ann Arbor has seen many cherished landmarks and institutions come and go - some fondly remembered and others lost to time.

When the city was little more than a village in the wilderness, its first school stood on the now busy corner of Main and Ann. Stores like Bach & Abel's and Dean & Co. served local needs as the village grew into a small town. As the town became a thriving city, Drake's and Maude's fed generations of hungry diners, and Fiegel's clothed father and son alike. Residents passed their time seeing movies at the Majestic or watching parades go down Main Street. Join authors Patti F. Smith and Britain Woodman on a tour of the city's past.

A full menu of unforgettable events and historical milestones.

Delve into the Rose City's colorful and sometimes tumultuous past through the memories, meals and recipes that put these bygone restaurants on the map. From The Quality Pie, a favorite of Portlanders from all walks of life, to the River Queen, which enjoyed a long and storied life as a working vessel before becoming a stationary restaurant on the Willamette River, visitors and locals alike have enjoyed a unique variety of eateries. Celebrities once enjoyed steak dinners in the Barbary Coast's Roaring 20's Room while Café Lena offered simpler fare to poets and dreamers in search of a relaxed atmosphere.

Join author Theresa Griffin Kennedy for a sumptuous tour of Portland's shuttered cafés, diners and grand dining rooms.

North Georgia has more than forty lakes, and not one is natural. The state's controversial decision to dam the region's rivers for power and water supply changed the landscape forever.

Lost communities, forgotten crossroads, dissolving racetracks and even entire towns disappeared. The creation of Lake Lanier displaced more than seven hundred families. During the construction of Lake Chatuge, busloads of schoolboys were brought in to help disinter graves for the community's cemetery relocation. Contractors clearing land for the development of Lake Hartwell met with seventy-eight-year-old Eliza Brock wielding a shotgun and warning the men off her property. Lisa Russell dives into the history hidden beneath North Georgia's lakes.

Eastern Michigan's vanished boomtowns and villages are uncovered and revisited in this fascinating look at the history of the lost settlements around Detroit and the Great Lakes.

Many of eastern Michigan's old boomtowns and sleepy villages are faded memories. Nature reclaimed the ruins of some while progress paved over the rest. Discover the stories of lost communities hidden in plain sight or just off the beaten track. The vanished religious colony of Ora Labora fell into a state of near-constant inebriation when beer became the only safe liquid to drink. Lake St. Clair swallowed up the unique currency of Belvidere along with the place that issued it. Abandoned towns still crumble within Detroit's city limits. Alan Naldrett delves into the fascinating history of eastern Michigan's lost settlements.

Few would imagine that the land currently occupied by the Nature Conservancy's Cape May Migratory Bird Refuge, or "the Meadows," was once the picturesque Jersey Shore town of South Cape May.

By the early twentieth century, a striking hotel and homes designed by renowned Victorian-era architects dotted the landscape. Residents and visitors alike spotted rumrunners racing across the beachfront during Prohibition and endured World War II with German submarines lurking just offshore. But by 1954, barely a trace of the town remained except for about twenty of the original houses, which were moved a mile away. Join one of the town's last residents, Joseph Burcher, as he chronicles life in South Cape May before the angry Atlantic swallowed this serene town.

In this never-before-assembled collection of lost landmarks, historian Sarah Downing evokes the Outer Banks of yesteryear.

Drawn from the vast collections of the Outer Banks History Center and from locals mourning the forever changed character of the area, these vintage images reflect the hotels, stores, restaurants and bandstands that appeared in the boom time following World War II but have since been lost to progress. An honorary native, Downing has preserved the Pirate's Ball at Nags Head Casino, Doc Watson playing at the Sound Side on Kitty Hawk Bay and grits at the El Gay in this collection of hangouts and haunts of yesterday's summer.