Powerful: this single word aptly describes a naval vessel known as a battleship. The USS Alabama (BB-60) was the last of four South Dakota class battleships built for World War II. She is well armored and designed to survive an attack while continuing to fight. Her main battery, known as Big Guns, consisted of nine 16-inch guns; each could launch a projectile weighing as much as a small car that could hit a target 21 miles away. Her crew numbered 2,332 men, none of whom were lost to enemy fire, earning her the nickname Lucky A. She served as more than just a battleship: she carried troops,...

Oliver Wendell Holmes coined the Massachusetts State House as the Hub of the Universe. In Boston: A Historic Walking Tour, readers are guided on a series of downtown walking tours that radiate out from this Boston landmark. Featuring different excursions that explore Boston s prominent neighborhoods and districts, visitors and natives alike will see how this city has become one of the country s oldest cultural destinations. Boston s growth and development in the 19th and 20th centuries has contributed to it becoming the unofficial Capital of New England; its economic and cultural impact on...

The importance of fishing in Minnesota goes back thousands of years: first as a means of critical subsistence and then, in the last 200 years, as a major economic influence. In the 1800s, anglers seeking pristine lakes with ample fish traveled to Minnesota on the railroads. The widespread use of automobiles and an improving road system rapidly increased the state s accessibility in the 1900s, and resorts sprouted everywhere. During the early tourist boom, the state was also home to countless boat builders, tackle manufacturers, and other fishing-related businesses. Images of America:...

Stevens County was first inhabited by a Paleo-Indian culture that occupied Kettle Falls along the Columbia River for 9,000 years. A gathering place for several Salish Indian tribes, the area called Shonitkwu, meaning Falls of Boiling Baskets, was an abundant resource for fishing specifically salmon. Traveling downriver from Kettle Falls to the trading post Spokane House in 1811, Canadian fur trapper David Thompson described the village as built of long sheds of 20 feet in breadth and noted the tribe s ceremonial dances worshiping the arrival of salmon. In 1829, Fort Colville was producing...

Grand County s story begins long before the first white settlers entered the valley. The land holds ruins, artifacts, and remnants of many ancient peoples, including Ute, Navajo, Anasazi, and others. Spanish missionaries who were seeking gold as much as souls were followed by French fur traders into the mid-1800s, and the end of the Mexican American War in 1848 brought the land to be known as Grand County into the Union. Soon, the valley was teeming with settlers. In 1880, the name Moab appeared in the US Postal Register; it was chosen by William Peirce, a businessman who became the town s...

Come on in to Sumner, Washington, the Rhubarb Pie Capital of the World. Settled in 1853 after a wagon train daringly crossed the Cascade Mountains through Naches Pass, Sumner quickly grew to become an established town. Find out how Sumner s name was literally drawn out of a hat. Learn about George Ryan s unique method for getting the railroad to stop here. Take a tour down Main Street, and watch how it changed or didn t through the decades. See Ryan House when it actually was a farmhouse and the Old Cannery when it was canning fruit. Join in celebrations over the years, from the Daffodil...

Texas is a Southern state, and in many ways, Houston is a typical Southern city. While Houston did not experience the types or degrees of racial violence found in other Southern cities during the Jim Crow era, black Houstonians nonetheless found themselves often relegated to the margins of society. For decades there were two distinct Houstons: one white and the other black. However, Houston s black community created businesses that flourished and schools that educated children and developed a culture that celebrated the accomplishments of their parents while eagerly anticipating the...

Manhattan s past whispers for attention amongst the bustle of the city s ever-changing landscape. At Fraunces Tavern, George Washington s emotional farewell luncheon in 1783 echoes in the Long Room. Gertrude Tredwell s ghost appears to visitors at the Merchant s House Museum. Long since deceased, Olive Thomas shows herself to the men of the New Amsterdam Theatre, and Dorothy Parker still keeps her lunch appointment at the Algonquin Hotel. In other places, it is not the paranormal but the abnormal violent acts by gangsters, bombers, and murderers that linger in the city s memory. Some think...