Search results for ""fonthill media llc""

As progress marches on, it inevitably leaves behind some spectacular ruins--places that are no longer needed or wanted, yet still stand, clinging to a tenuous existence. This book chronicles a wide-ranging selection of Long Island's numerous abandoned places, including vacant military and industrial buildings, the remnants of once-grand estates, defunct rails and roads, and unused runways. Abandoned places are both historic moments frozen in time, and constantly deteriorating and devolving sites. All of them await one fate or another--whether it is a never-ending descent into decrepitude, complete demolition, or perhaps even a miraculous restoration. From the haunting buildings of Mitchel Field to the ruins of Gold Coast estates, the poignant images in this book are rich with context and history.

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There's so much more to Washington, DC than granite and limestone. Discover a side of our nation's capital that goes beyond the carefully manicured landmarks, where ruins become de facto monuments to a past we've almost forgotten--a working class past of great schemes and shuttered dreams, a city of immigrants, transplants, and others whose names are long lost, but whose legacy can be traced through DC's crumbling corners. Abandoned Washington DC collects more than 350 striking images of decay and devastation, paired with thought-provoking essays detailing an alternate, abandoned--but no less accurate--history of the capital city.

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'The evening is closing in; the sun has set, leaving a hot, red glow, where his copper disk has just sunk beyond the Pacific horizon; and the eye wanders out from the infant waves, at foot just tinged with red, and reflecting the light as they move up in turn to catch it, to the blue and still darker blue water beyond, out to the sharp indigo line where sky and water meet.' And so Wallis Nash concludes his brief passage on his brief expedition to hack off rock oysters, along the coast toward the Yaquina Head lighthouse. For anyone interested in the early history of Oregon, Wallis Nash's Two Years in Oregon is a mine of information. In an easy and highly readable narrative, Nash provides extensive detail on society, farming, hunting, fishing and community life. He wrote the book in 1882 after his first two years of residence whilst the initial impressions were still sharp in his mind.

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Abandoned structures are places that open the imagination and invite interpretation. Distressed wood and weathered remnants of human life are crossed by time and animal tracks, inviting one to picture what once was. Abandoned homes and buildings offer a unique, distressed beauty. While often overlooked by passers-by, their skeletal remains act as the perfect subject for the lens of a camera, quietly waiting to be captured and shared. Abandoned Tennessee explores this haunting narrative through its display of photos by abandoned building photographer Jay Farrell. Readers are encouraged to explore the forgotten corners of the state, see the world through different eyes, and take the long road home.

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"Driving through Northern California, you will find sprawling military bases, immense wineries, gold mining towns, and amusement parks all lying abandoned. The combination of different people and industries this part of the state has been home to over the years is intriguingly odd. The ruins that lie in the area today reflect the various ways people attempted to build their future in Northern California--not unlike the innovative ways people still try to build their future in the area today. Whether that involves a cool new start-up, a prominent place in the local, internationally respected wine industry, or seeking inspiration for an amazing new book, all kinds of diverse characters come here to dream and innovate. If there is one thing this cross-section of humanity who flocked to the state had in common, it is the will to forge ahead into the unknown. Inventors, military men, gold prospectors, entrepreneurs--they all, in their own ways, took their risks and chances in this newer part of the USA, to create a life, a business, a work of art or science that had never been done before. This is the legacy that has formed Northern California today."

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Detroit's Streetcar Heritage is a photographic essay of the Detroit, Michigan, streetcar system. Replacement of slow moving horsecar service began with the opening of an electric street railway by the Detroit Citizens Street Railway in 1892. By 1900, all of the Detroit streetcar systems were consolidated into the Detroit United Railway (DUR). Following voter approval, the City of Detroit purchased DUR in 1922, becoming the first large United States city to own and operate public transit under Detroit Department of Street Railways (DSR). Between 1921 and 1930, DSR purchased 781 Peter Witt type streetcars. Although DSR purchased 186 modern Presidents' Conference Committee (PCC) cars between 1945 and 1949, many streetcar lines were converted to bus operation. The last streetcar line on Woodward Avenue was converted to bus operation in 1956 with 183 PCC cars sold to Mexico City. Detroit's Streetcar Heritage documents the city's streetcar era plus scenes of the PCC cars in Mexico City, the Washington Boulevard Line which operated from 1976 to 2003, and the QLINE streetcar which opened in 2017 on Woodward Avenue linking Grand Boulevard with downtown Detroit.

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Weak maritime nations have always sought to augment the strength of their coastal defenses and navies by the use of "diabolical" contrivances for destroying an invader's ships. The history of the adoption of the torpedo as a recognized implement of warfare is not unlike that of gunpowder or of exploding shells. Each in its turn was met by the cry, "Inhuman, barbarous, unchivalrous." During the American Civil War, the Confederate Navy employed submerged mines, called torpedoes, and explosive charges mounted on a long pole referred to as the "spar torpedo" which was bumped into the hull of an enemy vessel exploding on contact. These weapons enjoyed great success during the conflict. In July 1869, the Secretary of the Navy announced the establishment of the Naval Torpedo Station on Goat Island in the harbor of Newport, Rhode Island, for development of a more sophisticated and deadlier self-propelled torpedo. From its founding until the end of the Second World War, the Naval Torpedo Station has been the Navy's principal center for the design of torpedoes. Newport continues as the home of the U.S. Navy's most important laboratory for research and development of modern weapons' systems.

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The Great Northern Railway Through Time takes us on a tour of the American Northwest-the last American frontier-from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Seattle, Washington. The Great Northern opened up the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho, the dramatic Cascade Mountains of Washington and the Continental Divide at Marias Pass. President James J. Hill intended the Great Northern to be a freight hauling road, but tourists riding on the GN's premier passenger train, The Empire Builder were delighted by the prairie, the farmland, the Big Sky Country, the mountains, and Glacier National Park. The G.N.'s reputation grew. Today, Amtrak's Empire Builder traverses the same territory. The Great Northern Railway Through Time presents photos taken over the course of seventy five years by photographers of the era. The author has provided ample photo captions pointing out features that have changed over the years and features that have ​stayed the same. The early photos are fresh-never before published. The more recent shots were made by twenty of America's finest rail enthusiast photographers.

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San Francisco's first cable car line opened in 1873. The successful development of the electric streetcar by Frank Sprague in 1888 plus the 1906 San Francisco earthquake resulted in the decline of the cable car system. Concerned that the cable car system would vanish, San Francisco resident Friedel Klussmann rallied public support to save the cars. The 1982 shutdown of the cable car lines for their rebuilding led to Trolley Festivals beginning in 1983 until 1987 using a variety of historic streetcars on Market Street.Those successful festivals resulted in rebuilding the streetcar track on Market Street and the establishment of the F streetcar line in 1995 using Presidents' Conference Committee streetcars purchased from Philadelphia and refurbished in a variety of paint schemes that represented cities that once had streetcar service. In addition, the line features vintage Peter Witt streetcars from Milan, Italy; a boat like streetcar from England; and other unique cars. During 2000, the F line was extended to Fisherman's wharf and has become one of the most successful streetcar lines in the United States. This book is a photographic essay of "San Francisco's Magnificent Streetcars" along with its historic cable cars and hill climbing trolley coaches.

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The first street railway opened in New Orleans in 1835. Over the years various methods of powering the streetcars including horses, stream locomotives, overhead cable system, and fireless locomotives were tried. In 1893, electric streetcar operation began. At its peak in 1922, New Orleans had 225 miles of electric streetcar lines in operation. Ridership and streetcar lines declined with increased use of automobiles and the hard economic times of the Great Depression. While ridership surged during World War II, following the war the decline in transit riding continued the conversion of streetcar lines to bus operation. With the end of the Canal streetcar line in 1964, only the St. Charles streetcar line remained. In 1983, the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority acquired the public transit system. With increased public awareness of the important heritage of the St. Charles streetcar line, the first new streetcar line in 60 years in New Orleans opened on the Riverfront during 1988. Its success contributed to the restoration of streetcars on Canal Street in 2004. This book provides a photographic essay of the New Orleans streetcar system including the new Loyola streetcar line that opened in 2013 and is part of "New Orleans Fabulous Streetcars."

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Winston-Salem Through Time will present in archival photographs and descriptive captions the effects of the Civil War, the Industrial Revolution, Prohibition, the Great Depression and Cold War period upon thge Twin City. Our readers will compare the old with new photographs showing the natural evolvement of the Moravian Salem and Industrial Winston forward to the merged two cities of today.

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North Carolina's eighteenth and nineteenth-century Moravian potters were remarkable artisans whose products included coarse earthenware, slip-trailed decorated ware, Leeds-type fine pottery, press-molded stove tiles, figural bottles, toys, and salt-glazed stoneware. Silesian-born and German-trained potter Gottfried Aust was the first to arrive in Bethabara in 1755. After that, numerous apprentices of his carried on the trade in the state and beyond. Some apprentices rose to the rank of master potter. Aust's most successful protégé, Rudolph Christ, excelled in the creation of Queensware, faience, and tortoiseshell-glazed pottery. Swiss-born Heinrich Schaffner, one of several more Moravian master potters, is famously known for his "Salem smoking pipes." Today, museums and private collectors vigorously compete for scarce examples of North Carolina-made Moravian pottery. Every piece found and preserved is like a new paragraph added to the story of the art and mystery of pottery-making in one of the South's earliest settlements.

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The discovery of gold on the magical date of January 24, 1848, when James Marshall discovered gold at Sutter's Mill near Coloma, started a rush that was unprecedented in all of the world's history. The discovery started a boom period to the state that lasted at least 15 years. By 1849, gold production reached $10 million, and it would not be until 1929 that production would drop below that value. 1852 was the all-time peak year, with $82 million in gold production from a total of almost four million ounces mined. Between 1850 and 1864, over one million ounces were mined every year. In this book Frank Lorey covers the historic towns and mining locations in the eleven counties which produced the vast majority of California's golden wealth. Most are situated along and nearby to Highway 49, known as California's “Golden Highway.” Today many are nothing more than historic locations, having become ghost towns long ago, but some are still quite lively locations. The book was developed from a popular series of articles in the California Geology and California Mining Journal magazines over the years, starting in 1985. Frank Lorey has taken many of the photographs during his travels in the area, and for a few years he lived just outside the gold rush country.

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The Texans from Hood's Texas Brigade and other regiments who fought at Antietam on 16-17 September 1862 described their experiences of the battle in personal diaries, interviews, newspaper articles, letters, and speeches. Their reminiscences provide a fascinating and harrowing account of the battle as they fought the Army of the Potomac. This book collates their writings alongside speeches that were given in the decades after the battle, during the annual reunions of Hood's Brigade Association and the dedication of the Hood's Brigade Monument at the state capital in Austin, Texas. These accounts describe their actions at the East Woods, Dunker's Church and Miller's Cornfield, and other areas during the battle. For the first time ever, their experiences are compiled in Texans at Antietam: A Terrible Clash of Arms, 16-17 September 1862.

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When human's learned, in 1903, they could cruise over land in a heaver than air flying machine, they never dreamed of using an advanced model of the aeroplane as an instrument of war. The novelty of flying intrigued a young Glenn H. Curtiss-an inventor obsessed with speed. In the decade before World War One, Curtiss a dedicated tinkerer developed speedy float planes and flying boats which came to the attention of the U.S. Navy. During the run-up to America's involvement in the European war, ships carrying supplies to allies were being destroyed by the German U-boats. It was because of these losses of men and material that Navy brass decided a long range bomber should be developed to counter the German submarine menace. It was then Glenn Curtiss was contracted to draw plans for a large flying boat capable of flying across the Atlantic. Initially, four flying boats were built, but by this time the war had ended ant the mission of the flying boats no longer existed. However, America decided to send its new giant flying machines across the Atlantic as a show of Yankee know-how.

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Thomas Lipton's America's Cup Campaigns is the saga of one man's 30 year obsession with winning the America's Cup. It includes brief stories of the most interesting of the early races for the Cup which lead up to the Lipton challenges and then gives the account of the Lipton and Herreshoff face-offs in a fascinating and illustrated narrative.

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When modern readers think of Hermann Goring, what probably comes to mind is the overweight drug addict and convicted war criminal who cheated the hangman's noose at Nuremberg by committing suicide just hours before he was due to be hanged. Or perhaps there is the image of his powerful German air force in the Second World War---the Luftwaffe---bombing defenceless European cities and towns in the early part of the war, until it was defeated by the British Royal Air Force in the epic Battle of Britain in 1940. Perhaps the reader might think of Goring the debauched art collector who pirated captured collections all over Nazi Europe during the Occupation years. All of these images are correct, but here we see another Hermann Goring: the slim, dashing fighter pilot and combat ace of an earlier struggle, the Great War, or World War I of 1914-18, which he began as an infantry officer fighting the French Army in the 1914 Battle of the Frontiers. During a hospitalization, his friend Bruno Lorzer convinced him to become an aerial observer-photographer, photographing the mighty French fortress of Verdun. He did, and began these never-before-seen personal photo albums of men and aircraft at war: up close.

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