Henry Carter Hull

Anyone who has waited in a Christmas line for the Walnut Room's Great Tree can attest that Chicago's loyalty to Marshall Field's is fierce. Dayton-Hudson even had to take out advertising around town to apologize for changing the Field's hallowed green bags. And with good reason--the store and those who ran it shaped the city's streets, subsidized its culture and heralded its progress. The resulting commercial empire dictated wholesale trade terms...

Along Galveston's Gulf Coast runs a seventeen-foot-high, ten-mile-long protective barrier-a response to the nation's all-time deadliest natural disaster. The seawall remains a stoic protector more than a century later, shielding the island from much more than physical destruction. As the foundation of Seawall Boulevard, this structure created an entirely new tourism industry that buoyed the city's economy through war, the Great Depression and hurricanes....

Motif No. 1, a red fish shack, sits at the end of a granite pier in Rockport, Massachusetts. How did a humble fish house painted by numerous artists, including Aldro Hibbard, Anthony Thieme, Emil Grupp and Harrison Cady, become an icon? Author L.M. Vincent examines the shack's colorful history from its origins to the present day to answer the question. His exploration of this symbol of coastal New England, arguably one of the most painted buildings...

Author Tristan Smith offers an insightful guide through two dozen of Houston and Galveston's most historic cemeteries. Houston and Galveston's historic cemeteries lie scattered amongst the neighborhoods and thoroughfares of the nation's fourth largest city. Some of these portals to the past nestle in hidden pockets of the bustling metropolis. Other cemeteries carve out the kind of contemplative sanctuary that rivals the city's largest greenspaces....

Over a century of history, pride and tradition. Armijo High School opened its doors for the first time in 1891. What began in the upstairs classrooms of Crystal Elementary School in Suisun City grew to the sprawling campus on Washington Street in order to serve the rising population of Fairfield, California. Armijo alumni have made indelible marks in numerous fields, including medicine, law, civil and military service, athletics, and the arts....

The Red River's dramatic bend in southwestern Arkansas is the most distinctive characteristic along its 1,300 miles of eastern flow through plains, prairies and swamplands. This stretch of river valley has defined the culture, commerce and history of the region since the prehistoric days of the Caddo inhabitants. Centuries later, as the plantation South gave way to westward expansion, people found refuge and adventure along the area's trading paths,...

"[An] action-packed history of the brothel that inspired the Broadway play and film The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and the ZZ Top hit 'La Grange'" ( The New York Post ). Thanks to its status as a pop culture icon, many people think they know the story of the infamous Chicken Ranch. The real story of this Texas brothel is more complex, lying somewhere between heartbreaking and absurd. For more than a century, dirt farmers and cigar-smoking politicians...

"By the late 20th century, Montpelier, the home of James and Dolley Madison, had been altered until it would no longer have been recognizable to the couple. In 2000 the newly-created Montpelier Foundation took over management of the historic home with the seemingly insurmountable task of restoring it to be a visual record of the Madisons' era. Within ten years, the Foundation overcame numerous hurdles, turning Montpelier into a monument to the Father...

Minneapolis roared into the 1920s as a major metropolis, but it lacked the kind of outdoor amusement facilities common elsewhere across the country. In 1925, Fred W. Pearce introduced the Twin Cities to his "Picnic Wonderland." Crowds eagerly poured onto the shores of Lake Minnetonka by the trolley load. Luckily, Excelsior Park survived the Great Depression and World War II on the strength of its celebrity acts. Changes in the forms of transportation,...

Winslow has grown up around Fort Halifax in its many, many incarnations. Beginning as a French and Indian War garrison and trading post, the fort welcomed historic figures from Benedict Arnold and Aaron Burr to Paul Revere and Chief Joseph Orono. Reduced to one small blockhouse in the 1800s, Fort Halifax hosted archaeologists, travelers, artists, politicians and students. The Flood of 1987 swept away the blockhouse, leaving the fort and its supporters...