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The Boulder Canyon Project Act, authorized by Congress in 1928, designated funds for the construction of the Hoover Dam. This monumental undertaking affected the interests of seven states and is considered by many to be the most significant American public works project of the 20th century. A project of this scope required thousands of workers, and to meet their needs, the Bureau of Reclamation planned the town of Boulder City, Nevada. Today, the...
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Annapolis--a hidden jewel of a community--is tucked into the timber-filled ridges above the jagged northern Sonoma coastline. Undeterred by the steep, mountainous terrain and rugged living, early settlers were first lured to the area by the timber. They quickly discovered Annapolis had perfect weather for apple farming. At the beginning of the 20th century, almost every farm had apples, and apple dryers dotted the hills. The wild Gualala River, known...
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Letchworth State Park, located in the Genesee Valley of western New York State, is renowned for its natural beauty, scenic roads, trails, and recreational facilities. Created from the private estate of William Pryor Letchworth in 1907, the park quickly grew in size and popularity. A series of ambitious expansion and development plans were under way when the Great Depression struck, threatening the park's future. That future was restored when President...
64) Bell County
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Bell County is a place steeped in history and imbued with a pioneering spirit. Its favorable location in southeastern Kentucky at the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains makes it the gateway to the Bluegrass State and beyond. Formed just after the Civil War from neighboring Harlan and Knox Counties, the area was explored by famous frontiersmen Dr. Thomas Walker and Daniel Boone, opening the nation's door to the West. From the 1750s until the last...
65) Tuscan Springs
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Tuscan Springs, originally "Lick Springs," was a collection of mineral waters near Red Bluff, California, which Native Americans considered such sacred ground that even warring tribes would lay down their weapons and bathe there together in peace. It was here that Dr. John A. Veatch became the first person in America to discover "white gold" (borax) in 1856, and he renamed the site after the fumaroles of Italy. While plans to extract the mineral proved...
66) Forest Hills
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Aptly named because of its hilly terrain and abundance of trees, the area now known as Forest Hills was a dusty coal mining community in the late 1800s. Centered between two major roads, the Lincoln Highway (Ardmore Boulevard/U.S. Route 30) and the Greensburg Pike, Forest Hills was incorporated in 1919 in order to gain better representation for tax money. Technology put the town on the map with the first commercial licensed radio station broadcast...
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The Payette River and some of its tributaries serve Gem County from border to border. An abundance of water, a mild climate with protected valley floors, and natural vegetation beckoned to those on Placerville's Umatilla Trail. Having reached the ocean, many of those who had not found their utopia were on the move again, looking with an experienced eye for a place to settle with their families. These valleys had blessed the Shoshoni Indians, as well...
68) Bath Iron Works
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Bath Iron Works was established by Gen. Thomas Hyde in 1884 and launched its first ship in 1891. Since then, the shipyard on the Kennebec River has built dozens of luxurious yachts, hardworking freighters, tugs, trawlers, lightships, and more than two hundred twenty warships for the U.S. Navy. Today, Bath Iron Works continues a shipbuilding tradition that began nearly four hundred years ago when the first ship built in America was constructed just...
69) Oregon Asylum
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The Oregon State Insane Asylum was opened in Salem on October 23, 1883, and is one of the oldest continuously operated mental hospitals on the West Coast. In 1913, the name was changed to the Oregon State Hospital (OSH). The history of OSH parallels the development and growth in psychiatric knowledge throughout the United States. Oregon was active in the field of electroshock treatments, lobotomies, and eugenics. At one point, in 1959, there were...
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Throughout its history, Byram Township has thrived upon its rich natural resources. Farmers worked its fertile soil and industrialists exploited the area's rolling hills--thickly forested and full of iron ore--long before Pennsylvania became the capital of the United States steel industry. Byram Township, however, is perhaps best known for its many lakes and ponds, which have spurred the community's industries, transportation, and recreation. During...
71) Leesburg
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Once serving as the capital of the United States for three days, the town of Leesburg, Virginia stands at the crossroads of American history. As a rural hinterland of the Washington, D.C. area and situated on the northern fringe of the old Confederacy, Leesburg has seen troops and generals, travelers and settlers, and politicians and presidents walk its streets, and opposing political views tear its population apart. Unity and patriotism returned...
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For over 200 years, Northern Virginia has enjoyed a respected reputation for its equestrian heritage. The present-day home of horse museums and libraries, as well as breeding, sports, and shows of all sort, Northern Virginia truly is "hunt country." Northern Virginia's Equestrian Heritage showcases the area's early hunting history and offers a singular glimpse into the past glory days of fox hunts, hound-breeding, horse races, and horse shows. Beautiful...
73) Love Canal
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Love Canal originated in 1894 as part of William T. Love's dream to build a model city and power canal. The neighborhood emerged in the 1970s as an environmental nightmare and harbinger of the worldwide hazardous waste crisis. Photographs in Love Canal tell the story of the community's early development and the subsequent use of the canal by Hooker Electrochemical Company to discard industrial chemical waste from 1942 to 1953. In the late 1970s, the...
74) Fort Dix
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Fort Dodge was founded in 1850 as a military post to police the Iowa frontier. A subsequent land boom created fortunes that were reinvested in the local economy. The town soon earned the nickname "Mineral City" because of the extensive deposits of coal, gypsum, limestone, and clay. By 1900, the city was a rail center and the world's largest producer of gypsum products. With a highly diversified economy, the city prospered and by World War I was able...
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The state of Texas, home to one of the largest prison systems in the country, opened its first penitentiary in 1849. The Walls Unit in Huntsville was the genesis of a prison system that became the home of notorious convicts and the focus of much debate about incarceration and the death penalty in the United States. The Walls Unit housed gunslinger John Wesley Hardin, members of the Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker gang, and infamous drug cartel leader...
76) Perry County
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Perry County has been a major player in the history of Alabama. Native Americans lived and hunted on its land, and it became a county before Alabama gained statehood. Early citizens chose to name it for Oliver Hazard Perry, a hero of the War of 1812. The people of Perry County have played major roles over the years, which include the following: one married Sam Houston; one served as Alabama's first governor during the Civil War; one designed the Confederate...
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The New Mexico Mounted Police were forged from a frontier civil crisis and hammered to life upon the anvil of necessity. The Sunshine Territory of New Mexico had become the last outlaw haven in the Southwest. In the tradition of their red-coated namesake, the Northwest Mounted Police of Canada, this small band of range riders used their fists, guns, and brains to restore law and order during the closing years of New Mexico's territorial era. They...
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Across New Jersey, thousands of men have entered through the doors of Masonic Lodge buildings, also known as "temples," over the fraternity's more than 250-year history in the Garden State. These buildings, from humble meeting spaces to elaborate single-purpose centers, stand tribute to the memory and influence of one of the oldest fraternities in the world, founded on the tenets of faith, hope, and charity. From governors and US Supreme Court justices...
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Pend Oreille County is located in the beautiful, mountainous northeast corner of Washington State. It is approximately 67 miles long and 22 miles wide, with the Pend Oreille River flowing north through a trench valley and bounded on each side by the Selkirk Mountains. In 1911, it was the last county to be established in the state. Its exuberant history gives glimpses of the early days of the Kalispel Indian tribe, the arrival of the Hudson Bay Company...
80) Lenox
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As he rode through mid-19th-century Lenox, Massachusetts, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, "Perfect almost to a miracle." Founded in 1767, Lenox had sent Gen. John Paterson riding to the Revolutionary War 75 years earlier. Named the Shire Town because of its central Berkshires location, Lenox was home to the county courts. In the east, the center of a bustling glassworks and ironworks industry was situated by the Housatonic River. In the west, rolling...