Rails Through the Wiregrass

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 250 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Rails Through the Wiregrass by : H. Roger Grant

Download or read book Rails Through the Wiregrass written by H. Roger Grant and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Georgia & Florida Railroad began with bright promise, but like many other enterprises in the early twentieth-century South, it experienced hard times. The story begins in 1906, when--responding to a perceived need for better connections to northern markets--a group of entrepreneurs led by prominent Virginia banker John Skelton Williams began to cobble together logging short lines to create more than 350 miles of railroad connecting Augusta, Georgia, with Madison, Florida. At first the G&F triggered growth in its region as several new towns sprang up or expanded along its lines. By 1915, however, the economic dislocations caused by World War I threw the G&F into receivership, and a few years later the G&F came close to dismemberment. Fortunately, shippers and investors rallied to the railroad's cause, and business conditions improved. In 1926 the road was reorganized and, under pressure to "expand or die," built to Greenwood, South Carolina. The Great Depression forced the G&F into bankruptcy, and after its record-length receivership, it was acquired by the Southern Railway in 1963. When the Southern Railway dissolved the corporation and abandoned much of the former trackage, the G&F became the "Gone & Forgotten." Yet in its 57-year lifespan the G&F did much to bring about agricultural diversification and relative prosperity in the wiregrass region of southern Georgia and northern Florida. Offering insights on social and economic conditions in the South from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, Grant's study of this obscure yet noteworthy railroad will appeal to those interested in transportation, business, railroad, and Southern regional history.

The New South Comes to Wiregrass Georgia, 1860-1910

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Publisher : Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN 13 : 9781572331686
Total Pages : 420 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (316 download)

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Book Synopsis The New South Comes to Wiregrass Georgia, 1860-1910 by : Mark V. Wetherington

Download or read book The New South Comes to Wiregrass Georgia, 1860-1910 written by Mark V. Wetherington and published by Univ. of Tennessee Press. This book was released on 2002-05 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This examination of cultural change challenges the conventional view of the Georgia Pine Belt as an unchanging economic backwater. Its postbellum economy evolves from self-sufficiency to being largely dependent upon cotton. Before the Civil War, the Piney Woods easily supported a population of mostly yeomen farmers and livestock herders. After the war, a variety of external forces, spearheaded by Reconstruction-era New South boosters, invaded the region, permanently altering the social, political, and economic landscape in an attempt to create a South with a diversified economy. The first stage in the transformation -- railroad construction and a revival of steamboating -- led to the second stage: sawmilling and turpentining. The harvest of forest products during the 1870s and 1880s created new economic opportunities but left the area dependent upon a single industry that brought deforestation and the decline of the open-range system within a generation.

Twilight Rails

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Publisher : U of Minnesota Press
ISBN 13 : 0816665621
Total Pages : 293 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (166 download)

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Book Synopsis Twilight Rails by : H. Roger Grant

Download or read book Twilight Rails written by H. Roger Grant and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the start of the twentieth century railroads crisscrossed the nation, yet there were still those who believed that the railroad network in the United States was far from complete. Residents of small towns lacking rail access lobbied hard for steam and electric roads to serve their communities, and investors eagerly started new ventures that would fill the gaps in the railway map. While some of these roads enjoyed a degree of success, most of them were financial flops even before the rise of the highway system made them obsolete.In Twilight Rails, H. Roger Grant—one of the leading railroad historians working today—documents the stories of eight Midwestern carriers that appeared at the end of the railroad building craze. When historians have reflected on these “twilight” carriers, they have suggested that they were relevant only as examples of unwise business ventures. Grant finds that even the weakest railroads were important to the communities they served; the arrival of the railroad was cause for great celebration as residents were finally connected to the outside world. A railroad’s construction pumped money into local economies, farmers and manufacturers gained access to better markets, and the excitement generated by a new line often increased land values and inspired expansion of local businesses. Even the least financially successful carriers, Grant argues, managed to significantly improve their local economies.This thorough and highly accessible history provides a fascinating look at the motivations, accomplishments, and failures of the twilight carriers, granting a new breath of life to this neglected aspect of American railway history.

"Follow the Flag"

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Publisher : Northern Illinois University Press
ISBN 13 : 1501747797
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis "Follow the Flag" by : H. Roger Grant

Download or read book "Follow the Flag" written by H. Roger Grant and published by Northern Illinois University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Follow the Flag" offers the first authoritative history of the Wabash Railroad Company, a once vital interregional carrier. The corporate saga of the Wabash involved the efforts of strong-willed and creative leaders, but this book provides more than traditional business history. Noted transportation historian H. Roger Grant captures the human side of the Wabash, ranging from the medical doctors who created an effective hospital department to the worker-sponsored social events. And Grant has not ignored the impact the Wabash had on businesses and communities in the "Heart of America." Like most major American carriers, the Wabash grew out of an assortment of small firms, including the first railroad to operate in Illinois, the Northern Cross. Thanks in part to the genius of financier Jay Gould, by the early 1880s what was then known as the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway reached the principal gateways of Chicago, Des Moines, Detroit, Kansas City, and St. Louis. In the 1890s, the Wabash gained access to Buffalo and direct connections to Boston and New York City. One extension, spearheaded by Gould's eldest son, George, fizzled. In 1904 entry into Pittsburgh caused financial turmoil, ultimately throwing the Wabash into receivership. A subsequent reorganization allowed the Wabash to become an important carrier during the go-go years of the 1920s and permitted the company to take control of a strategic "bridge" property, the Ann Arbor Railroad. The Great Depression forced the company into another receivership, but an effective reorganization during the early days of World War II gave rise to a generally robust road. Its famed Blue Bird streamliner, introduced in 1950 between Chicago and St. Louis, became a widely recognized symbol of the "New Wabash." When "merger madness" swept the railroad industry in the 1960s, the Wabash, along with the Nickel Plate Road, joined the prosperous Norfolk & Western Railway, a merger that worked well for all three carriers. Immortalized in the popular folk song "Wabash Cannonball," the midwestern railroad has left important legacies. Today, forty years after becoming a "fallen flag" carrier, key components of the former Wabash remain busy rail arteries and terminals, attesting to its historic value to American transportation.

Railroads and the American People

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Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253006333
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (53 download)

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Book Synopsis Railroads and the American People by : H. Roger Grant

Download or read book Railroads and the American People written by H. Roger Grant and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-17 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Railroads and the American People is a sparkling paean to American railroading by one of its finest historians.

A Journey into Florida Railroad History

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Publisher : University Press of Florida
ISBN 13 : 0813042925
Total Pages : 393 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis A Journey into Florida Railroad History by : Gregg M. Turner

Download or read book A Journey into Florida Railroad History written by Gregg M. Turner and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2012-03-25 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is safe to say that without railroads, Florida wouldn't be what it is today. Railroads connected the state's important cities and towns, conquered the peninsula's vast and seemingly impenetrable interior, ushered in untold numbers of settlers and tourists, and conveyed to market--faster than any previous means of transportation--the myriad products of Florida's mines, forests, factories, farms, and groves. Gregg Turner traces the long, slow development of Florida railroads, from the first tentative lines in the 1830s, through the boom of the 1880s, to the maturity of the railroad system in the 1920s. At the end of that decade nearly 6,000 miles of labyrinthine track covered the state. Turner also examines the decline of the industry, as the automobile rose to prominence in American culture and lines were abandoned or sold for hiking trails and green spaces. Meticulously researched and richly illustrated--including many never-before-published images--A Journey into Florida Railroad History is a comprehensive, authoritative history of the subject. Written by one of the nation's foremost authorities on Florida railroads, it explores all the key players and companies, and every significant period of development. This engaging and lively story will be savored and enjoyed by generations to come.

Birdscapes

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.E/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Birdscapes by :

Download or read book Birdscapes written by and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Corn Belt Route

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Publisher : Railroads in America
ISBN 13 : 9780875800950
Total Pages : 231 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis The Corn Belt Route by : H. Roger Grant

Download or read book The Corn Belt Route written by H. Roger Grant and published by Railroads in America. This book was released on 1984 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Chicago Great Western Railroad was a spunky midwestern carrier that contributed mightily to the transportation industry. The 1,500-mile CGW, built by the iconoclastic and ambitious A. B. Stickney, proved to be exceptionally innovative as it developed new ways to compete with larger railroads. Pitted against tough, determined competitors, the CGW during its eighty-five years made innovations that changed the history of American transportation. Among the pioneering activities for which the Great Western is remembered are the early use of internal combustion equipment, the hauling of truck trailers atop flatcars ("piggy-backs"), and the use of extremely long freight trains. Indeed, much of the railroad's past supports the notion that smaller, less-established carriers like the CGW frequently stimulated changes in industry thinking and practices. In spite of its innovations, the path of the Great Western, sometimes called the "Great Weedy," did not always run smoothly. In the 1930s, John W. Barriger III quipped, "The Chicago Great Western is a mountain railroad in a prairie country serving a traffic vacuum." Such a negative assessment was not uncommon for this Granger pike, which in fact climbed some steep grades and owned a long tunnel. And while the road did not operate in a "traffic vacuum," its competitors were well entrenched and robust. By 1903, the CGW served the strategic gateways of Chicago, Kansas City, Minneapolis-St. Paul, St. Joseph, and Omaha. Between Chicago and the Twin Cities alone, the company competed with six other roads. When the Chicago & North Western acquired the Great Western in 1968, one of America's most imaginative railroads disappeared. The Corn Belt Route is the first scholarly treatment of the Chicago Great Western Railroad, a company that has long intrigued the railfan, whether collector, modeler, photographer, or historian. Richly illustrated, this book tells the lively story of one of the great small railroads that once served the Midwest.

John W. Barriger III

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Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253032903
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (53 download)

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Book Synopsis John W. Barriger III by : H. Roger Grant

Download or read book John W. Barriger III written by H. Roger Grant and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-14 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Readers will find in his biography an extraordinary tale of the travails of twentieth-century railroading through the career of this one man.” —The Annals of Iowa After graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, John W. Barriger III (1899–1976) started his career on the Pennsylvania Railroad as a rodman, shop hand, and then assistant yardmaster. His enthusiasm, tenacity, and lifelong passion for the industry propelled him professionally, culminating in leadership roles at Monon Railroad, Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad and the Boston and Maine Railroad. His legendary capability to save railroad corporations in peril earned him the nickname “doctor of sick railroads,” and his impact was also felt far from the train tracks, as he successfully guided New Deal relief efforts for the Railroad Division of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation during the Depression and served in the Office of Defense Transportation during World War II. Featuring numerous personal photographs and interviews, John W. Barriger III is an intimate account of a railroad magnate and his role in transforming the transportation industry. “Thanks to Roger Grant’s latest book, Barriger and his amazing legacy endures, waiting to be rediscovered by a new generation of readers. Trust me, you’ll learn a lot.” —Classic Trains “H. Roger Grant’s biography, John W. Barriger III, offers a new and much needed perspective on this prominent individual. Grant brings together an overview of Barriger’s career developments with an appropriate balance of insights into his early life and introduction to railroads.” —Journal of Transport History

The Green Hornet Street Car Disaster

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Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 1609090586
Total Pages : 137 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis The Green Hornet Street Car Disaster by : Craig Allen Cleve

Download or read book The Green Hornet Street Car Disaster written by Craig Allen Cleve and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2012-06-15 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As rush hour came to a close on the evening of May 25, 1950, one of Chicago's new fast, colorful, streamlined streetcars—known as a Green Hornet—slammed into a gas truck at State Street and 62nd Place. The Hornet's motorman allegedly failed to heed the warnings of a flagger attempting to route it around a flooded underpass, and the trolley, packed with commuters on their way home, barreled into eight thousand gallons of gasoline. The gas erupted into flames, poured onto State Street, and quickly engulfed the Hornet, shooting flames two hundred and fifty feet into the air. More than half of the passengers escaped the inferno through the rear window, but thirty-three others perished, trapped in front of the streetcar's back door, which failed to stay open in the ensuing panic. It was Chicago's worst traffic accident ever—and the worst two-vehicle traffic accident in US history. Unearthing a forgotten chapter in Chicago lore, The Green Hornet Streetcar Disaster tells the riveting tale of this calamity. Combing through newspaper accounts as well as the Chicago Transit Authority's official archives, Craig Cleve vividly brings to life this horrific catastrophe. Going beyond the historical record, he tracks down individuals who were present on that fateful day on State and 62nd: eyewitnesses, journalists, even survivors whose lives were forever changed by the accident. Weaving these sources together, Cleve reveals the remarkable combination of natural events, human error, and mechanical failure that led to the disaster, and this moving history recounts them—as well as the conflagration's human drama—in gripping detail.

Field & Stream

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 476 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Field & Stream by :

Download or read book Field & Stream written by and published by . This book was released on with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: FIELD & STREAM, America’s largest outdoor sports magazine, celebrates the outdoor experience with great stories, compelling photography, and sound advice while honoring the traditions hunters and fishermen have passed down for generations.

The Chicago & Alton Railroad

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780875802879
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (28 download)

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Book Synopsis The Chicago & Alton Railroad by : Gene V. Glendinning

Download or read book The Chicago & Alton Railroad written by Gene V. Glendinning and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first railroad to connect the Mississippi River with the Great Lakes, the Chicago & Alton Railroad played a key role in the economic development of the Midwest. From humble beginnings in 1847 as transport for farm produce, it grew to link three key midwestern cities--Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City--and set the standard for efficient service and luxurious passenger travel. Such famous personages as Abraham Lincoln, Marshall Field, Timothy Blackstone, and Samuel Insull were associated with the Chicago & Alton. Lincoln had been among the first to buy stock in the company, and the Chicago & Alton carried his funeral train on the last leg of its journey to Springfield, Illinois. The introduction of George Pullman's first sleeping and dining cars enhanced the Chicago & Alton's reputation for elegant style and comfort. The company initiated a number of innovations in rail travel, including the installation of the first steel railroad bridge. It was also the first to bring streamliners and diesels into the highly competitive Chicago-St. Louis corridor. Events that shaped America, from the Civil War to World War II, impacted the Chicago & Alton. During the tumultuous years of its business expansion, frequent shifts of power threatened to destroy the railroad. Edward Harriman, for example, rebuilt and reequipped the Chicago & Alton only to lose it in one of his few mistakes. The federal government later seized control during one of the Chicago & Alton's weakest periods, but relinquished it after a devastating coal strike. Even criminal manipulations of the railroad's stock and bonds by a New york financier played a role in the company's turbulent history. Illustrated with eighty photographs, many of them never before published, The Chicago & Alton Railroad is the first complete history of one of America's most famous small railroads.

John Brown to Bob Dole

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Publisher : University Press of Kansas
ISBN 13 : 070061723X
Total Pages : 424 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (6 download)

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Book Synopsis John Brown to Bob Dole by : Virgil W. Dean

Download or read book John Brown to Bob Dole written by Virgil W. Dean and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2006-01-29 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From radical abolitionist John Brown to presidential candidate Bob Dole to visionary environmentalist Wes Jackson, Kansas history is bursting with fascinating stories of individuals who made a difference to the nation and whose lives reveal much about our collective past. Prominent Kansas historian Virgil Dean has gathered a distinguished team of writers-Thomas Isern, Craig Miner, and others-who have crafted incisive portraits of 27 notable men and women, covering 150 years of Kansas and American history. Here are agitators who moved their fellow citizens to action over political, social, and economic problems: not only John Brown, but also proslavery agitator William H. Russell; Mary Elizabeth Lease, lecturer for the Farmers' Alliance and Populist Party; Gerald B. Winrod, a.k.a. the "Jayhawk Hitler"; and Esther Brown, who challenged segregation in public schools. Here, too, are motivators, like women's rights activist Clarina I. H. Nichols; William Allen White, the "Sage of Emporia"; and favorite sons Dwight D. Eisenhower and Bob Dole. Then there are the innovators, from trailblazers like Joseph G. McCoy, who changed the face of the cattle industry, and wheat king Theodore C. Henry to Wes Jackson, a pioneer in the sustainable agriculture movement, and the multitalented Gordon Parks, photographer, filmmaker, and author of The Learning Tree. Reformers and preachers, publishers and artists, these fascinating personalities are brought vividly back to life by Dean and his fellow authors. They offer a fresh and engaging look at many of the important themes of Kansas history-especially the state's identification with some of the great radical movements, including abolitionism, populism, and civil rights--and ultimately recapture the true spirit of Kansas and its meaning for the rest of the nation.

The Riggs War, 1913 to 1916

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Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1683930770
Total Pages : 295 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (839 download)

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Book Synopsis The Riggs War, 1913 to 1916 by : Paul Ryscavage

Download or read book The Riggs War, 1913 to 1916 written by Paul Ryscavage and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-08-25 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson opened the nation’s door to an era of reform. To help him, he brought to Washington men imbued with a progressive spirit—and in some, grudges as well! Before work on reforms got underway, two high ranking officials of the Treasury Department attacked a local bank over its banking practices. The bank officers had close ties to Wall Street; the Treasury officials were no friends of Wall Street (with scars to prove it). Aggressive bank examinations, hostile interviews, and accusatory letters ensued, eventually resulting in the bank filing an injunction against the government. But after an acrimonious court hearing, the injunction appeared to have failed. Indeed, a grand jury indicted the bank officers of perjury. In 1916, a three-week criminal trial of the bankers took place in which former Presidents Taft and Roosevelt appeared on behalf of the bankers. It was a cause celebre in the nation’s capital and much of the country. When the verdict was reached it was clear “bad blood” had been spilled everywhere—and this nasty, little war had been more than just about reform.

Making Catfish Bait Out of Government Boys

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Publisher : University of Georgia Press
ISBN 13 : 0820336440
Total Pages : 324 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (23 download)

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Book Synopsis Making Catfish Bait Out of Government Boys by : Claire Strom

Download or read book Making Catfish Bait Out of Government Boys written by Claire Strom and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This first full-length study of the cattle tick eradication program in the United States offers a new perspective on the fate of the yeomanry in the twentieth-century South during a period when state and federal governments were both increasing and centralizing their authority. As Claire Strom relates the power struggles that complicated efforts to wipe out the Boophilus tick, she explains the motivations and concerns of each group involved, including large- and small-scale cattle farmers, scientists, and officials at all levels of government. In the remote rural South--such as the piney woods of south Georgia and north Florida--resistance to mandatory treatment of cattle was unusually strong and sometimes violent. Cattle often ranged free, and their owners raised them mostly for local use rather than faraway markets. Cattle farmers in such areas, shows Strom, perceived a double threat in tick eradication mandates. In addition to their added costs, eradication schemes, with their top-down imposition of government expertise, were anathema to the yeomanry’s notions of liberty. Strom contextualizes her southern focus within the national scale of the cattle industry, discussing, for instance, the contentious place of cattle drives in American agricultural history. Because Mexico was the primary source of potential tick reinfestation, Strom examines the political and environmental history of the Rio Grande, giving the book a transnational perspective. Debates about the political and economic culture of small farmers have tended to focus on earlier periods in American history. Here Strom shows that pockets of yeoman culture survived into the twentieth century and that these communities had the power to block (if only temporarily) the expansion of the American state.

Railroad History

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 556 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Railroad History by :

Download or read book Railroad History written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Rail-Trails Southeast

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Publisher : Wilderness Press
ISBN 13 : 164359107X
Total Pages : 426 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (435 download)

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Book Synopsis Rail-Trails Southeast by : Rails to Trails Conservancy

Download or read book Rail-Trails Southeast written by Rails to Trails Conservancy and published by Wilderness Press. This book was released on 2024-06-04 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explore 79 of the best rail-trails and other multiuse pathways in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. All across the country, unused railroad corridors have been converted into public multiuse trails. Level and accessible, these paths are ideal for a brisk fitness walk, bike ride, or stroll with the family. In Rail-Trails Southeast, the experts from Rails to Trails Conservancy present the best of these routes, as well as other multiuse pathways, in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Many rail-trails are paved and run within view of the most scenic parts of town. Others offer rugged scenery on ungroomed, mostly dirt, and somewhat wild paths. Explore the Hugh S. Branyon Backcountry Trail in Alabama, voted “Best Recreational Trail” in the country in a USA Today poll. Take in a beautiful blend of nature and art along the famed Atlanta Beltline in Georgia. In the Carolinas, enjoy coastal beaches, hickory forests, abundant farmland, and more on segments of the East Coast Greenway; or travel from the Great Smoky Mountains to the Outer Banks along North Carolina’s Mountains-to-Sea Trail. Whether you’re on feet or wheels, you’ll love the variety in this collection of multiuse trails that total hundreds of miles! Inside you’ll find: Informative descriptions written by rail-trail experts Detailed maps for every featured trail GPS coordinates of parking waypoints Icons indicating the activities that each trail accommodates Information you can rely on from the official guide to rail-trails “You can now throw away all your self-help books on fighting depression, losing weight, toning muscles, finding something to do with your kids, and learning American history. Just use this guide, find a great trail—and enjoy!” —Peter Harnik, Director, Center for City Park Excellence, Trust for Public Land