In the years following World War II, Tampa Bay's barrier island beaches were transformed from a sparsely populated strip to a booming vacation destination. Following the war's end, fond memories of beachside training exercises amid sand and sea attracted thousands of former G.I.s and their families to the area for vacation. This sudden outbreak of tourism caught the attention of developers, who quickly converted the lonely stretches of beach into a vacationer's paradise, complete with snazzy motels offering the latest amenities. Once home to fishermen and well-to-do winter vacationers, the area's gulf beaches became a popular getaway for newly prosperous middle-class families, anxious to put war-weary years behind them.
Florida in the late 1800s was a paradise waiting to be discovered. During this period, two visionary tycoons of the Gilded Age set out on separate ventures that would transform the Sunshine State from Americas last frontier into a destination for the rich and famous. The grand hotels that Henry M. Flagler and Henry B. Plant opened at their planned resort sites offered a fantasy stay surrounded by all the accoutrements expected by sophisticated, Gilded Age patrons. Floridas Grand Hotels from the Gilded Age provides a look at these magnificent structures during their glory years, along with the fashionable entertainment and social and recreational pastimes that engaged their gilded guests.
Indian Rocks Beach, Florida has a grand history. Join authors Authors Wayne and Nancy Ayers and Jan Ockunzzi as they uncover its legendary past. According to legend, Indian Rocks got its name when Tocobaga Indians brought their ailing chief from inland Florida to drink from the area's sulfur springs, prized for their medicinal qualities. Their leader miraculously recovered, as the story goes, and the tribe returned each year to the place where large rocks surrounded the healing spring. The natural beauty of the barrier island that became Indian Rocks Beach was what attracted Harvey Hendrick to establish his homestead here in the mid-1890s. Years later, he recalled, "I liked the place, I thought it was the most beautiful place on God's green footstool, and I think so yet." The charm and character of this little seaside community is evident in these historic photographs, from the days when the old swing bridge was the center of activity, to the booming post-World War II era when tourists and residents proclaimed Indian Rocks Beach as their special place.
Ohio's Lake Erie Shore began to blossom as a resort area in the mid 1800s, and came into full bloom around the turn of the century when the prospering steamboat navigation industry started to bring thousands of tourists to Put-in-Bay, Cedar Point, and the spiritual retreats at Lakeside on Marblehead.
It was the dawn of the 20th century, and Cleveland, Ohio, the nation's sixth largest city, was on a roll. Featuring a magnificent downtown with skyscrapers and classic public buildings, a waterfront bristling with shipping, cruises, and industry, thriving neighborhoods of millionaire mansions and suburban bungalows, fine parks linked by scenic boulevards, and unrivaled cultural institutions, this powerhouse city was in the midst of its genesis. Balancing this forward growth were the towns of the Western Reserve, which retained their distinctive New England character and provided a peaceful contrast to the vigorous city that was expanding daily.
The pace of redevelopment has accelerated in recent years along Tampa Bays gulf beaches, leaving tourists and residents alike in awe. This volume provides a glimpse at the beaches as they were and as they are today, and opens a whole new window to view the development that both enhances and threatens the barrier islands. Author R. Wayne Ayers and photographer Nancy Ayers, residents of Belleair Beach, are actively involved in chronicling and preserving the areas past.
Tampa Bay's Gulf Beaches follows the fascinating development of the beach strip along the Gulf of Mexico, from Pass-a-Grille to Clearwater Beach, from its early settlement in the late 1800s until its blossoming as a tourist haven after World War II. This famous beach strip is the pride of residents and a premier destination for beach lovers worldwide with its miles of white sand and glorious sunsets. History shows that just a century ago the strip was largely a vast wilderness visited primarily by fishermen and a few adventurous bathers and sightseers. Over the years, curiosity gradually gave way to an abiding affinity for these beautiful beaches and towns that sprang up along the shore. Through vintage postcards and photos, a diverse group of people and places are shown as they actually appeared-sportsmen and their "catches;" bathers whose attire evolved from bloomers and formal dress to one-piece bathing suits; the early "swing" and rickety wooden bridges; rustic frame hotels giving way to modern motels; the "downtown" areas of Indian Rocks Beach, Pass-a-Grille, Madeira Beach, and Clearwater Beach; plus casinos, bathhouses, waterslides, a Grand Hotel, and much more.
A handbook for Christian fathers who are ready to get more involved in their family's spiritual life. Charles Sell writes power-filled practical chapters that encourage and instruct men how to be better fathers. Timothy Ayers, an accomplished cartoonist, provides lots of fun illustrations for Power Dads.
Police detective Jude Cameron must find the murderer of his mentor. But the evidence seems too obvious, too easy. With the help of messages his Alzheimer's-stricken mother says she relays from the long-dead King Solomon, Jude discovers a trail of mysterious clues that point to a plot that will shake the country to its core'and has already put seasoned assassins on his trail.
Beginning early in the 19th century, the American missionary movement made slow headway in China. Alabamians became part of that small beachhead. After 1900 both the money and personnel rapidly expanded, peaking in the early 1920s. By the 1930s many American denominations became confused and divided over the appropriateness of the missionary endeavor. Secular American intellectuals began to criticize missionaries as meddling do-gooders trying to impose American Evangelicalism on a proud, ancient culture. By examining the lives of 47 Alabama missionaries who served in China between 1850 and 1950, Flynt and Berkley reach a different conclusion. Although Alabama missionaries initially fit the negative description of Americans trying to superimpose their own values and beliefs on "heathen," they quickly learned to respect Chinese civilization. The result was a new synthesis, neither entirely southern nor entirely Chinese. Although previous works focus on the failure of Christianity to change China, this book focuses on the degree to which their service in China changed Alabama missionaries. And the change was profound. In their consideration of 47 missionaries from a single state--their call to missions, preparation for service in China, living, working, contacts back home, cultural clashes, political views, internal conflicts, and gender relations--the authors suggest that the efforts by Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian missionaries from Alabama were not the failure judged by many historians. In fact, the seeds sown in the hundred years before the Communist revolution in 1950 seem to be reaping a rich harvest in the declining years of the 20th century, when the number of Chinese Christians is estimated by some to be as high as one hundred million.
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