Kentucky's 120 Counties: A Postcard Album (1900-1925) gives viewers a front-row seat into the past that enables them to see, for the first time, people, places, and events during a remarkable period in the state's history. Patrons purchased postcards at local drugstores, dry goods establishments, and country stores to catch a glimpse of their hometowns in postcard format. Postcards also portrayed neighboring communities, rural scenes, and people engaging in both work and play. In a time before photojournalism, postcards provided something that newspapers of the time could not; postcards put a face on the news and on the world itself.A 1908 postcard of William Jennings Bryan speaking in Lebanon, Kentucky, sold like hotcakes. In Leitchfield, a local photographer took his camera to the Grayson County Fair and leaned over the rail to capture an electrifying image of a jockey on his horse, barreling down the track with a whip between his teeth.Such spectacular moments and glimpses of everyday life form the heart of this book. Some images provide the only visual records of early communities and their railroad depots, grist mills, country stores, and churches. Other photos depict anglers fishing for "green bass" in Kinniconick, grandiose hotels erected beside rural springs, a man hunting quail in Salem, and converts being baptized in the flood waters of the Ohio River.This book is a panoramic view of the Bluegrass State and America in the early 1900s. Look into the lives and the eyes of the people, and you might just see your own hopes, dreams, failures, and successes come into focus.

Dedicated exclusively to the oldest town in Kentucky, Postcard History Series: Harrodsburg and Mercer County presents what Fort Harrod looked like when it was established in 1775. High Bridge, spanning the Kentucky River between Mercer and Jessamine Counties and only miles from Shakertown, was an engineering wonder of its age. As the highest railroad bridge in the world at the time, it was the subject of hundreds of postcards. Summer visitors came from all over the country to enjoy Harrodsburg's Graham Springs Resort, known as the "Saratoga of the West." Views of nearby Dix Dam and Herrington Lake were made into postcards for vacationers to send to their friends and family.

The Louisville & Nashville Railroad (L&N) was incorporated in 1850 to build a rail line from Louisville, Kentucky, south to Nashville, Tennessee. The railroad was completed in 1861 just in time for the Civil War. L&N, unlike most southern lines, thanks to providing transportation for the Federal Army during the Civil War, survived the war with money available for expansion. Thus L&N acquired a number of southern railroads that would provide the L&N with track extending south from Louisville to Pensacola, Florida; Mobile, Alabama; and New Orleans, Louisiana. L&N's Kentucky track was served by fifteen yards: Madisonville, Owensboro (Doyle), Bowling Green, Skilman, Louisville (Strawberry), Latonia, DeCoursey, Paris, Lexington, Winchester (Patio), Corbin, Ravenna, Hazard (Crawford), Loyall, and Harlan. Within the following pages we will journey over the L&N in Kentucky via postcards, but our journey routes will not always follow direct L&N train routing.

Chesapeake & Ohio Railway in Kentucky, as seen in postcards

The Ohio River is not only a river of scenery and beauty, but also one of opportunity. It is a river of journey and exploration; a river of dreams, both personal and private; a river of commerce and enterprise. It is also a river of floods and destruction. Along the Ohio River: Cincinnati to Louisville journeys down this dynamic river. The postcard images show many riverfront scenes, from the cities along the way to excursion steamboats, river scenery, and the river at work.

Western Kentucky in Vintage Postcards guides residents, visitors, and history buffs alike on a virtual driving tour through Kentucky's westernmost counties to enjoy its rich history and natural beauty. Readers will discover why this is perhaps the most diverse region in the Bluegrass State with its many different geographical areas-flat lands to rolling hills and coal fields to miles of lakes. The scenic journey begins in Hopkinsville, meanders north through Madisonville to Henderson, and continues west to the Mississippi River, with stops in Murray, Mayfield, Paducah, and several small towns. Vintage postcards culled from a variety of sources highlight those things that are uniquely Western Kentucky: tobacco fields, coal mines, Confederate president Jefferson Davis, Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley, farming, historical buildings and sites, floods, and dams.

From the 1890s through the 1920s, the postcard was an extraordinarily popular means of communication, and many of the postcards produced during this "golden age" can today be considered works of art. Postcard photographers traveled the length and breadth of the nation snapping photographs of busy street scenes, documenting local landmarks, and assembling crowds of local children only too happy to pose for a picture. These images, printed as postcards and sold in general stores across the country, survive as telling reminders of an important era in America's history.