The village of Norris was founded by Isaac Norris, a Quaker merchant and mayor of Philadelphia, and his family in 1704. More than a century later, on March 31, 1812, Norristown was officially incorporated as a Pennsylvania state borough, and it was the first borough to be incorporated in Montgomery County. Laid out along the banks of the Schuylkill River, both business and the community prospered. Over the years, the area has attracted business and visitors alike, including a visit in 1960 from John F. Kennedy. Norristown offers a delightful flashback to the fascinating history of this community through vintage photographs from area residents and organizations.

In 1950, the classic American downtown of Norristown, Pennsylvania, centered on the six blocks of Main Street, was the bustling commercial heart of central Montgomery County, and had been for over a century. With depression and war in the past, downtown merchants looked forward to an extended period of prosperity. It was not to be. By 1975, downtown's core stood largely shuttered and deteriorating, with 99 storefronts vacant and countless others lost to the wrecking ball, as first shoppers and then the merchants fled Main Street. What Killed Downtown? Was it... The Malls? Commercial wisdom points to the King of Prussia Mall as the prime suspect. But were there accomplices? Municipal Government? The Main Street merchants always believed that the Borough Council was the culprit--and with good reason. The Downtown Merchants themselves? Did the shopholders blind themselves, then step into the firing line, ignoring the threats of a changing world? Or was it something else...something more fundamental? Historian Michael E. Tolle's extensive research into the collapse of downtown Norristown reveals not only the answers to these questions, but also recreates the classic American downtown shopping experience, long an American characteristic, but now largely foreign to anyone below middle age. In so doing, Tolle lays bare the fundamental incompatibility between the urban grid and the automobile, as he recounts how a middle-sized American city struggled -- and failed -- to solve the the issues of traffic flow and parking, issues that are no closer to solution today, regardless of the size of the city.

Olympians, soldiers and abolitionists have all hailed from the bustling shores of Norristown, Pennsylvania. Beginning as a modest seventeenth-century settlement along the hidden river, it became an industrial boomtown and attracted waves of immigrants to its forges, railways and mills. Local journalist Stan Huskey brings together lively vignettes and fascinating firsthand accounts to introduce such characters as Union general Winfield S. Hancock, hero of Gettysburg, and baseball greats Tommy Lasorda and Mike Piazza. From tales of calamitous train wrecks to the bygone era of streetcars, Huskey brings readers back to the glow of the hometown lights.

Contributors: William L. Calderhead, Lawrence J. Cross, S. J., William Dorfman, George H. Huganir, Jr., Francis A. J. lanni, Michael Lalli, Anne S. Lee, Kurt B. Mayer, Simon D. Messing, Gladys L. Palmer, Harold I. Sharlin, James H. Soltow, Robert C. Toole.

Have you ever wondered what ordinary people went through during important times in our history? Would you like to know the thoughts of the Lenape Indians, the Quakers, or the Irish immigrants? Can you imagine the problems during Washington's encampment at Valley Forge, the Civil War, the Underground Railroad, the two World Wars, the flu epidemic, the Vietnam war, the rebellious Sixties? Follow the people and their dreams during very different times in the town of Norristown and the U.S.