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. This fascinating new history of Muncie, Indiana, showcases more than two hundred of the best vintage postcards available.

The land now called St. Joseph County was familiar ground to Native Americans long before recorded history. Many Indians, including the local Potawatomie and Miami, trod the well-worn path that offered a two-mile portage between the St. Joseph River (and Lake Michigan) to the Kankakee River and eventually the Mississippi River. Pierre F. Navarre built a log cabin beside the St. Joseph River in 1820, and began a settlement that would eventually become South Bend and Mishawaka in St. Joseph County. The over 200 vintage images in this book, drawn from St. Joseph County and Mishawaka as well as South Bend, look back at the commerce, industry, and businesses like Studebaker, Ball Band, Singer, and Bendix, which grew on the rich resources of the area. Education was a high priority for early settlers, and they established one-room schoolhouses and Notre Dame University. The photographs show public places, buildings, and servants, some long gone, others that are still with us today. And of course, there are pictures of the people, the homes they built, and the activities they enjoyed in their northern Indiana home.

Through photographs of depots, freight houses, and other railroad structures, long demolished yet an integral part of community development, "Railroad Depots of Northern Indiana" reviews the history of the cities and towns that used the rail to transport raw materials and finished manufactured products across the state.

During the first half of the twentieth century, nearly every store in Indiana had a rack of postcards for sale. In the years leading up to World War I, postcard collecting became a national craze. Reed's book features classic postcards from the early 1900s to the 1950s, featuring more than ninety Indiana communities. Depicting street scenes, landmarks, fine homes and roadways, the postcards capture the state's rural and urban past. -- adapted from back cover.

As every collector knows, postcards were in the past and are today a means of both promoting one's home town, and of sending a short, to-the-point message to a relative or friend. In this exciting new volume, collector and author Alan F. Smith shares his postcards and photos of Ripley County, Indiana. These images allow the reader to respect the trials, tribulations, and triumphs experienced by those who lived in Ripley County through the years. The towns and villages featured in this volume, like those in all rural areas, had their favorite saloons, general stores, hotels, churches, homes, and interesting historic landmarks. Fortunately for us, these carefully preserved postcards and photographs provide us with a glimpse into this fascinating past.