Lake County has no shortage of characters--adventurous, altruistic, and notorious men and women drawn to an enchanted land of a thousand lakes and lush pine forests in the heart of the "Sunshine State." In 1887, visionaries carved the new territory from neighboring Sumter and Orange Counties and boldly dreamed of moving the state capital to Tavares. More than a dozen communities sprang up, attracting people such as Walt Disney's parents and Wild West legend Annie Oakley. Notable residents through the years include astronaut David Walker, Olympic athlete Tyson Gay, bestselling author Kate DiCamillo, and archaeologist Edgar Banks, who served as the inspiration for Indiana Jones. Inspiring educators and coaches, along with caring doctors and ministers, devoted their lives to helping others. Business geniuses created the largest sawmill in the Southeast, promoted tourism, and built the first citrus juice plant in Florida.

From founding families in the early 1800s to contemporary conservationists in 2011, this volume celebrates a multitude of individuals who have impacted the Chautauqua Lake region. Before the armchair traveler journeys around the lake, a sampling of historians and photographers are honored for preserving its past. Subsequent chapters showcase the lakeside communities of Mayville, Dewittville, Point Chautauqua, Maple Springs, Bemus Point, Greenhurst, Fluvanna, Jamestown, Celoron, Lakewood, Ashville, Stow, and the Chautauqua Institution. Each presents several residents who aided its growth, made significant contributions, or simply remain of interest for their uniqueness.

From West Palm Beach's beginnings as service town to Palm Beach, Standard Oil tycoon Henry Morrison Flagler's resort village, the city has evolved into a trendy art, cultural, and shopping mecca. Palm Beach County's largest city serves as county seat and center of business, government, and commerce. Taming America's last frontier saw the industriousness of pioneers and settlers such as Marion Gruber, the Potter brothers, George Lainhart, and Max Greenberg guide the "Cottage City" of yesteryear to today's gleaming metropolis. Meet many of West Palm Beach's pioneers, civic leaders, educators, business leaders, and entrepreneurs. Learn about the heroes, celebrities, philanthropists, and even the villains who have contributed to the mosaic of West Palm Beach.

Since the 1850s, Lake Forest, located 30 miles north of Chicago on Lake Michigan, has been a distinctive suburb. It has been a retreat from the diseases, public accessibility, rougher elements, soot, stockyard smells, and general density of bustling city life. For at least five generations, it has been the retreat for Chicago's leading New England-descended families, such as the Farwells, Swifts, and Armours. And for over 150 years, Lake Forest has been the home for a community of educators, merchants, artisans, designers, and a wide variety of estate specialists, the latter from pre-Civil War escaped slaves and Scots and Irish immigrants to today's notable garden and interior artists. Legendary Locals of Lake Forest draws on rare archival images from local and Chicago public and private sources.

Guided by a visionary widow named Julia Tuttle, the city of Miami truly came into being in 1896 and has not stopped growing. Halfway through the last century, the apparent domination of land, population, and business by whites and--for decades--repressed African Americans became tested and balanced by the victims of the 1959 Cuban Revolution. Beyond that, hundreds of thousands of others from Spanish-speaking lands came to create what truly is an international metropolis. The chapters of Miami's existence are delineated by those legendary locals who came earliest; those who were the pioneers; those who established businesses that endured; those who were the builders and visionaries; those who served in politics; those who came from other places; those who created, built, and extended educational and arts opportunities; and those who embraced the placid environment and natural beauty of the "Magic City."

Whether it was homesteaders and dragoons or cowboys and Indians, they all clashed in the "Wild East" of early Fort Pierce. A natural inlet through the barrier island into the Indian River Lagoon created the perfect location for two Seminole War forts: Pierce and Capron. After the Civil War, the Reuben Carlton family moved their cattle to the area's free range. Today, Alto "Bud" Adams Jr. runs the famous Adams Ranch from its Fort Pierce headquarters. Some time after the Carltons, Elizabeth and C.T. McCarty arrived, she to teach and he to plant pineapples and citrus. Growers like the Bernard Egan family continue to produce prize Indian River fruit. Generations of Summerlin fishermen made their living from the sea. The watered paradise still lures sport fishermen such as Terry Howard, ecotour operators like Lisa's Kayaks, and charter captains like Captain Mark. African Americans farmed, labored, and enriched the cultural environment, culminating in the success of artists such as Alfred Hair. In Legendary Locals of Fort Pierce, the town's diversity is illuminated through vignettes of its legends. Among these are Edwin Binney, the creator of Crayola crayons, and Edwin Link, the inventor of the Link flight simulator.

In 1875, wealthy attorney and newspaperman Maj. Alexander St. Clair Abrams and his wife, Joanna, journeyed north from their home in Orlando to a bridge of land weaving through a chain of beautiful lakes. It was here, in the heart of the state, where Major St. Clair Abrams envisioned a town that would someday be the seat of a new county. In 1880, he began to lay out his town, calling it after a Spanish ancestor, a grandee named Lopez Para y Tavares. St. Clair Abrams made Tavares a railroad hub, believing railroads and waterways were the key to growth and prosperity. He built hotels, mills, factories, and parks. Despite a destructive fire in 1888 that leveled the business district and the 1894 and 1895 freezes that set back the citrus industry, settlers continued to arrive. Today, Tavares maintains its small-town charm while it prospers as "America's Seaplane City."

Wisconsin is a land rich with stories. It was the "mother of all circuses," a place of buried treasure and home to eerie ghosts and monsters. Native American legends, tall tales told at lumberjack camps and taverns, ghostlore and modern urban legends all form the wonderful mythology of the Dairy State. Many know of Rhinelander's famous Hodag, the Beast of Bray Road in Elkhorn, Milwaukee's haunted Pfister Hotel and the Ridgeway Ghost. But few have heard obscure tales like the Christmas Tree Ghost Ship of Two Rivers, the Goatman of Richfield's Hogsback Road and the legend of the Witch's Tower of Whitewater. Author Tea Krulos, an expert in all things strange and unusual, digs up Wisconsin favorites and arcane lore.