Legendary Locals Of Rome

In 1834, three men chanced to meet at a spring near where the Oostanaula and Etowah converge to form the Coosa River. Looking at the freshwater spring surrounded by healthy hardwood, they mused that this would make a good place for a community. They got together with two other landowners in the area and decided to start a town. And, of course, they wanted a name for it. Following the democratic process still honored by citizens today, they each chose their favorite names, such as Pittsburg, Warsaw, and Hillsboro. The name drawn was Rome. If the last name had been drawn, which was Hamburg, the town would be full of Hamburgers instead of the Romans that reside there today.

This book delves into the history of some of the unique individuals and groups, past and present, who have made a memorable impact on their community throughout its history.

Geography has conspired to make Gallup, New Mexico, a special place with unique people and a colorful history. It has been a place of struggle and extremes where cultures have clashed, mixed, and melded. Gallup is a community that is simultaneously challenging and uplifting, heartrending, and redemptive. To local Native Americans, the Navajo and Pueblo people, Gallup is located on their ancestral homeland and bordered by their sacred sites. To early settlers, Gallup was a place that permitted transportation across the continent, first by foot and horseback, then by stagecoach and railroad, and ultimately, by America's Mother Road, Route 66. With its founding, Gallup became a place where European, Asian, and Hispanic immigrants--with hands that built America--came to construct a transcontinental rail line, harvest timber, mine coal, and establish businesses, while seeking a new life among the region's original native people.

Nestled along the banks of Cazenovia Creek, East Aurora is a cultural center of western New York State that has flourished because of the diverse talents of its people. Native Americans lived in East Aurora for thousands of years before the first settlers came to the area in 1804. One of the first pioneers, Martha Richardson Adams, carried her infant child on horseback all the way from Massachusetts. East Aurora grew rapidly after the War of 1812, evolving into an important business center south of Buffalo. By the 1880s, the village had become a horse-racing capital, where thousands came to Cicero Hamlin's farm to get a glimpse of his legendary horse, Mambrino King. As the century came to a close, hundreds of creative types were drawn to the Roycroft Campus, where Elbert Hubbard had established an arts and crafts colony. Despite modern developments, East Aurora remains a small village at heart, where the owners of the barbershop, bookstore, pharmacy, coffee shop, theater, and old-fashioned 5 & 10 still greet you at the door.

Drawn by extravagant promises of "a beautiful village of 500 inhabitants, studded with orange trees and grapevines," the Hammond family arrived in Encinitas in 1883 only to find that advertisements had rather overstated the case. Undeterred, these 11 English settlers remained and, in doing so, doubled the town's population overnight. Subsequent pioneers brought wide-ranging talents to this fledgling California coastal town--none more so than the Ecke dynasty, whose flower fields established Encinitas as the poinsettia capital of the world. Today, the city encompasses five distinct communities, and while it boasts many famous celebrities, it is the ordinary folk whose passion and daring have made Encinitas the place their forebears long ago envisaged.

Utica's neighborhoods are filled with people whose passion for family, food, faith, and civic engagement are exemplary of the true American experience. Lives devoted to politics, business, sports, and scholarship have found their start, and often times their purpose, in Greater Utica. The nation's politics have been shaped by the likes of abolitionist Gerrit Smith, Congressman Roscoe Conkling, Vice Pres. James Sherman, and political pollster John Zogby. Enterprises including American Express and the Associated Press received boosts from businessmen John Butterfield and Theodore Faxton. Dick Clark hit the Utica airwaves long before American Bandstand was a household favorite, Will Smith wore a Proctor uniform before becoming a New Orleans Saint, and Arthur B. Davies learned to paint Mohawk Valley landscapes before introducing America to modernist art. Those looking to reclaim Utica's birthright as an essential American landmark include chefs Dean and Jason Nole, publisher Donna Donovan, Olympian-turned-entrepreneur Robert Esche, and the brewers of Saranac Beer, the Matt family.

Once a rural paradise known as “Noddle’s Island,” East Boston is the site of key developments in the nation’s history, including the first naval battle of the American Revolution, the creation of the world’s fastest sailing ships, the country’s first underwater tunnel, and the nation’s first public branch library. It has had its share of famous residents, from Colonial governor John Winthrop and repentant Salem witch trial judge Samuel Sewall, to clipper ship builder Donald McKay and the world’s first female clipper ship navigator, Mary Patten. Women’s suffrage activist Judith Winsor Smith called East Boston home, as did the first Civil War nurse, Armeda Gibbs; Massachusetts governor John Bates; and Boston mayor Frederick Mansfield. Pres. John F. Kennedy’s paternal grandparents and father were born in East Boston, where they started their first businesses and political ventures, and the neighborhood has produced numerous community activists, musicians, artists, writers, and athletes.

Detroit sports a very uneven background. The city dates from 1701, when Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac planted the flag of New France, some 75 years before America became a nation. Almost two-thirds of Detroit's history was spent as little more than a frontier military outpost--home to French farmers and fur traders who shared the quarters with the soldiers. But as the 20th century arrived, the impact of the automobile roused the city from its slumber. Within a century's time, the industry set in motion by Henry Ford produced a skyrocketing population, a diverse mosaic of ethnic groups, and levels of culture and affluence rivaled by few other places. The literature of Joyce Carol Oates, the architecture of Albert Kahn, and the music fostered by Berry Gordy enriched life and created the "Paris of the Midwest." But growing pains were inevitable: growing racial instability culminated in the insurrection of 1967, inflicting deep wounds yet creating new opportunities for harmony and justice that were capitalized on by Rev. William Cunningham. Today, efforts continue to remove the tarnish from this corner of the "Rust Belt."