Hamburg has grown in all directions since its first settler,John Cummings, came to Water Valley in 1806 andbuilt his mill on the banks of Eighteen Mile Creek. Hamburg'searly settlements frequently changed their names as they grew.Jacob Wright's 1808 tavern at Abbott's Corners developed intoArmor, and the 1811 brick gristmill of the Smith brothers becameknown as Smithville and then White's Corners, before it grew intoHamburg village. The train stop in northern Hamburg received itsname when postmaster Heman Blasdell hung a sign bearing his lastname on the hamlet's tiny railroad shanty.Using more than 200 stunning photographs and postcards,including many never published before, Hamburg records theexcitement of life in this community in days gone by. Rich withimages of Hamburg's golden years of growth and prosperity at thebeginning of the twentieth century, the book brings back some of thetown's lost architecture: the B.M. Fish Dry Goods Store, Biehler'sTea Room, the Hamburg Academy, and Kopp's Opera House, wherelarge gatherings, such as the Hamburg Free Library Annual Ball, wereheld. It shows the reported birth of the hamburger at the Erie CountyFair and revisits the lazy summer days at Woodlawn Beach. It evencaptures a gang of pig rustlers who terrorized Blasdell in 1906.