Hamburg has grown in all directions since its first settler,
John Cummings, came to Water Valley in 1806 and built his mill on the banks of Eighteen Mile Creek. Hamburg's early settlements frequently changed their names as they grew.
Jacob Wright's 1808 tavern at Abbott's Corners developed into
Armor, and the 1811 brick gristmill of the Smith brothers became known as Smithville and then White's Corners, before it grew into
Hamburg village. The train stop in northern Hamburg received its name when postmaster Heman Blasdell hung a sign bearing his last name on the hamlet's tiny railroad shanty.
Using more than 200 stunning photographs and postcards,
including many never published before, Hamburg records the excitement of life in this community in days gone by. Rich with images of Hamburg's golden years of growth and prosperity at the beginning of the twentieth century, the book brings back some of the town's lost architecture: the B.M. Fish Dry Goods Store, Biehler's
Tea Room, the Hamburg Academy, and Kopp's Opera House, where large gatherings, such as the Hamburg Free Library Annual Ball, were held. It shows the reported birth of the hamburger at the Erie County
Fair and revisits the lazy summer days at Woodlawn Beach. It even captures a gang of pig rustlers who terrorized Blasdell in 1906.