In 1841, Thomas Mackie journeyed south along a winding river to an open meadow. There, alongside a bubbling spring, he erected a small cabin, establishing the beginnings of the community now known as Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. The city gained fame as the jewel of Dodge County, a family community that stressed hard work, good play, and awe for the almighty. This book examines that lifestyle through the unlikely means of the penny postcard. It is ironic that the postcard, which was meant to act as a disposable means of communication, has endured to become one of the greatest resources of pictorial history of small-town America.