The Berkshires: Coach Inns to Cottages (MA) (Images of America)

Those hustling to find lodging in the Berkshires today may not know they are repeating a two-hundred-fifty-year-old ritual. In the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, the Berkshires played host to some of the most fascinating characters in American literature, politics, business, and the arts. They came with the warm breezes and left when they felt the first cold snap in the autumnal air. The Berkshires: Coach Inns to Cottages is a photographic record of Berkshire dwelling places from the rough simplicity of stagecoach inns to the glittering luxury of Gilded Age cottages.