About 10 years ago I left the city (Philadelphia) for a simpler life in small town New Jersey. Eventually settling in a  town called Florence, a place I had never heard of before. After five years of working outside of the town I took early retirement (SS @ age 62) and went to work part time as a schoolbus driver for Florence School District. Florence is a sports town, their high school football team won 4 straight Group 1 championships and won 56 sgames in a row. Needless to say, being a photographer and loveing sports I took a liking to the town. I began shooting the football games ( and consequently all the sports) and developed a website for the kids to see the pictures http://gobigblu.com Eventually I became the "unofficial" town photographer and now I'm the offical town photographer. Florence Township consists of the town of Florence (of course) and the Village of Roebling. The exit sign on the interstate that goes by say "the historic village of Roebling" I always wondered what was so historic about it being as how I had never heard of it before coming to Florence. Which brings me to the heart of this article. The village of Roebling was founded (and built) by a man named John Roebling who inherited his father's steel wire rope company (in Trenton, NJ). The Roebling Family as it turned out were the people who built the Brooklyn and Golden Gate (as well as many other) bridges. They made the wire cables for the Wright Brother's airplane, the "slinky" toy and the first gas propelled rotary lawn mower. We have just opened a new museum (www.roeblingmuseum.org) this year and I found out that along with building bridges and a host of other steel wire product, the Roebling family also buit an expensive line of automobiles. Have you ever heard of a car called "the Mercer"?

One of the Mercer roadsters was the first American made car to defeat the "Stuz Bearcat" in a road race. I had the pleasure of photographing over 35 of the remaining 72 cars in existance which were at a reunion held at a pre Grand opening of the museum. Attached are five of the photographs, I took advantage of Adorama's $10.00 20x30 sale and had them enlarged, sharp as a tack, the metallic finish really looks great. Thanks Adorama.