The Images of America series by Arcadia Publishing has scored a bull’s eye with its new “Auburn” pictorial retrospective compiled by Auburn native and photo collector Arthur Sommers.

Sommers has brought together more than 200 images – many from postcards and most from his private collection – to come up with a package that’s packed with surprises.

Here are a few highlights:

The cover shows a buggy descending an Old Town street with the back end of the now-gone Orleans Hotel brimming with firewood. The hotel site now holds a gas station.

Two photos of the Elm Motel in its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s as the Ivy Motel.

Not just the front of postcards but also the written backs. One tells of Sousa’s band playing at the Auburn Opera House on Nov. 2, 1907. Tickets were 75 cents or $1. Another, from 1912, makes brief mention of the sinking of the Titanic.

A rare view of the old art deco-style county hospital, which was torn down to eventually make way for today’s Auburn Town Center on Elm Avenue.

Mention of a compass point in the sidewalk (at the corner of Lincoln Way and High Street, at Central Square) denoting the halfway point between courthouse and train depot is at the corner. A little-known Auburn treasure.

Several views of the Placer County Courthouse and the 1908 Neff fountain in the foreground. Sommers also points out that he’s been unable to find any photos of the courthouse while it was under construction between 1894 and 1898.

The infamous photo of Old Town on June 6, 1856, replete with temporary gallows and a very dead James Freeland swinging at the end of a rope. This one wasn’t sent out as a post card but undoubtedly played a role – children are in the photo staring at the corpse – in ensuring it would be the last legal public hanging in Auburn.

Sommers grew up in Auburn, graduated from Placer High School, earned a history degree and then carved out a career as a civilian Air Force employee. He returned to his hometown a decade ago and has immersed himself in its past since then.

The research shows in the detail of the photo captions, which provide an excellent narrative for the stories playing out in picture form. It’s virtually error-free, with the notable exception of mislabeling notable Auburn resident Jean Baptiste Charbonneau as “Juan” Baptiste Charbonneau. Charbonneau's mother, Sacagawea, was a guide on the Lewis and Clark expedition and he was part of the trek as a toddler.

The only question left hanging is what took Arcadia Publishing so long to get to Auburn? It’s published 4,000 local histories similar to Auburn over the past 16 years. On the positive side, Sommers had produced a book that was well worth the wait.

“Auburn” is available for $19.99 at local retailers, online bookstores or through Arcadia Publishing at arcadiapublishing.com or (888) 313-2665.