Charles Rowlands of Slatington was looking for a new project after he completed genealogies for both sides of the family.

That project began one day when he was walking up Main Street and thought about what it was like when he was growing up.He wrote a book, complete with maps, about the town where he grew up.That book will be available for sale tomorrow when Slatington Borough kicks off its 150th anniversary celebration.Rowlands was the son of Ella and William Rowlands and was born on Aug. 8, 1923, on Willow Avenue.The book contains two maps, one of uptown where Rowlands was born, and one of downtown. The Morgan Bridge was the divider between the two.As a young man he worked in the drafting department of PPL. The maps were done on large sheets of paper and taken to Lehigh Engineering to be reduced to book size.During the Depression his father lost his job in the silk mill. The entire family chipped in with what odd jobs they were able to do. His mother sewed and baked. The children four boys and a female twin to Charles had to deliver the baked goods and do whatever jobs kids could find in those days.The book originally was to be simple, but it quickly grew.There are 97 locations identified uptown and another 37 downtown. Rowlands said Bechtel's Pharmacy and Boyer's Hardware are the two oldest businesses in the town.Each mapped location is numbered and corresponds to numbered texts telling what was there and in some instances tracing multiple owners from the 1920s to the present."Anyone that can read can find it on the map," Rowlands said.Rowlands gave family and friends a copy of the book printed on his computer. His wife, Elaine, said it took a lot of ink.A member of the anniversary committee saw a copy and thought it would be good to sell at the celebration. Inside the front cover are the words, "The contents of this book are the property of CHARLES ROWLANDS of Slatington and are donated to the Slatington 150th Committee."It quickly went into a second printing.He asked the borough if there was any other source of information for the material he recalled and was told there was not."I've always had a pretty good memory. Last year and this, I put the book together," he said.His original plan was to only do uptown but then he thought downtown would feel slighted.One of the many pictures is of a pavilion at Victory Park, named following World War I. The July 4th parade ended there and families came out for a picnic. The school used the park for baseball and football.There is a section of pictures concerning the slate industry. During its heyday there were many large hotels in Slatington. There are several sections of old pictures.One thing about the town that is a disappointment to Rowlands is why it didn't retain the name of Slatington when referring to the school. When a new high school was built, it was called Northern Lehigh High School.The former Slatington News printed a weekly paper that came out on Thursday. Children were allowed to come in and watch the printing.Rowlands and two of his brothers joined the Army during World War II and one was in the Navy during Korea. By chance he met his brother while in Germany. A few years after the war he joined the American Legion where he was commander several times.