“Pine Needles: The Rise and Fall of a Gilded Age Southern Quail Hunting Estate,” written by Russell Rebertus of Gloucester, was published earlier this summer by Mercer University Press in Macon, Georgia. The book explores how Gilded Age barons came to their wealth, the reasons for establishing the quail estates in the locations they did and what became of the moguls, their estates and the avian quarry they sought. Rebertus examines the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, the Age of Railroads, tenant farmers, carpetbaggers and scalawags, Prohibition, the Great Depression and how they all related to the Gilded Age tycoons and their quail hunting estates. In 2024, Rebertus became interested in the topic when his wife, Diane, learned that High Point Museum in North Carolina had organized an exhibit about Piedmont hunting lodges. This is when they realized that the memorabilia and artifacts in their possession could be of interest to others. Though it was too late to have any of thes...