In 1964, in Huntsville, Alabama, anything seemed possible. Just 15 years earlier, the city had been, in the words of the local paper, a “ghost town,” a community of just 16,000 people spread over about 4.5 square miles. Now, it was “Space City,” a thriving metropolis that had annexed almost 46 additional square miles of the Appalachian hills to accommodate some 123,000 residents. The ...