CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Remember the Capitol Annex? Most people know the 1903 Beaux Arts-style Lee Street edifice as the old Kanawha County Library. It was torn down to make way for the office tower Commerce Square, now Huntington Square.

Who can forget Henry Elden's iconic West Virginia Building and Loan building at the corner of Quarrier and Court streets, its roof held up by giant golf tees?

How about the Hotel Kanawha, later home to the Charleston Job Corps? It, too, has disappeared from the city's skyline.

In "Charleston," a new photo book that goes on sale Monday, historian Billy Joe Peyton chronicles the history of dozens of the city's famous and lesser-known structures.

Leafing through its 96 pages, it's hard not to mourn the loss of many of these buildings. There's the old Capitol, of course, destroyed by fire in 1921. And the once-handsome Hotel Fleetwood, whose demise left a gaping hole on Capitol Street.

To show the differences, there are before-and-after photos of each site. Each page has two photos -- a historic one, and a new one taken from the same angle to show what the place looks like today. The book is part of Arcadia Publishing's Then & Now series.

Peyton, a history professor at West Virginia State University and chairman of the city's Historic Landmarks Commission, said he got the idea for the book about four years ago.

"I've always been interested in the concept of a then-and-now photo montage. I'd been aware of Arcadia Publishing's project. They sent out a blanket invitation for authors. I kind of put it on the back burner. Last year I had the time to get the job done."

Once he started, it took him about 10 to 12 weeks to assemble all the parts -- find old photos, take new ones, research and write captions and send the package to the publisher.

Peyton tapped a number of collectors to find vintage photographs. "Stan Cohen, the local history author who did the Kanawha County Images books; Jerry Waters, who has an extensive collection of online images; KRT, the WVU library and friends of the family. The bulk are from Jerry Waters, the state archives and the Kanawha County Library. I tried not to use the common images you see repeated."

Like the one of the 1885 Ruffner Hotel, which stood on the north side of Kanawha Street (Kanawha Boulevard) until 1970.

"There have been a lot of images of the Ruffner but the one I found, it's dominated by telephone lines in the foreground. Today you'd consider that clutter, but then it was a symbol of a modern city. Pretty cool."

Only old-timers may know the old Baptist Temple once stood at the northeast corner of Capitol and Washington. The photos show the contrast between the old church and the two-story office building that now houses FedEx and Kinko's.

"When it was demolished, someone in North Charleston obtained the stone and built a home with the red sandstone," Peyton said.

Also from the same era is the home of Kanawha Brewing, built on Bullitt Street in 1906. Though its photo is fuzzy, the structure must have been beautiful in its day. "Grand, a typical brewery building, brick, with a pretty large tower attached," he said.

But as the book shows, the city hasn't lost all of its heritage.

"One thing I found in Charleston, we have a lot of old architecture standing. It may be abandoned. Buildings have been altered in many cases. But it's still there."

That, in fact, is one of his reasons for compiling the book. "Our citizens and public officials need to recognize that our city's historic sites, structures and objects are not merely old, obsolete and disposable commodities; they are significant and tangible links to our past," said Peyton.

"Therefore, their ongoing maintenance, preservation and adaptive reuse must be taken seriously now and in the future because it is the right thing to do."

"Charleston" ($21.99), goes on sale Monday at area bookstores or through Arcadia Publishing, 888-313-2665, www.arcadiapublishing.com.

Reach Jim Balow at ba...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5102.