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Union Town Hall

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1941, Thorwald Thorson. Southeast corner of Center and Third streets
  • Union Town Hall (David Gebhard and Gerald Mansheim)

Near the center of the little community of Union is the community's town hall and fire station. This small single-floor building of reinforced concrete was a WPA project of 1941, designed by Thorwald Thorson. It may well be the smallest WPA city hall in Iowa, but it still manages to convey the fact that it is a public building. The Moderne lettering cast into the building announces its specific purpose, and below the entrance canopy and above the door is the date of the building; a pattern of three stars appears above the canopy. All of the entrances, including the large one for the fire truck, are covered by thin projecting slab roofs. The entrance door has side wings that are fluted, and similar fluting also appears beside the horizontal windows. At the top of the parapet a narrow band of projecting and receding rectangles provides a termination for the walls of the building.

Writing Credits

Author: 
David Gebhard and Gerald Mansheim
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Data

What's Nearby

House
Hardin County Courthouse
First Congregational Church
Iowa Industrial School for Boys (Iowa School for Boys)
Pine Lake State Park

Citation

David Gebhard and Gerald Mansheim, "Union Town Hall", [Union, Iowa], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/IA-01-NO295.

Print Source

Buildings of Iowa, David Gebhard and Gerald Mansheim. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, 438-439.

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