Willard Glazier noted when he visited the city in the 1880s that Keokuk had “broad thoroughfares, handsome and substantial buildings, [and] occupie[d] a beautiful locality.” He also mentioned the advantageous location of Keokuk, “The Gateway City,” at the confluence of the...
At 509 Center Street in Lansing one will encounter an elegant two-story Greek Revival building. This cruciform structure was built during the years 1863–1864 as a public school (it is now called the Stone School). The walls are of local limestone, 2 feet thick. Within,...
Located 3.4 miles east of the town of Lowell on route J20 is the Melcher house and adjacent pottery workshop. The house is given an early date of 1842, but certainly what one sees today most likely was built in the mid-1850s and later. The handsome square two-story house is...
As one approaches Luxemburg from the east on US 52/Iowa 3, one can see the tall steeple (172 feet high) of Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church. Like a number of other Roman Catholic churches in northeast Iowa, Holy Trinity looks to the late Gothic tradition for its...
Three miles southwest of McCausland is the Isaac Cody Homestead. The two-story stone house represents a late continuation of the Federal tradition. The interior was quite elaborate for the time (it was constructed in 1847), having built-in closets and walnut doors and...
The village site was initially surveyed in 1855, and it was resurveyed the following year by the Iowa Land Company. The location of the north-south, eastwest grid pattern was on high, rolling terrain overlooking a wide S-curve of the South Fork of the Maquoketa River....
Maquoketa, the seat of Jackson County, was laid out on the south bank of the Maquoketa River, a site selected because of the availability of water power and large stands of trees for lumbering. When the water was high it was possible for small steamboats to navigate the...
On the north side of Main Street within the two-block downtown area is the Mershon and Rhodes Building (c. 1879). Though some changes have taken place, the metal front of this building remains intact. The second floor has a small central bay, and the surface is...
On Main Street, between Orchard Street and the railroad tracks, is the International Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) Hall (c. 1875). While some changes have been made in its two storefronts, the remainder of the building's metal facade remains intact. Paired columns on high...
As with nearby Anamosa, Monticello was located south of the Maquoketa River. The initial grid plat of 1850–1851 was oriented so that Main Street was on a north-northeast by south-southwest line; later additions went in a variety of other directions, including a railroad...
Montrose, sited at a deep western bend of the Mississippi River, was the location of a French-Canadian trading post of 1799. Later, in 1834, the first Fort Des Moines was established there. In 1837, after the fort was abandoned, the town's grid was platted. Two other...
The city, which early acquired the title of the “Athens of Iowa,” was described by Andreas in 1875 as having “long enjoyed a reputation abroad for its liberal support for educational institutions and churches, and the high standard of morality maintained by its...
Along the nearly deserted Main Street of Mount Union are several well-preserved late nineteenth-century commercial buildings, Johnson Harness Shop and Smith Drugstore and Ice Cream Parlor, on the south side of the street, and to the west on the north side of the street...
The Muscatine architect Henry W. Zeidler provided a somewhat stylish late Queen Anne design for the 1897 Nichols Townsend house (at the northeast corner of High and Nichols streets). Its most telling design feature is its second-floor porch over the entrance. Here a pair of...
Just down the road (route C64) west of New Vienna is the small community of Petersburg. Like New Vienna it is dominated by an impressive stone Gothic Revival Roman Catholic church, Saints Peter and Paul. It was started in 1867–1868 as a church with a central entrance...
Postville is located at the southwest corner of Allamakee County. Its center four blocks were platted in 1850, and additional plats were laid out between 1864 and 1874. The town developed slowly until 1871 when the Burlington, Cedar Rapids, and Minnesota Railroad arrived...
Driving northwest from Bellevue on US 52, one traverses hilly country to which older highways such as 52 respond. Some of the hills are wooded, others are grass covered or have crops. Some 10 miles from Bellevue the road gently dips down into a river valley, and one...
Salem, situated on the open prairie southwest of the Skunk River in Henry County, was the first Quaker community in Iowa, founded in 1835. In town half a block south of route J20 is the Henderson Lewelling house (1840–1845). This is a two-story stone house with a gable roof....
The community's name was chosen because of the wonderful abundance of native strawberries in the area. There are several nineteenth-century houses to be visited in Strawberry Point. An Eastlake-style house is located at 110 East Mission Street (c. 1875), and a...
As one would expect, the confluence of the Mississippi and Iowa rivers was a site of importance both before and after the European settlement of the area. At this location, the community of Toolesboro was platted, with the usual high expectations that it would quickly...
The grid scheme of Waukon, with its central open courthouse square, was recorded in 1853. Andreas paints a picture of it that is not too different from what one encounters today: “The town is regularly laid out, with straight and broad streets, adorned plentifully with shade...
In the small village of Welton, in central Clinton County just off US 61 (which goes through the town), is the Welton Roman Catholic Church. It was built in 1910 and presents an early-1900s version of the Gothic Revival style: in this instance the building has a tower-...
West Liberty contains one of Iowa's several libraries designed by the Chicago firm of Patton and Miller (located at the northeast corner of East Fourth Street and North Spencer Street). This brick-clad, tile-roofed Carnegie Library building was constructed for the sum...
West Point was one of the early communities in Iowa, platted in 1840. Its situation some 8 miles northeast of the Mississippi River placed it in rolling countryside, with extensive forests to the south and open prairie to the north. With the abundance of limestone for...
This portion of the state provides a nearly perfect picture of the variation in topography encountered in Iowa. The eastern sections reveal a mixture of wooded river valleys and hills broken by open grasslands; to the west, the undulating open prairie asserts itself, with only...
Adel, the seat of Dallas County, was laid out in 1847 on the west bank of the North Raccoon River, and among the notable structures there is the Dallas County Courthouse. Another building to be visited in Adel is the Presbyterian Church of 1868, located at 820 Prairie Street....
Members of the Amana Society first came to America from southwestern Germany in 1842, settling initially on lands near Buffalo, New York. “After some years … the elders of the community decided to look up a new location where a large area of cheaper land could be...
On the north side of Main Street, at the west end of town, is the Smokehouse Tower, built around the 1860s. The gable end of this one-and-a-half-story brick building has been placed close to the street. In style the structure is mildly, nearly puritanically Greek...
