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Middle Amana

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The center of Middle Amana is the woolen mill picturesquely situated alongside a wide raceway. The 9-mile-long canal bringing water from the Iowa River was built in the 1860s. The complex of mill buildings encompasses structures built in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Amana School (1865) is within the southwest block of town, on the north side of Iowa 220. The 1865 section of the school is a two-story brick building, to which a later one-story addition has been made. Although the windows of the school have segmental arches, the general proportions and detailing are Greek Revival. At the northeast edge of town are several wood-sheathed combined barns and corncribs (c. 1870s). As designs, these seem as sensitively studied and composed as the houses and other buildings within the town. The larger of these barns has a low-pitched gable roof broken by a central gabled monitor plus a series of tiny gabled dormers. The wall surfaces—which are closed or open (when used for the storage of corncobs)—along with their fenestration are as impressively delineated as the volumes themselves.

Writing Credits

Author: 
David Gebhard and Gerald Mansheim

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