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Brayton

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The Brayton Town Hall (1940), at the northeast corner of Main Street and county road T, is one of the many WPA public buildings constructed in Iowa during the depression of the 1930s. Almost all of the designs for town halls in Iowa employ the PWA Moderne image. The Brayton Town Hall is a single-story building on a raised basement and was constructed of concrete block. Its main floor is approached via a pair of stairways parallel to the front wall of the building. These lead up to a platform containing an entrance to the lower floor. At the rear is an enclosed garage to house the fire truck. Decoration is minimal: three bands of bricks are carried around the center of the building. The upper and lower bands connect with the sills and headers of the windows. At the cornice is an indented horizontal pattern that remotely suggests dentils. The best decorative feature of the building is its Moderne lettering spelling out “Town Hall” over the entrance.

Writing Credits

Author: 
David Gebhard and Gerald Mansheim

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