Four Mounds a Country Estate-Geo. A. Burden

BURDEN, RIDER

Posted By: Cheryl Locher Moonen (email)
Date: 1/18/2019 at 14:44:38

Four Mounds a Country Estate

60 acre estate was one home to one
Of Dubuque’s most influential families
By Michael Schmidt-Telegraph Herald

Sitting on top of a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River stands the 60 acre Four Mound estate, a flash back to what was once a home to one of Dubuque’s most influential families.
The Burdens occupied the home at estate at Four Mounds-named for the Indian burial grounds in the nearby woods-until Elizabeth Burden’s death in 1983, when the property was bequeathed to the City of Dubuque.

George A. Burden, who arrived in Dubuque in 1857 from the East coast, married Viola Rider and moved to Four Mounds in 1908, the couple built the Grey house, a mansion designed by Chicago architect Lawrence Buck, along with a barn, garage, chauffeurs house, gardeners house, and root cellar.

The Burden’s raised their children George (Bill) and Viola on the estate.

Four Mounds allowed George A. Burden to keep in touch with the city’s downtown district and still be able to escape to the country.
George A. Burden was the president of the Adams Realty Co. and a member of the directors of the First National Bank and Spahn and Rose Lumber Co., along with several other organizations.

“His idea was to create an idyllic country house,” Four Mounds executive director Christine Happ Olsen,” said “It was right at the time the automobile was invented. The automobile enabled him to live out in the country and work in town on a daily basis.” He was a successful business man. People came to eat dinner and stay at the estate.

George A. Burden’s son, Bill, contracted polio at the age of fourteen on a trip to Europe. Unable to withstand the physical rigors of outdoor activity, George A. Burden created for Bill what’s is now considered the last gentlemen’s farm in Iowa.

A gentlemen’s farm produces no-sale goods solely for the farmers benefit.

“They had their own cattle and dairy and extensive flower and vegetable gardens,” Olson said “It was a national movement at the time.”

Bill and Elizabeth Burden raised three children there.