Vandalia & Prairie City

COFFEY, ELLIOTT, PULVER, QUINCY, VANWINKLE, VERDUFT

Posted By: JCGS Volunteer
Date: 3/22/2014 at 17:32:52

The Story of Jasper County
A History Prepared for the “American Guide” Under the WPA
Prairie City (930 alt. 793 pop.) located at the junction of U. S. Highway No. 165 and State Highway No. 64 is 20 mi. E. of Des Moines, 69 mi W. of Ottumwa and 16 mi. S.W. of Newton, the county seat. Transportation facilities include a branch line of the Rock Island R.R. and Interstate Transit Bus Lines. Usual tourist accommodations. James H. Elliott bought the land of the present town site in 1851, platting it five years later as the town of “Elliott.” The name was changed to Prairie City in 1864; the town incorporated in 1866. Once known as the “potato metropolis,” in years past raising and shipping out many carloads, Prairie City is the home of the Dowden Potato Digger manufacturing plant, which sells to all parts of the United States and Europe. Land in the vicinity is excellent for corn and oats; there are two grain elevators. The population is about 50 per cent Holland Dutch.
Newspaper: The Prairie City News (weekly). There are two Holland Dutch churches, Christian Reformed and First Reformed – Church of Christ and Methodist Episcopal. Union Hall is used for dancing and roller skating. The lighted diamond ball field is available for daylight baseball and other games. One motion picture house. The free public library is located in the City Hall. The distinctive band stand in the city park was built by popular subscription. Old Settler’s Reunion yearly – 3rd Tuesday in August. There is a basketball gymnasium in the high school – the boys’ team has won several county championships. R. C. Coffey, president of the American Amateur Trapshooting Association (1935-36) a gold-mining engineer with interest in the South, lives in Prairie City. Lee Ver Duft, of Prairie City, who has been supervising Jasper County for the American Guide Book, Federal Writers Project, has had stories published in two anthologies of American Short stories, and others elsewhere.
Historic House: The red brick Colonial house on Highway No. 163 S. side of the pavement across from the water tower is the oldest house in Prairie City. It was erected by James H. Elliott, who laid out the town. The “Butters” house on the s. side of (but not facing) Highway No. 163 at the E. edge of the Prairie City is one of the most unique brick structures of Victorian architecture in the county. It was built in the 80’s on an old stage coach tavern site. Note the only cylindrical windmill in Jasper County in the pasture near the highway – also of that period and still functioning. An old house on Highway No. 163, 4 mi. W. of Prairie City served as an “Underground Railway” station during the Civil War. The two-story house formerly owned by Jess Van Winkle, faces the north and is about 36 ft. x 24 ft. A barn of the same period overlooks the highway. The old Van Winkle cemetery stands out in the road about 40 rods E. of the house. It is on the highway, being directly in the path when the road was widened in 1930.
Vandalia ( __ alt. __ pop.) 8 mi. S.W. of Prairie City, was established in 1847-48 and was in the beginning known as Quincy, after John Quincy, the first white man to ride through the area. Later the name was changed to Vandalia (pronounced Van Dal’ya) probably after the city in Illinois. This ghost town of the 90’s welcomes visitors.
A special point of interest is the Daniel Pulver home of Swiss architecture which has been cited by Edgar R. Harlan, curator of the Historical Memorial and Art Department of Iowa, for its worth. Built by a Swiss cabinet maker in 1854, it was remodeled in 1871. It is a two story frame structure, the walls filled with brick between the studdings over which it was lathed and plastered on the inside and weather-boarded on the outside. A full basement of stone with brick trimming around doors and windows extends beneath. A four foot portico extends along the south side and east end.
Within are seventeen rooms, six each in the basement and on the first floor and five in the half story above, each floor with its complement of closets, halls and stairways. The basement walls fourteen inches thick, are of stone quarried nearby or hauled from Demic rock, 3 miles south on the Des Moines river. The workshop contains tools, patterns, and workbench used in the construction of toys, furniture and coffins. A loom still operated for rug and carpet weaving was built of red elm by Pulver in 1875 for his wife. Some of her work in flax and wool is still there. Eleven rock steps lead up to the rock porch at the west entrance.
The six rooms on the fain floor have been occupied as a dwelling by Pulver’s descendants. They are furnished with seventeen pieces of walnut, white cedar, wild cherry, mulberry and pine constructed by the cabinet-maker. Floors in the dining room and kitchen are of wild cherry, floors of the other four rooms of native oak with saw marks still showing.
Two stairways lead to the upper floor. One has a sliding door that slides into the wall by means of a large weight. A dark room was kept to store coffins made by Pulver of black walnut and shaped to the outline of a human being. The coffins were finished with linseed oil and padded and lined with muslin.
The large east room is filled with antiques – spinning wheels, wood dies, copper tools and pottery. The house has thirty hand-made doors.
Source: Newton Daily News; Tuesday, December 8, 1936