Lesanville Restoration

RAMSEY, BURMEISTER, VANCE, ANDERSON

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 4/24/2010 at 02:17:01

Sioux City Journal
Sioux City, Iowa
Friday, May 30, 2003

Efforts under way to restore Iowa ghost town
into tourism attraction

LESANVILLE, Iowa (AP) -- What was once a ghost town -- a shadow of a thriving railroad community -- will soon be revived as a restored farmstead and tourist attraction. Lesanville's history is as rolling as the hills that surround it.

Paul RAMSEY, a New Port, Calif., businessman who often visited Lesanville as a youth, doesn't want that history forgotten.

"Even though I was born and raised in Des Moines, I spent all my summers there from the time I was six years old to the time I was in junior high and high school," he said. "I've always had a great feeling for Iowa and Mount Ayr, even though I've been out here 45 years."

Lesanville, which no longer appears on the map, is about four miles east of Mount Ayr, in southern Iowa's Ringgold County.

Ramsey often stayed with his aunt and uncle, Jennie and George VANCE, who farmed near Lesanville.

One of the couple's daughters, Helen ANDERSON of Creston, recalls her childhood home as an "ordinary farm, nothing special." Yet there were moments of simple, homespun entertainment.

"They used to get together and make homemade ice cream," she said. "Saturday night was the night we went to Mount Ayr. They used to have band concerts in the courthouse square."

Those outings left an impression on Ramsey, who, along with the Ramsey Farm Foundation, is restoring Lesanville to a 1930s-era working farm. The project began two years ago when the Iowa Barn Foundation awarded the Ramsey Farm Foundation funds to repair a barn on the 140-acre site.

The circa-1920 structure is now a bright red pinnacle overlooking other buildings that have been repaired, moved in from other locations, or built as replicas. They include a carriage house, machine shed, chicken house, smokehouse, hog house, sheep shed, corncrib, granary, privy, one-room schoolhouse, church, another farmhouse and "the cave," an underground, brick cellar once used for food storage and as a storm shelter.

A vegetable garden, windmill, orchard, pond and cemetery are also located on the grounds.

If RAMSEY's vision is realized, a depot, general store and post office will be added to the list. Lesanville also will have a bed and breakfast.

"It'll be a tourist attraction," said Phil BURMEISTER, president of the Ramsey Farm Foundation. "He (RAMSEY) always had a fondness for the farm, the barn and cattle."

RAMSEY said part of the program to restore the town is to educate children in urban areas of the history of rural farm life.

A group of children from Hollywood are currently competing for a chance to visit the town in August.

"One of the things we're doing this year, although it won't be open till next spring, we are bringing the Hollywood YMCA kids this August," RAMSEY said. "They'll be at the farm for a few days and go to the Iowa State Fair. We intend to do that with urban centers across the country."

The cost of the field trip is being paid by California businesspeople, RAMSEY said.

Meanwhile, RAMSEY has footed a portion of the $354,000 needed to revive the Lesanville.

The city of Mount Ayr and volunteer contributors have also donated to the project. The Vision Iowa board also contributed $100,000.

BURMEISTER said Lesanville existed until the mid-1903s. The railroad ran through it, and the town had its own post office and school. Activities at the school and church stopped during the Depression, BURMEISTER said.

Ironically, the prospect of revitalizing the town has brought people, such as Ramsey "back home," BURMEISTER said.

"He is very nostalgic about Iowa," BURMEISTER said. "He says, 'My wife goes to Paris, and I go to Mount Ayr."'

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, April of 2010