3/10/2005
Marilyn Dodgen The Humboldt County Historical Museum has been through many changes since acquiring the Old Mill Farm on the bank of the east branch of the Des Moines River in the mid-1960s. This spring will mark another major change to the existing eight buildings, with the addition of a beautiful, steel structured display building in the field just east of the main complex, which already includes the Old Mill Farmhouse, a log cabin, a kettle shed, the Norway #6 country schoolhouse from east of Thor, the old Rutland jail, a chicken house from the Lu Verne area, a huge two-story barn from the Rutland area, and, at the back of the lot, the Hardy Methodist Church. Coleman Construction is busy putting the finishing touches on the exterior and some interior work, having a reasonably mild winter that is allowing them to work on the project. The interior work will begin in the early spring and will be done by volunteers as soon as the weather permits. The new building faces south and will have an open entry, where a small selection of antiques will be displayed. The building measures 170-feet east to west and 48-feet north to south. The general outlay of the interior will feature a variety of display units, each 12-feet wide and 14-feet deep. At the east end will be fire fighting equipment, with Sherman Silbaugh's 1934 Diamond Reo fire engine sitting in the "main street" area down the center of the building. Final positioning is still on the drawing board, but each vignette (a set-aside scene) along the north and south sides of "main street" will be displays of a variety of shops, including a post office, doctor-dental displays, a printing office, a cobbler shop, a carpenter's shop, a bank, antique cameras, Indian artifacts, and other collections that have been donated to the museum over the years; but some only occasionally put on display due to lack of space. Each vignette will eventually have a "store front" look and the same pattern will be followed on the north side of the street. At the west end of the building are public restrooms. There is a 24 by 20-foot workshop for restoring or repairing items, making signs and other detail work. Inside the west door is a research room that is L-shaped, measuring 40 by 14 feet. The west one-third of the upstairs of the building will be used for well-organized storage for items that will be rotated for display periodically. More storage area will be added as it is needed in the future and as funds become available. The outside of the new display building will need a lot of volunteer help to properly landscape the area. Present plans are for a driveway that will start with the present drive, at the east side of the mill farmhouse, and be extended over to the new display building, with more parking area for cars than is now available at the museum. There will be sidewalks laid and trees, bushes and flowers planted to enhance the overall appearance. There is an immediate need for volunteers with carpentry skills to help complete the interior of the new display building, and the outside enhancement will also require good planning and planting by more volunteers. The Humboldt County Historical Museum already has the reputation of being one of the finest museums in the state, and this new addition will compliment that standing. Anyone with the aforementioned skills who would like to be a part of this worthwhile project may do so by contacting the Association President Norman Caldwell, or one of the board members. Board members are: secretary, Martha Schmidt; treasurer, Tim McCartan; Don Clarken, LeRoy Witzel, Mabel Erickson, Frances Williams, Kent Knight, Bill Verbrugge, Marc Arends, Jeannie Raine, and Bill Fort. Museum director is Jan Funk. The most recent addition to the outer buildings at the museum is the Methodist Church, moved to the site from the town of Hardy in the fall of 1997. The church is presently rented to the Abundant Life Church congregation for their members to hold services on Sundays. Several weddings, funerals and graduation receptions have been held there since the building found a new home, and it is available to rent for these occasions. A normal size barn was moved to the grounds in the 1970s from the Adrian Erickson farm east of Rutland. Side wings were added, allowing for more display area, and the second story also has items displayed. Many of the present displays will be moved to the new building once it is finished, allowing room for more farm-oriented items. To the west of the barn is a unique chicken house that was built by a German farmer in the Lu Verne area, who back plastered the walls as he learned to do in the old country. It was easier to spread lime lice inhibitor on the smooth surface of the plastered wall. Beside the chicken house is the old, one-room jail that used to sit north of the main street in Rutland and was used mainly to house the town drunk overnight, although one desperado was said to have been held overnight on his way to a trial in eastern Iowa. At the corner of this group of buildings is a one-room schoolhouse that has an entryway for hanging coats and lunch pails. It also has a framed list of all the names of pupils and teachers from the day it opened back in the 1800s, until it closed in 1955. Visitors have commented that it's like stepping back into a page from history as they view the old boards painted black, with the lessons written in chalk for different aged groups of students. There are desks, textbooks and a recitation bench for individual classes to occupy when it was their turn to be instructed by the teacher, while other grades (hopefully) concentrated on their own studies. The teacher's desk holds lesson and attendance records from that school. There is also a diary that was kept by Mr. Biondahl while he was building the schoolhouse. Two display cases feature articles and artifacts from the Humboldt College that stood on the hill north of town (above the HyVee and Pamida stores), until it closed after the 1914 class graduated. In the mid 1980s, the kettle shed next door was built to house a huge kettle that has its own firebox and chimney. Many clams were fished from the Des Moines River and cooked in that kettle. There are also hog butchering, lard-making items and sausage stuffing appliances on display. This building has drop-down side windows on the north and south, so the ladies can serve refreshments and register attendance when special events are held in the summer and fall months. The log cabin that completes the outer complex was built in the 1970s and is an exact replica of a one-room pioneer cabin, with a loft accessible by a hand-fashioned ladder, where the children slept. The north wall has a sturdy, workable fieldstone fireplace that often has a pot of stew or chili cooking on the day of the Fall Fling held on the final weekend of the season. There is not an actual main feature at the museum, with each building having individual characteristics that attract different people to different things. But the Old Mill Farm Italianette-style home is a treasure unsurpassed. Built by the Corydon Browns, from 1876 to its completion in 1878, it stands on the front of the lot in its solid brick beauty. The house was quite a showplace, being the first and only brick home built that early in the area, and Mrs. Brown was very generous with her hospitality, opening her home to receptions whenever the city fathers needed a place to welcome visiting dignitaries. She also held summer parties for friends and had two live-in maids to help serve her guests and clean up afterwards. However, the Browns were known as hard working pioneer people, who contributed much to the growing community of Dakota City. Mr. Brown and his two older sons, Walter and Manly, had already lived in the area 11 years, helping establish a firm foundation for building a strong community from a pioneer settlement, by establishing businesses that included the first bank, a dry goods store in Dakota City, a grain mill on the back of the river property, and a fine dairy herd and dairy before the house was built, and Lucelia brought their two younger children to Iowa to live. She had chosen to avoid the dangers of roaming Indians and keep Lola and Cory, Jr. back east in the home at Hornell, NY, where they would be well educated and schooled in the finer social graces. Both were of college age when they arrived in Iowa and both became students at the Humboldt College. The last of the Brown family had moved away at the end of the 1930s, following the death of Walter Brown, who had returned to the farm with his wife, Grace, after many years of living away from the area. His parents, Corydon and Lucelia, had moved out of the house and moved to Des Moines to be near their daughter, Lola, and her growing family in 1902. Both of the elder Browns were quite involved in charitable organizations and the social scene in Des Moines, and became well-respected citizens there. Lucelia died in 1915, at age 83, and Corydon was said to have attended the opera the evening before he died in his 98th year. Corydon, Jr. had married a local girl and lived in the mill farmhouse with his parents until their first child, Eugenia, was born. He moved to the small house behind the brick home and then built a home in Humboldt. Some cousins came from out east and lived in the house for several years, and it then became the residence of the head dairyman and his family. Spare bedrooms were let upstairs to dairy workers on occasion. After the dairy closed in the 1930s, when pasteurization became a requirement, Walter and Grace Brown moved into the house and lived there until 1936, when he died in his sleep there. Grace sold the property and moved to California. For the next 20 years, the house became a rental property. It remained so until sometime in the 1950s. It was then abandoned for about 10 years, and due to standing empty through adverse Iowa weather, it became derelict. It was in bad shape by the mid 1960s, with ceilings falling in upstairs and birds flying in through broken windows. The property was owned by the Art Kunerts and Mrs. Clarence Kunert and they gave it to the Humboldt Historical Association, who had expressed an interest in renovating the house, where they would be able to display their collection of artifacts that had been stored above Saul Studio, in downtown Humboldt for several years. A dedicated group of citizens decided it was worth saving and set about restoring it, and after many hours and months of volunteer labor they brought it back to what it is today. The 13-room edifice holds room after room of fine antiques that have been donated, carefully catalogued and put on display for present and future generations to appreciate. Many of the old timers who were responsible for the restoration are no longer living, but some of the younger volunteers then have become the older generation, who are still dedicated to preserving the history of Humboldt County. The museum opens for public tours the first week of June and will schedule special tours for schools and organizations. Visitors from all over the world have come and enjoyed taking a tour into the past. The museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with the request that visitors plan to come early for the tour that takes approximately two hours. Wednesday the museum is closed for cataloging and cleaning. Sunday hours are from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. Volunteers are on hand to answer questions, but there are no formal guided tours on Sunday. Visitors can go through the house and then walk around the grounds and view the buildings and contents. Admission is $3 for adults and from age 5 to 11 is fifty cents. |
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The Humboldt
Independent • Official paper of Humboldt County
Telephone: (515)
332-2514 |
