Towns - Post Offices - Rail Stops of Jefferson County

"GLENDALE. Sec. 32. Lockridge Township. P.O. Est. 21 Oct 1859; James A. Shreve, first p. m.; disc. 14 Jan 1863; re-est. 4 Apr 1863. In 1878 Michael Damm, old resident, erected a large handsome two-story frame building for use as a residence and store room. (Tribune, Apr 2, 1890, Pioneer History of Glendale.) "
The above information was compiled by Mary Prill and published in the Hawkeye Heritage, July 1967.

The following story was originally one of a number of articles in the Fairfield Ledger which was later included in the book Villages and Towns of Yester-year in Jefferson County by William R. Baker. We hereby include it on this page with the permission of the Fairfield Ledger.

Names mentioned in this article are as follows:
        Chester Hickenbottom; Michael Damm; Michael Damm, Jr.

   A time-worn old barn standing in a bean field is the last building which was part of the once bustling town of Glendale located along the Burlington Railroad about eight miles east of Fairfield.
    Known as a livestock shipping center during the height of its existence, it is said more livestock was shipped from Glendale than from the county seat of Fairfield.
   Chester Hickenbottom, 91, Fairfield resident, can well remember Glendale. He with his parents moved to Glendale from Parsonsville when he was nine years old. That was in 1900.
   He said there were 10 or 15 homes in Glendale at that time, and a number of the male residents were members of the section gang for the railroad.
   Hickenbottom tells a story - about Mike Damm and his dogs. Since Damm was a major livestock dealer in the county and all business was conducted in cash, he was required to have large sums of money on hand at frequent intervals.
   No one seemed to know where Damm kept his money, but he always had a number of mean dogs about the premises. As long as a person remained in the store or in front of the building one would never know the dogs were around.
    But if a person started toward the back of the store or behind the building, he soon found himself surrounded by snarling, barking vicious dogs.
Hickenbottom said he never heard of any robberies or holdups at the Damm store.
   While Hickenbottom was going to school at Glendale some of the older students tossed cartridges in the stove. "It blew the door off," he chuckled.
    With families living on both sides of the tracks, there were fights between the gangs between the north and the south.
   Glendale was settled in 1857 by Michael Damm who came to the United States from Germany. At one time the rural community included a hotel, general store, post office, railroad section house, stockyards located along the tracks and a number of homes.
   A map on file at the Burlington Depot in 1968 dated December 19, 1928, showed the town was platted and laid out in lots. Two streets were platted parallel with the railroad on the north and south sides of the tracks. Those on the north side were Locust and Walnut, each five blocks long; those on the south side were Main and Prairie, the same length.
   North and south streets were numbered, First, Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth. The map also showed the location of the depot and stockyards along the right-of-way with two side tracks.
    Damm operated the stock buying station at his home in Glendale for a number of years. It is estimated during his life-time he shipped 5,000 carloads of livestock from the little town with an estimated total valuation of $5,000,000.
    Upon his arrival in the United States in 1847, Damm located in Chicago and started working for railroads. One job took him to New Orleans. He returned to Illinois and finally came to Iowa in 1853.
   After owning and operating stores at Lockridge and Coalport he established Glendale in 1857.
He was appointed postmaster in 1885, a position he held until his death.
    Following his death in 1905, his son, Michael Damm, Jr., continued to operate the store and livestock business. Glendale continued as a livestock shipping center until improved transportation and larger shipping centers snuffed out the business.
   What was once the town is now farmland. Among the last buildings razed a number of years ago was the old store and hotel building. It was a forlorn and desolate sight until it passed into oblivion by the modern day bulldozer.
   Like many other small rural communities which played an important part in the early history of Jefferson County, Glendale passed out of existence.