Chapter 18, pages 140-147
There is no official definition of a ghost town, so in this record the author has used a very loose construction of the term, generally applying it to all populated places which at one time had some commercial enterprise other than a post office, and which later lost this distinction. In most instances the communities so designated in this work have met these basic requirements, and several even had a plat of lots and streets, although not all (in fact only two) had been incorporated into municipalities for their own government.
But one community which we shall include, Wall Street, lacked all such attributes and, indeed, sprang into existence only when, according the Editor E.B. Brown of The Malvern Leader in the May 2, 1895, issue: “George Patrick, Lee Adams and some of the boys living up the (Silver) Creek, were talking the other day of laying out a new town in the vicinity of the Patrick Mill and making a pull for the county seat.” At that time, and until a permanent location of the county seat was settled by some direct political work in 1906, there was much talk around the central and east part of the county for moving the seat of government from Glenwood.
These early-day urban planners suggested the name of Wall Street for their new town, although The Leader editor favored Patricksburg. He noted that there were a dozen families in the southwest quarter of Section 6 in Silver Creek township and that all of the section was officially platted, most of it in small lots.
Patrick’s mill was one of the older such establishments, having been built in 1856 on Silver Creek, a mile west of where the East Liberty Church and cemetery now stand. At the time it was built it was, according to a rare picture in Johnson Brigham’s History of Iowa, called Rock Ford Mill. It had been put up by Aaron Lewis, on the site of a sawmill built earlier by M. Lewis and Joseph Conger. Possibly it was on the site of Cutler’s Mill and Cutler’s Camp, one of two Mormon communities started at the time of the great Trek, the land there later obtained by a squatter’s claim by Daniel Lewis.
Through the years it had met the need of early-day farmers, grinding both flour and meal, as required. One of its mill stones was discovered in a field just west of the present channel of Silver Creek a few years ago by Vern Michelson who then owned the farm in that vicinity. By 1906 it was reported that the mill no longer ground flower but had installed a ten horsepower engine to grind corn, buckwheat, etc.
Residents of the neighborhood took the prospect of their town in high humor. The Leader’s news correspondent carried the fantasy in good part, often including in the weekly newsletter some preposterous happening, or comment or reference to the mythical city and its residents, that enlivened the routine accounts of community occurrences. “Wall Street,” he wrote in August, 1897, “has some excellent timber for the governorship (of Iowa) and their names may come before the state convention, but for the present will be withheld.” But he also wrote: “We met a party of men with shotguns one day last week who claimed to be hunting for those two Wall Street liars, but the latter still live and lie.”
Oddly the neighborhood did have an example of urban crime, but long before the fantasy of the city of Wall Street started. Back in 1884 an elderly, and very poor, man had a tiny store just across the road east of the Pleasant Valley rural school that served the district where he barely made a living for himself. As the year started the store owner, J.M. Shelley, was found murdered in his store, his assailant having used an axe for the bloody deed. The crime cause widespread indignation and offers of reward for information of the perpetrator were posted. Three weeks later a farm hand who worked a few miles from the store was apprehended and charged with the crime, and eventually convicted and sentenced for his misdeed, the fact that he had displayed the dead man’s watch to several others starting a train of evidence which brought him to justice.
Again in 1904 murder most foul was perpetrated in Wall Street, this time in the very heart of the community. In that year a family from the Ozark Mountain area had moved into a tiny cottage (the news writer reporting the incident called it a “two-room shanty”) on the road east from Patrick’s mill and only thirty some rods from that structure. John Hampton and his nephew Alvan Harmon and their wives made their home there and evidently were of a convivial turn. John sent Alvan to Omaha to get a supply of whiskey and met him at Silver City on his return. That evening, December 29th, they all engaged in some serious drinking and evidently became thoroughly intoxicated. John became disconcerted at something and went out into the night, firing his pistol into the air. This seemed to enrage Alvan, who found a loaded shotgun in the house, then went out and confronted John, and fired the gun directly at his chest at close range, killing him instantly. Although Alvan was instantly filled with remorse it was necessary to call law officials and prosecute him for the crime.
The poor family’s misfortunes continued. The next week it was reported that other members had contracted small pox and the entire neighborhood was put under quarantine.
But the later news of Wall Street was less violent. It was reported that “Mayor Humsinger (the community was not incorporated as a municipality so had no such official) of Wall Street was attacked by huge mosquitoes. He struck at them with his axe until his exertions with the implement tired him while the mosquitoes continued their assault. Finally His Honor leaned against a tree and paused to light his pipe – and the ground was soon covered with dead insects.” So we presume that back in those golden days there might have been a pollution problem. Later, in 1903, it was reported that the Wall Street Chief of Police told of “another whiskey tragedy,” but the writer didn’t elaborate.
Sports weren’t neglected. The newsman wrote of a baseball game in the September, 1907, issue, between the Wall Street Plow Boys and a mixed Centerline (a school district southeast of there) and Malvern team which ended up 14-13 in favor of the Plowboys. “One of the strongest features of this spectacular contest,” the item stated, “was brought out by the umpire who had been imported for this occasion by the Centerline team.”
Another time the newsman told of a visit to his old home town in Missouri from which he returned much refreshed, and wrote: “When he returned he was met at the station (in Malvern) by a committee of one in a closed carriage which hauled him home in the dark of the night. As we entered the sacred precincts of Wall Street we were greeted by a number of canine friends and three rousing cheers from a group of male Plymouth Rocks who gathered to welcome us home, and a grand chorus of frogs.”
In July of 1907, Silver Creek “went on a spree” and provided a sea that reached from Patrick’s Mill to the Wabash railroad (far on the other side of the stream). He also noted that L.W. Boehner and C.M. Follett of Malvern were prospecting in Wall Street and “it is reported that they struck pay dirt.” Then, as now, the neighborhood was a good hunting area and in October he reported that hunters were so thick that it was with difficulty that they kept from shooting each other. But he reprimanded “a squad of mounted infantry from Silver City who had kept up a roar of musketry on the west side of Silver Creek just north of Patrick’s Mill during church service” at East Liberty, to the disturbance of the congregation.
News wasn’t always orthodox. In the July 18, 1907 issue he reported: “Miles Phillips and Milton Knight haggled for eight hours over a difference of 50 cents in a hog trade Tuesday last, putting shame the tame annals of the Yankee horse trader, Shylock and commerce in the ghetto.” By 1912 Wall Street promoters were ready to go into higher education. The sale of a piece of land in the neighborhood moved the news writer to state: “A 24-acre farm was sold for $4,000. So if you want to get in on the ground floor, buy now. As soon as the new University building is up and other improvements that are under way are finished, there will be a rapid sale of real estate.”
But there was a set-back. On November 7, 1912, he wrote that Patrick’s Mill was being torn down and made into a barn – thus removing Wall Street’s only commercial non-farm enterprise. There were some improvements, a mile to the north of Patrick’s Milton Knight put in a small steam engine and was planning to grind feed for farmers. And the next week the new Pleasant Valley school house was dedicated with suitable ceremonies. A hard winter followed. The writer told of a storm in March of 1913 and stated that he couldn’t verify the report that hail stones fourteen inches in diameter were found in Silver City.
Every development in the community was chronicled. May 15th he said, “The high cost of living is being partly solved here by the small boy, the housewife and rainy-day idlers – they are catching fish.” And crops were so good as summer came that he reported June 19th that “Wabash engineers threw notes out the cab window to Arno Schaller that his corn looked the best of any between St. Louis and Omaha.”
Soon it was shown that good support developed for the East Liberty Church. A big social event there raised $105.70 and crowds “ate everything but the pine boards that served as tables.” Then the newsman wrote “A force of men are in Wall Street digging holes for a new electric line from Glenwood to Hastings.” And later “fresh water fish are being sold right out of fishing smacks off the coast of Hastings right on Main Street in Wall Street.”
Later issues indicated that the news writer had taken on other work and that his rate of pay had been criticized so he devoted some space to explanation. After plaintively pointing out that his annual pay as a circuit rider (no doubt a mythical occupation for him) didn’t exceed $30 a year, he did confess to having been employed to post quarantine signs on homes with contagious diseases in the family – a task ordered by the county health officer, Dr. I.U. Parsons of Malvern, and Attorney D.E. Whitfield – at $1.00 per sign. (For many years such large yellow quarantine signs were considered a public health measure and used to prevent the spread of contagious diseases, some of which have now been conquered entirely by vaccines.)
In due time the correspondent discontinued his lively news letters and so Wall Street went into decline. Later the community became known as East Liberty, after its church and cemetery. Yet some evidence of change and growth continues today. A swing around the pleasant lanes of the neighborhood as material for this work was being gathered showed that two new non-farmer residence have been built there the past year, and a half dozen or more new mobile homes have been placed on acreages. So the early dreams of population growth have materialized to some degree.
Long before the fantasy of Wall Street was invented, the community did have a post office. This was called Jewell and was established December 22, 1874, with George W. Patrick as postmaster. As it was three and one half miles north of Malvern it would have been located in the Patrick mill. It was active less than three years and was closed May 18, 1877.
