This project was last updated Monday, 11 October 2010

	Mills County, Iowa     Townships

OAK TOWNSHIP

Ghost Towns of Oak Township

Source: Ghost Towns of Mills County Iowa, 1975, p. 103-105,by Allen Wortman, used with permission.

Folsom, a former community on the present Burlington Northern railway that runs from Pacific Junction to Council Bluffs, enjoyed a unique function among Mills County's towns when it was an active commercial center: it served as a major shipping point for garden produce. Mrs. Frances Godsey of Glenwood, whose grandfather, Freelove Turner, was one of the pioneer settlers in the Pony Creek area, remembers when farm wagons loaded with onions, pumpkins, watermelons, etc., converged on Folsom as buyers from Kansas City came to purchase huge quantities of such produce. She said that Folsom was a very "homey place."
The community had its beginnings in the latter third of the nineteenth century. At first it was called Henton Station, or Henton, after F. M. Henton by whose farm home the county's first railroad, the Council Bluffs, St. Joseph & Kansas City line ran. After a railway station was established there, a stockyards and loading facility were built and this served stockmen and farmers for many years.	Folsom Store, 1915
Evidently the community had a loyal Democratic party nucleus among its citizens for after 1896, when Grover Cleveland was elected president of the United States for the second time, the name of the village was changed to Folsom, honoring Mrs. Cleveland's maiden name. The town had its major period of commercial activity after that and continued to have a store until well after World War Two. In 1904 its population was listed as 50. During the late 1930's a rendering plant for processing dead animals into industrial products was built there and operated for several years. In June, 1895, a man named Sayers, who wore distinctive box-toed shoes and whose horse had only three shoes, stole several bushels of onions from a farmer in St. Marys township near Folsom, taking them to Omaha to sell at the farmer market. He was apprehended and convicted of the theft when authorities noted the distinctive box-toed footprints left in the field as well as the horse's footprints. A few years later a man who lived just south of Folsom claimed to have discovered a prehistoric man in a limestone quarry site by Folsom, and exhibited this around the area, charging admission to see it. When it was shown in Malvern the editor of the paper wrote that he had seen it, and at once recognized the prehistoric man as a "hard character," but most of the community had shunned him as he was just starting on his first grand tour around the world. Mrs. Godsey recalled the exhibit and that the owner had done a very casual job with his project, even making the supposed man out of concrete instead of using the limestone available. The community name lives on, as nearby is one of the best of the "borrow pit" lakes that were made during the construction of Interstate Highway 29 which runs down the Missouri River flood plain just west of Folsom. This has fine sand beaches and is quite heavily used - sometimes at night as well as in the daylight hours as the Mills County sheriff has been called several times to the lake by residents of the vicinity who had reported sizable groups of "skinny-dipper" bathers using the site. Just north of the lake are the two nationally-famed "million dollar" rest stops, the high cost of which (estimated at $1,200,000) set something of a record in construction pricing, resulting from engineering errors which hadn't considered the peculiarities of the flood-plain soil. There is also a shallow slough by Folsom, long known as Folsom Lake, left by an early channel of the Missouri River, which is a favorite of water-fowl hunters. Thus Folsom lives on as a neighborhood even though it no longer is a commercial center.

Source: Ghost Towns of Mills County Iowa, 1975, p. 29-34,by Allen Wortman, used with permission.

As the Missouri River provided the first access to the southwest Iowa region, stage coaches were the second to give public transportation service and their routes provided some interesting history

Frequent stopping places were needed for the stage coaches as they rolled through the area of Oak Township. One of these was the Plumer Settlement which was a stage coach 'station'. There accommodations for travelers were limited but they could sleep on the floor of the large Plumer home which still stands as a comfortable reminder of a pioneer shelter, on Highway 275, north of Glenwood.

The county was served, in a very loose sense, by three stage lines: one north from St. Joseph, Missouri, through Tabor and Glenwood to Council Bluffs. The others were part of the Western Stage Line, one from Council Bluffs to Des Moines, coming south to the Plumer Settlement, easterly to Stage Coach Inn, on southeast again before striking north and east. The third linked the counties in south Iowa from the nearest eastern rail terminal.

Nor was "getting there half the fun." An early-day writer reported that the life of a traveler in those days "was by no means a pleasant one. When steep hills must be ascended, or muddy bottoms crossed, the passenger - wearied as he was by the swaying and rough usage of hard driving - was expected to descend and mount the hill or cross the bottom on foot." Upsets in crossing creeks were frequent occurences and much mail arrived soaked and muddy. In December, 1869, the last of the stage coaches rolled through Mills County.

OAK TOWNSHIP CHURCHES

Church of St.Bonefatzins - Est. 1865.

German Independent Church of Christ of Pony Creek Valley -Located on the old Pony Creek road in Section 33. Organized in February 1897. Early memberes were Henry Timmermann, Henry Pein, John Schmidt, Anna Timmermann, Trina Pein, Margretha Schmidt, Fred Pein and Elizabeth Pein, Anna Stille and Ferdinand Seitz. Services were in German until 1916 when they were changed to English. In 1921 the name of the church was changed to Pony Creek Baptist.

Salem Evangelical LutheranChurch - Built in 1867. It was a tiny church serving only thirty families at that time. Later disbanded to affiliate with St. John Luthern Church in Mineola and St. Paul Lutheran Church at Treynor IA. For further information and photos see Keith Brandt's website and Early Churches of Mills County.

Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - Est. Oct 1861 Records for First Members

West Liberty Methodist Episcopal - In February 1875 an acre of land (Section 25) was sold by Isaac Warren to the trustees of the West Liberty Methodist Episcopal Church, Samuel Meadows, Isaac Meadows, J.M. Cattron, John Byers, Harvey Meadows, I.M. Warren and Edward Steepy. This church continued until about 1925.

West Oak - Located about four miles north of Glenwood in Section 26. It seems it was originally an Adventist church, later being acquired by the Friends. In mid-1922 the church was purchased by the Pony Creek Baptist congregation and dedicated as the Community Baptist Church of West Oak.

OAK TOWNSHIP SCHOOLS

Evernham - SE corner Section 29

Gowen #1 - center of Section 28W

Gowen #2 - Middle of west side of Section 29W

Letal - middle of East line of Section 12. Established in1880. In 1912 thirty-three pupils attended this school:

Ellen Bichel Helen Bichel Theodore Bichel William Bichel Wilma Bichel Dwayne Evans Floyd Evans Viva Evans Edward Hoffman

John Hoffman Josephine Hoffman John Horn Lillie Horn Albert Kahl Edward Kahl Fred Kahl John Kahl

William Kahl Aloysuis Leick Clarence Leick Bessie Miller Sadie Miller Albert Roenfeld Gladys Roux Claude Schoening

Earl Schoening Fern Schoening Helen Schoening Lee Schoening Ruth Schoening Wilbert Schoening Catherine Trout John Trout

Plumer - center of Section 10. Land leased to Independent School District #4 by Christopher Plumer. Attending were the children of the Plumers, Greens, Youngs and Niemoller, all homesteader families. Sand Hollow - SW corner of Section 16E
Spetman - center of Section 8W Unnamed School - middle of Section 34 West Liberty #1 - NW corner of Section 25W West Liberty #2 - NW corner Section 36 W West Oak / West Liberty #3 - middle of west line of Section 26W	To Plat Map

Source for the Plumer and Letal Schools: TheHistory of Mills County, 1985

Oak Twp. Index

Mills Co. Township Index