Iowa's Lost Towns
What are Lost Towns? This are sites in each county that perhaps had a town, or a post office or church. Many had businesses. Some had a large population base and others drew their citizens from miles into the country. Each of these named sites were important to our ancestors, and should be important to their descendants.
Many of the names were chosen after the area was named to site of a post office. The person applying for the post office had the choice of name. Find out why the names were chosen and what their significance was to the postmaster or his family. Why were post offices so important to Iowa's early settlers.
Some people call these 'Ghost Towns,' but the author does not agree with that term. There is no one haunting these areas. In most cases, there is nothing remaining from the town, except perhaps a cemetery. It just seems that these are towns that Iowa has lost.
Two books have been published about these Lost Towns...Butler and Black Hawk Counties. They are available through the author - please use the contact form and this would be the only way to receive a signed copy. Also Dragonfly Books (http://www.dragonflybooks.com/book/9781596299696) will take your credit card orders.
BUTLER COUNTY
Not all locations were only post offices. Butler Center, in Butler County, functioned as the County Seat for almost twenty years in the late 1800's. Butler Center had the courthouse. It was a small, two-story frame building, 26 feet x 36 feet, with an outside wooden stairway, and was built at a total cost of around $20,000, which converts to $425,000 in 2003 dollars, according to an inflation convertor Andrew Mullarky, a farmer who owned considerable land in that vicinity, donated the two acres on which the courthouse at Butler Center was located. A wooden sidewalk from the courthouse to one of the stores was known to exist even into the 1900’s.
In 1865, the population of Butler Center was shown as 390 people according to the Iowa State Gazette.
According to A.T. Andreas in his 1875 Illustrated Historical Atlas of the State of Iowa, Butler Center was, except for it being the county seat, "a place of no commercial or other importance." Andreas continues, "The village contains, besides the court house, so called, two general stores, and wagon and blacksmith shops. The best public structure in the place is a two-story frame school house, 20x40, capable of seating 160 pupils..." There was even a newspaper in the village. ,
Not all locations were only post offices. Butler Center, in Butler County, functioned as the County Seat for almost twenty years in the late 1800's. Butler Center had the courthouse. It was a small, two-story frame building, 26 feet x 36 feet, with an outside wooden stairway, and was built at a total cost of around $20,000, which converts to $425,000 in 2003 dollars, according to an inflation convertor Andrew Mullarky, a farmer who owned considerable land in that vicinity, donated the two acres on which the courthouse at Butler Center was located. A wooden sidewalk from the courthouse to one of the stores was known to exist even into the 1900’s.
In 1865, the population of Butler Center was shown as 390 people according to the Iowa State Gazette.
According to A.T. Andreas in his 1875 Illustrated Historical Atlas of the State of Iowa, Butler Center was, except for it being the county seat, "a place of no commercial or other importance." Andreas continues, "The village contains, besides the court house, so called, two general stores, and wagon and blacksmith shops. The best public structure in the place is a two-story frame school house, 20x40, capable of seating 160 pupils..." There was even a newspaper in the village. ,
Have you heard of Rainbow in Black Hawk County? Did you know there were two Finchford's in the county?
Black Hawk's county seat is Waterloo. There were one hundred named locations in the county. Find out the site and see old pictures of towns or schools.
Did you realize the animosity and fights that occurred in Black Hawk County as to where the county seat would be located?