Donnellson  . . . . 

January 29, 2012 is the end of four weeks of walking.  We're making good progress and the pacer mileage for the week claims we should be at 26.5 miles from our start point.  We are doing really well in that regard with most everyone in double digits this week!  Hooray! You guys are awesome!  Week three was really cold out and made me want to sit on the couch. Even though I am walking inside on a treadmill. Thank you all for helping with the motivation!  I know I have to walk or get left behind and that helps get me moving.  Today, it was 65 degrees outside in Central Iowa so we have NO EXCUSES!  Keep up the great momentum!

photo from the city of Donnellson, IA website cited on page

Walking this week puts us into the town of Donnellson in central Lee County. It's quite a small town, and from the satellite images, I think the Casey's (where I wanted Mike to buy pizza) has indeed closed.  That's sad, I wonder if it moved up onto the bypass.








In any case, I discovered that Donnellson, though small, has a great PR machine working for it.  The city website, http://www.donnellsoniowa.com/About/, calls the burg the heart of Lee County. Since, it is really in the center of the county, I'll give them some credit for that statement.  The site lists quite a lot of things to do through the year, including music concerts under the water tower, an Easter egg hunt, a Pumpkin patch, a July 4th parade, September's Apple Daze festival, the Lee County Fair, and races at the speedways. For a delightful brush with small town culture, check out the FAQ page off the city site. It reminds you that trash pickup is on Tuesday, you can burn leaves but not trash, reminds you there are congregate meals for seniors at the United Methodist Church, provides a phone number for the post office and says if you need to get into the city dump for unloading tree limbs or brush "Keys are available from City Hall, Russell and Gene, Chief Brandon Fowler and Mayor Bill Young." I miss small town life sometimes . .  There is a town newspaper and motel and you can rent the Westview picnic shelter by calling Michele B. I'm sure Stephen Bloom would be bored out of his mind and probably horrified  by the stock car races at the speedway, but I always had a good time at the Lee County fair and darn it, these people sound pretty darn NICE to me.

And now a history geek moment . . . According to the city web site's history page,  "The town of Donnellson was named for the Donnell families, W. A. and Eston, (brothers) who lived on either side of what is now Highway 218 in the south part of town . . . W. R. Donnell, a son of Eston, helped with construction of the first building in Donnellson. The building was a small warehouse used for a depot and storage purposes. This was the site where the first dance in Donnellson was held, on July 4, 1870. W. R. Donnell also was the first railroad agent, first express agent, the first merchant, and the first postmaster, holding these positions all at once.  In 1871, Donnellson started to grow when it was selected as a site for the railroad to travel through the area running from Fort Madison to Farmington . . . The Lee County Fair, “Iowa’s Oldest Fair,” was incorporated in 1878. . . 

http://www.donnellsoniowa.com/About/History.html

By 1881, Donnellson had three hotels, a hardware store, boot shop, post office, flooring mill, drug store, grain elevator, shoemakers, blacksmiths, harness maker, stockyards and an ice skating rink . . . On September 27, 1892, there was a petition filed with the Clerk of District Court requesting Donnellson to be an incorporated town. Donnellson was 120 acres with an estimated population of two hundred inhabitants . . . In 1895, Donnellson was dimly illuminated by four gasoline streetlights until August 1897. . . Donnellson was growing faster than any other town in the county in the early 1900’s. The town had the first telephone switchboard in 1900, a medical doctor and a cheese factory. There was an electric light plant by 1910, a water system & new dentist by 1912 and a veterinarian by 1913."

Today Donnellson is small indeed, but still on the map. It is at the crossroads of Highway 218 and state highway 2. Highway 2 is the Mormon Pioneer Trail memorial route and a great drive for site seeing. It leads up through Shimek State Forrest (great hiking and cross country skiing, wild turkeys, and such) and eventually into Van Buren County.  Great day long road trip, I recommend it whenever you have the chance. But today, we are still heading north into town.  The Casey's may be gone, but there is still a BP station on the corner of the Hwy 2 crossroads.

Today the downtown and main street look like this . . some changes from the old photo above, but still a small town charm.

There's a pretty city park, with a picnic shelter and play area.  I think this is the park with the Depot museum, but I am not sure. I've actually never been to the museum. Shame on me, I realize.

So where exactly are we this week? 

As I said, we are all hanging in there pretty well in week four! Thanks to Google Maps and satellite images, we can browse the roads in central Lee County.  Stacie is at 16 miles this week, through New Boston, past Central Lee Schools and nearing Charleston.  Her satellite view is below. Such a pretty day for this photo.  She has the Donnellson downtown to look forward to as she walks in week five!

The map below is good for pinpointing Stacie and Rhonda.  The red flag is at 18 miles with Rhonda.  Stacie would be just a bit to the southeast of that mark.

I loved the satellite image for Rhonda this week.  A great sunny day in 2009, a cool vapor trail in the sky, and WOW, what a great white convertible.  Seriously, this is the satellite image!  NO HITCHING, RHONDA . . . I don't care how cute the driver might be. ;)

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 Terry has walked through Donnellson by the end of this week, and is just on the north side of town.  Somewhere just behind him and to the west, just off the highway, is the site of the Lee County Fair grounds expansion. I haven't seen it, but they say the new construction is pretty nice.  He is at 22.9 miles this week. Way to go Terry! Remember folks, he started a week after us and has put the time in to catch up with us all.  The satellite view for him is cloudy, but a nice view of  the turn off towards Franklin--another one of those little villages in the middle of the county.

 For ease in reading, let's map the next few folks all on one map.  Terry's map flag is the red one shown here,  Janet is just past this red flag at county J40 turn off towards West Point. Melinda, if we place her on this map, would be at the very top, where the word Houghton is cut off.  She is at the intersection between Hwy 218 and the Houghton turn off.

The pace mileage for this week was 26.5 miles. Janet managed to get to 26.7 miles, on pace, thanks to a final push on Sunday January 29th itself.  This puts her on the other side of Donnellson, as seen on the map above, at the roughly at the turn off to West Point.  Her view is kinda cloudy, but a cute farmstead in view at least. 







Melinda, Mike and Lucy made incredible progress in week four and are well on their way towards Mt. Pleasant. The road is back to the four lane highway as we caught back up to it on the other side of Donnellson, after our little scenic detour through the center of town.

Melinda has 31 miles to report in week four and a great satellite view of the turnoff towards Houghton.  There's a gas station to the east and the little parking lot on the west is a park and ride area for folks who commute into Burlington together.

Lucy is at 39 miles in week four and has a great view as she is about to cross the bridge over the Skunk River. Yes, this is the same Skunk River we know in central Iowa near Ames. The Skunk River meanders a good 93 miles from its headwaters in Hamilton County, Iowa until it finally joins the Mississippi near Burlington, Iowa.  According to Wikipedia, the Skunk River was known to the Sauk and Fox as "Shecaqua".

Lucy's marker can be seen here, approaching Mt. Pleasant from the south. She has now crossed into Henry County, leaving the Lee County villages far behind her.

Mike has gone on ahead and is through the city of Mt. Pleasant at this point.  He has 48.35 miles at the end of week four.  He has taken Highway 34 out of town headed to the west.  It's a long running argument in my family about whether it is faster to get to Des Moines by taking 218 to Iowa City and then I-80 west, or cutting across Hwy 34 to Ottumwa or such and then north.  We're not in a huge hurry and we want to go to Fairfield, so we're taking the western route, but we will take Business 34 and go through downtown Mt. Pleasant, rather than the norther bypass loop. That saves some steps in the long run. Mike's point on the map is here: 

 

We'll talk more about the sites we all would see in Mount Pleasant next week, but for now Mike's view is of Highway 34 on the other side of town looks like this. Be warned, there are some mean rolling hills as you take Hwy 34 west  . . . be prepared!