We enter our second week of January working our way through Lee
County, Iowa.
At the moment we are spread out along Highways 61 and 218. Let’s look at the county in general as we
pass through. According to the website
Iowa pioneers.com:
“Lee County is located in the extreme southeast corner of
Iowa. With a total of 522 square miles, it is mostly agricultural with the
major acreage in farms. The Des Moines River flows southeasterly along the
southern border, the Mississippi river flows south along the eastern border and
the Skunk River flows southeasterly along part of the northern border of the
county. The land along the rivers is forested and steep. Lee County was first defined in 1836, with
the final boundaries established in 1838. Fort Madison was named as the county
seat, but due to much disagreement and numerous votes, a second court
jurisdiction was established in Keokuk in 1847, and the county seat was divided
with deputies at the offices in Keokuk. All land south of the Half‑Breed line,
except the east half of Jefferson Township, is recorded at Keokuk, and the
remainder of the county at Fort Madison. (The Half-Breed line, also known as
Sullivan’s line, is the easterly extension of the Iowa-Missouri border through
Lee County.) In 1834, the barracks were built at Fort Des Moines, which was located
at what is now Montrose. . . Land was
designated in 1824 for the half‑breeds of the Sac and Fox tribes. In 1838, the
lands north of the Half‑Breed Tract were sold by auction at Burlington.
Population of Lee county was 2,839 in 1838; in 1850 it was 18,912; in 1860
29,232; in 1905, 18,006; in 1950, 43,102 and in 1990 it was 38, 687”.
http://www.iowapioneers.com/County%20Guides/LeeCoGuide.htm
Just as a
side note, there are still periodic arguments about consolidating the county
capital offices in either Ft. Madison or Keokuk. Neither city wants to give it
up, so they continue to share begrudgingly.
This same website listed at least 26 towns in Lee County that once had
post offices or sufficient population to make it to the map but are now
considered abandoned. A 1914 History of
Lee County Iowa digitized on Google e-books, also remarks:
“Scattered over Lee County are a number of towns and
villages some of which are business centers of considerable importance while
others are merely small railroad stations, neighborhood trading points or post offices
for a given district In the early days of Lee County history there seems to
have been a sort of mania for laying off towns, the principal object having
been the sale of lots to new comers. Hawkins Taylor one of Lee County's pioneers in
an article published in the Annals of Iowa for October 1870 says ‘Speculation
was running high in the spring of 1836 and everybody we met had a town plat.’ .
. . In spite of that fact however some of them have survived others have
disappeared entirely from the map and it is probable that none of them has come
up to the hopes and expectations of the founders.”
History of Lee County, Iowa, by N.C. Roberts and S. Moorehead, The S.J. Clarke Publishing Company,
Chicago, 1914.
I recognized
many of the names on the abandoned list as places that older relatives had
referred to, but many were just wide spots in the road as I was growing up in
the 1970s. In the last 5 to 10 years, many other towns have lost the highway
traffic that provided business to highway gas stations and restaurants. Both Highway 218 and 61 have had major by-pass
work to go around cities such as Donnellson, Keokuk, Fort Madison to the west,
and even Mt. Pleasant farther north. For
the dedicated traveler trying to go from point A to point B on a timetable, the
by-passes are great. The bypass keeps traffic from having to slow down and
gives the locals a break on the incessant truck traffic. For those of us not
always in such a hurry who really hate the boredom of interstate highways or
who would really like a nice small town café or diner, the bypasses take a lot
of the charm out of the drive from Keokuk to Iowa City or Ottumwa.
One such
charming place nearly missed on the highway trip along our walking route is
Hickory Grove School and cemetery, just outside Keokuk and near our first week
pacer mark on the Sandusky Road turn off—about six miles out from our start on
the riverfront. The highway used to
pass right next to the school on the west.
The four lane highway now bypasses the school to the east, but it is at
least still visible a bit in the distance from the new road.
Hickory Grove is a one room school house
established in the 19th century. (Photo by Glenn Chatfield at http://schoolhouses.blogspot.com/2011/07/hickory-grove-school-keokuk.html) The building was, (at least in the 1970s, I don’t know about today),
owned by the Keokuk Community School District.
It was a field trip destination for Keokuk grade school students. As a student, I remember spending a school
day at the school house having an “oldey-timey” school experience. We sat in
the old desks, wrote with nib pens, did spelling bees and math drills, and took
our lunch in tin pails. I also remember
doing a scavenger hunt and gravestone rubbings in the cemetery surrounding the
school house. Mom always said I had relatives buried in that cemetery, but I
would have to go to her genealogy records to remember which ones. I think it
was actually the cousin who had her body stolen . . . but that’s another story
for another time.
So where
are we this week? The pacer walk mark
has us 13.5 miles out from our starting point in Victory Park. The pacer is here:
A few
folks are ahead of the pacer and a few behind it. Both are doing ok, it’s just a pacer mark.
Individually,
welcome to Rhonda and Stacie who logged their miles this week! Welcome also to Rhonda’s husband Terry who
has been walking and will have miles entered into the spreadsheet next
week. Elaine, we miss you and hope to
have some miles for you on the spreadsheet by next week. Rhonda is on the north edge of
Keokuk, entering the newer shopping areas.
At her stopping point this week on the left hand she is at the entrance
to the rubber weather-stripping factory where coincidentally my mother worked
for nearly 30 years. Seems appropriate that the satellite photo was taken on a grey, gloomy day.
On the right side is the new Hy-Vee. Well, new to me anyway. Remember, I’m
old. There was always a Hy-Vee there,
but the one I remember was torn down in the 1990s and replaced by a bigger
store and Hy-Vee gas station. The only
tragic thing, in my reminiscing opinion, is that they also tore down the old A & W drive in restaurant that used to be on the same lot. So much for car hops . . .
Stacie is
past last week’s pacer mark and through Summitville.
The little village itself is currently a mix
of old and new houses and a trailer park.
The County Home (senior living at one time for economically challenged
individuals) was at one time not far from there as well. Historically,
“SUMMITVILLE The old Town of
Summitville is situated in the southwestern part of Montrose Township It is a
station on the Keokuk & Mount Pleasant division of the Chicago Burlington
& Quincy Railroad eight miles north of Keokuk and twenty miles from Fort
Madison It has a general store a money order post office Christian and United
Presbyterian churches a public school building and in 1914 had an estimated
population of one hundred. “
History of Lee County, Iowa, by N.C. Roberts and S. Moorehead, The S.J. Clarke Publishing Company,
Chicago, 1914.
This county
atlas listed several Norwegian farmers in the area among other nationalities of
settlers. Tangen wannabes. I do not believe there are any businesses or
churches left in Summitville now, although I could easily be wrong. The kids attend Keokuk schools by bus, or bus
into Central Lee County consolidated school system. There are many quite pretty
houses and farmsteads around Summitville, as seen in Stacie’s satellite view.
Melinda was at 14 miles on January
15.
She was just about to the point where Highway 61 and 218 diverge. "Two roads diverged in a yellow
wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked
down one as far as I could To where it bent
. . .” (Robert Frost)
Highway 61
continues north, down a hill back to the Mississippi River and onto Fort
Madison. At that point, we will be not
far off the place where historically the Mormon Trek crossed the ice covered
Mississippi River from Nauvoo, Illinois.
Sorry we are that we cannot go down to the river to see that point, but
we can’t. We are going northwest in the other direction.
This week I made it to 16 miles and
Lucy was past me at 17.5 miles as seen in her map position above. We have
gone past the highway intersections and are enjoying the Lee County
countryside. Her view includes a lovely little rural home:
Mike is still at the head of the
pack at 31 miles. Still not quite to
Donnellson, but pretty darn close. We’ll make him take the old road through
town rather than the modern four lane bypass around it. We are supposed to be
sight-seeing after all.
Thank you Google maps for the satellite
images this week.
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