The places that once was

CORNING - Rosa Snyder encouraged her audience Friday at the Corning Opera House to take pictures of those isolated, forgotten houses and buildings out in the country.

“Get out and explore. Once they’re gone, they’re gone,” she said.

Backed by Humanities Iowa, Snyder gave a presentation on various Iowa towns of generations past in “Off the Map: Stories of Abandoned and Disappearing Iowa Towns.” She highlighted several towns that were once was, or almost was. She travels regions of the state with group of friends to take pictures and research county records for any information about the towns that used to exist.

“That is what I’m hoping to instill in you to get out and explore and record what you have in your county,” she said.

Raised on a northeast Iowa dairy farm, Snyder taught art in Ames and worked as a design consultant for Meredith and Hearst Publishing. She was then hired as a state restoration painter for the ceilings and walls of the Iowa State Capitol. Since retirement, she has been driving through much of the main and back roads of the state documenting the towns that once was and could have been. She lives in Polk County. Her husband is from near Wall Lake in Sac County.

Her research showed 62% of Iowa’s incorporated towns have less than 1,000 residents. From 2010 through 2019, 62 of Iowa’s 99 counties lost population. Snyder had a specific list of towns in certain counties she noted that have been lost for good.

Snyder said Iowa towns were established under certain categories; a railroad town, hopes to be a railroad town, agricultural benefits and proximity to rivers. She said some towns used a nearby river as a source of power to operate a mill for economic development. She said Iowa has 19,000 miles of rivers. In 1920, Iowa was fourth in the country for the number of railroad line miles.

Coal mines were worked in central and southeast Iowa although western Adams County had coal mines. Communities and small towns were created because of the coal. Quincy is a place in Adams County linked to the coal mines which desired to be the county seat.

Some towns also have a location based on faith or ethnic interests. The French Icarian community is still remembered in Adams County.

“Paper towns are no more than in a plat book,” she said about towns that were planned, but never developed.

She explained Mitchellville, east of Des Moines in Polk County, was originally developed by a man with the last name of Mitchell in hopes of acquiring a rail stop. The railroad was laid 1.5 mile south forcing him to relocate the town to the railroad line.

Grant City, in Sac County, was known for its brick factory plus it had general stores, a church, a town baseball team and a school. The bricks, which she had one on display, did not last long term because of the tendency to crumble. She had a picture of students on the last day of the school’s existence. Students were to attend in Auburn. The town suffered because of Raccoon River flooding, a tornado and scarlet fever.

“The town was hit by many, many disasters,” she said.

One of her listings in another part of Iowa had another Adams County connection. The town of Cooper, in Greene County, celebrated its centennial in 1981 and wanted to declare the 51st resident of the town. The organizers were guests of “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson, the legendary television late night talk-show host who was born in Corning. Carson reminded the group of his Iowa roots. The people from Cooper named Carson as its honorary 51st resident. Chuck Offenburger, who is from Shenandoah and known for his career writing columns about Iowa culture and people in the Des Moines Register, lives near Cooper mainly for its bicycle trails.

The reasons for the death of towns are almost the same as the reasons to have one said Snyder.

“Everything changes; farming practices; natural resources caused by disaster like tornadoes, even back when we called them cyclones,” she said. Rail traffic has also changed over the generations.

New Jersey has an organization called the 242 Club. A group of people tour the 242 towns in the state. Colorado has a Ghost Town Club, like Snyder, tour regions of the state where towns were located and still show evidence today. Guthrie County has a publication listing and mapping its places of the past.

“Do historic research. Go out there and take your phone or your camera and take photographs so we can remember those town in photos,” she said.