Constructed in 1857 at a cost of $40,000, the former Dubuque County Jail is one of a handful of Egyptian Revival buildings remaining in the United States. Featuring 18-inch gray limestone walls, the building functioned as a jail until 1971. A few years later, the Dubuque Art Association leased the building for use as a museum, an arrangement that remained in place through 2003. When the Association moved to a remodeled bank building in 2003, the Dubuque County Historical Society established the Old Jail Museum in the historic facility.
The museum is open Wednesday through Sunday from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
Construction began on the new post office facility for the Davis County community of Pulaski in December 1999. The non-descript modular building featured new patron mailboxes, a handicap-accessible entrance, and a 24-hour lobby. Postal service was first established in Pulaski in 1852.
The United Methodist Church in the Marion County town of Hamilton was founded as a Methodist Episcopal Church in 1868. Services at the church ceased in the mid-1960s, but a faithful few continued to meet in the building for Sunday School, monthly hymn sings, and maintain the aging building. The commitment did not go unnoticed; in 1987, the church reopened with a full-fledged congregation in 1987 following a phone survey by the Iowa United Methodist Church conference.
The church continues to operate, with 23 members and an average Sunday attendance of 12. The Sunday School group meets at 9 a.m. with services following an hour later. The church continues to operate in the original building, constructed nearly 150 years ago. It remains a simple one-room structure today with recent improvements including the addition of an indoor restroom and central air conditioning.
A local Library Association was first formed in the Osceola County seat of Sibley in 1874. The association allowed membership at either a dollar or donation of books worth the equivalent amount, and books were kept in the County Recorder’s Office. By 1908, an agreement was reached so the city could lease the GAR Memorial Hall for one dollar per year for use as the Sibley Public Library.
In 1915, the community was awarded a Carnegie grant of $10,000. Land for the library was donated, and the new building was dedicated December 11, 1917. Since initial construction, two major improvement projects have been completed: a 1985 addition of a meeting room, genealogy room and children’s activity center, and a 2008 renovation project that included new carpet, new paint, and new furnishings. The refurbished library building held an open house in August 2009.
This modest but well-maintained building serves as the City Hall for the quaint Union County town of Cromwell, population 107. Like many small towns in Iowa, Cromwell was once a bustling village, as noted in a copy of the Creston Gazette from March 1898:
The town has been a good trading and shipping point for years and the volume of business transacted is quite large. Cromwell has two or three general stores, a lumber yard, hardware establishment, restaurant, hotel, grain offices and several stock buyers. A fine school building adorns the village and there are three church buildings, Methodist, Congregational and Christian. The town is incorporated and governed by a mayor and city council. It is an enterprising little place and is home of a number of retired farmers who have built comfortable residences.
Cromwell is the oldest town to be platted in the western half of Union County, laid out in the spring of 1869, a few years prior to the county seat of Creston.
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