These eight mailboxes represent the remaining households and businesses in the unincorporated community of Knoke, located in the northwest corner of Calhoun County, Iowa. Knoke was home to a full-time post office through 1963, when it was shuttered in favor of a locally-operated contract branch office; that office operated 25 years before it was discontinued. Knoke is now part of a rural route originating in the nearby community of Fonda.
This incredibly small post office building sits alone on the main street of Beaver, Iowa, a Boone county community home to 53 residents as of the 2000 census. Beaver sits just north of Highway 30 on the western edge of the county. Additional Beaver photos can be found in Luke Healey’s Flickr photostream.
The colorful Watts Theatre in downtown Osage was a state-of-the-art facility when it opened in 1950. The original opening brochure highlights a number of unique features, from a cry room for little ones to a powder room for ladies to a heated sidewalk outside to melt snow and ice. After sitting empty for five years, local newspaper publishers restored and reopened the theatre in 1994.
The theatre changed hands again in 1998 and 2006; it has not only remained open through the transitions, but has seen a number of recent improvements including a new roof, equipment upgrades, and a second-story apartment now used as a viewing room and party facility. Its signature neon marquee was even restored in 2005.
This modest City Hall is one of only a few remaining buildings in the tiny Decatur County community of LeRoy, Iowa. The population indicated on the City Hall sign dates to 1990; by 2010, the number had diminished to 15, a drop of nearly 95% from the peak population count a century earlier. Like many other small towns in the state, LeRoy experienced a gradual decline over many years: in 1946, the railroad halted service. In 1971, the post office closed shop, while the school discontinued operations ten years later.
While an active Presbyterian Church still holds services each Sunday morning, the community is slowly fading to ghost town status. The graveled streets are growing grass, the street signs are hand-made from peach-painted wood, and empty lots outnumber standing structures. This postcard, dating to the early 1900s, shows LeRoy’s once-vibrant downtown.
With under 700 residents in 1900, Alden was the smallest community in the United States to be granted a Carnegie library. The $9,000 library opened in 1914 and has served the community since. In 1998, a capital campaign began to add 3,000 square feet to the library including a new children’s learning and activity center. By June 2000, the half-million dollar renovation was complete, and the updated library was dedicated. As evidenced by the featured photo, the addition maintained the historical style of the 85-year-old building.