Own a piece of Mormon Trail History!
These high-quality, laser-cut plaques are truly special!
The Mormon Trail Elementary School gym was recently resurfaced and these plaques are made from the original gym floor! Maybe you played on the original floor-maybe your children and grandchildren have played on that floor also. Now you can own your own piece of Humeston-Mormon Trail history!
Only $5.00 each! All sales proceeds will be used to purchase boys basketball uniforms and for the new scorer table.
Special thanks to Roger Jackson for his wonderful work! Purchase your plaque today at Snyder's, Great Western Bank or call the elementary school office at 641-877-2521 and ask for Linda.
Front Street Market Celebrates Eighth Anniversary
by Willa Clark
It has been eight years since the doors opened for the first day of business at the community-owned grocery store on Humeston's Front Street, but it took years of community meetings, fundraising and selling shares, electing a board of directors and more meetings, along with untold hours of volunteer work to even get to Opening Day.
Members of the Humeston community did not want to remain a community without a grocery store. In those planning days, board members and others visited other community-owned and cooperative grocery stores in small towns across Iowa. They contacted grocery suppliers and they discovered shelving, coolers and other equipment at reasonable prices from a variety of sources.
When shares were sold, some purchased one share, others contributed much more, knowing there was a possibility the only return on their investment would be the local availability of groceries.
In the first eight years, as with any business enterprise, there have been changes. Under the management of Karon and Ed Coffey, Front Street Market now offers daily lunch entrees, house special ham salad and chicken salad, and catering to Humeston Livestock Auction sales and for other organizations. The newest change is coming soon-Sunday hours from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at customers' request! Thank you for a great first 8 years!
DEPOT DOTS
News from the Humeston Depot MuseumThe Ambassadors Band played lively polka and march music Sept. 15 at Chris Street Park and sounded very good. Humeston's own Russell Wright played the drums for the band.
This yearly fundraiser for the Depot Museum provides money the local match portion as the museum board applies for grants from Wayne Community Foundation to do various projects. In the past we have purchased the large swinging board set that holds various maps at the museum.
We have painted the wooden water tower, and as the weather has cooled, the work will begin on setting the old Humeston school bell at the rememberance circle at the depot. If you weren't able to attend the fundraiser but would like to donate to the museum, Stacey at City Hall is always ready to accept your donations. Thank you for your support!
Humeston Welcomes New Restaurant
by Willa Clark
The words on a plaque inside the Locker tell a little about what Gala and Loren Jessen have in store for their new venture, The Locker, LLC, a steakhouse and lounge on Highway 65 on the north edge of Humeston.
The plaque reads, "BBQ--Because man was put on this earth to eat meat."
The Jessens opened for their first day of business in Humeston, but it is not their first day in the restaurant business. Gala owned and operated a restaurant with her mother from 1985-1990 in Novelty, Mo. She did not intend to ever own a restaurant again.
Her marriage to Loren in 2006 changed those plans. He just happened to be owning and operating the same restaurant she had been in earlier. They operated that business until they took other work and moved to Humeston in 2010 to be near grandchildren in Humeston, Chariton and Indianola.
"We really liked Humeston, even before we moved," Gala says. "Everybody's friendly."
In Humeston, the couple once again had the urge to operate a restaurant. They saw the locker building as a potential location. They decided to keep the name. "We always called it 'the locker,'" Gala explains.
Loren loves to cook, with a special talent for low and slow barbeque. He plans to feature barbeque pork and beef for weekend specials. Also in the works for future events will be bayou specials and barbeque chicken. Gala says, "Watch for our ads."
The current menu for Friday and Saturday evenings offers a choice of rib eye steak, Kansas City strip, ham steak, Iowa Chops with secret sauce, catfish filet, shrimp, grilled chicken and frog legs, in addition to their hand-cut, tenderized and breaded tenderloins, burgers and other sandwiches always available.
Hungry for eggs over easy in the afternoon? At The Locker, they'll cook breakfast any time.
Gala says she is looking forward to Christmas parties, and has semi-private dining areas that can accommodate a single table or a larger group.
The Locker is open 6 a.m. - 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Sundays they will open at noon for lunch and stay until 9 p.m. Sunday buffet is coming, just as soon as the steam table is ready. The bar is still under construction in the back, where they plan to have live bands occasionally.
Gala says she knows quitting their jobs to open The Locker is a risky adventure, but they have hired excellent help which will make things run more smoothly.
"We know we can do it, we just have to prove it to eveybody else, " she says. "We want to support Humeston and hope Humeston supports us."
(Article from the Humeston New Era.)
$300 Private Reward Offered
We Need Your Help!
A $300.00 private reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of vandals who have destroyed property of Humeston businesses and in Chris Street Memorial Park.
Anyone with information should contact the Wayne County Sheriff's Office at 641-872-1566.
Residents and businesses have worked hard to revitalize the town and assist the city in providing the park and most people do not want to see those efforts destroyed. Private donations are being accepted to to repair damage. Private donations may be sent to:
PO Box 452
Humeston, IA 50123
All donations received will go toward the park project. Thank you. We greatly appreciate your help!
Dogs and Stones--Harry's Doghouse is
Lifetime Collection
by Shelda Lunsford
"Listening to his master's voice," was the duty of the large white dog with the cute black ears that sat proudly, head at an angle and gazing out the window of the doghouse. Nipper was his name, a sleek fox terrier, waiting anxiously to catch a sound of visitors to his home.
Born as the mascot for the Victor Talking Machine Company, which later became known as RCA Victor and maker of the famous Edison phonograph record player, Nipper was inspired by a painting the dog's second master, Francis Barrand, had made.
The original dog Nipper was born in England in 1884 and died in 1895, but the reputation and the replicas created because of him live on forever.
Just as Nipper was not an ordinary dog, neither was the doghouse, which served as home to a likeness of him. Instead it was a creation of elaborate labyrinths of buildings and paths twisting and winding across the entire expanse of yard; the structure was known to locals as Harry's Doghouse. Nipper was not the only resident.
A Humeston resident, Harry Marks had a very special attraction. For many years, collecting replicas of dogs was a passion for Marks. When he was not at his regular job as manager for the local telephone exchange, which was located in his home, he also worked at his hobby of collecting both dogs and rocks.
According to recorded accounts offered by one of his children, Marks involved the entire family in his "rock collecting" efforts. His daughter Pat recalled, "My sister Elaine and brother Harold have better memories of the rock gathering than I do, since I was the youngest, but I believe he started gathering the rocks right after we moved into our home in 1924, the year I was born." Elaine remembers that they could not go home until they "had their buckets full."
Marks had no known help in the building process. He put all the structures together himself. The first to be completed was a rock garden, then a lily pool and later the posts, which lined the yard at the front of the home, were painstakingly created by Marks.
There is no exact record of when the first doghouse at the Marks home in Humeston was built, but it is believed to be 1940, according to a date on the fireplace at one of the buildings.
Marks added doors to the first structure and went on to build two more doghouses before he was finished.
In the beginning Marks only had a few dogs in his collections, which he had purchased himself. But, as he started to build stone buildings and to place his collection of dogs inside them, more and more people became interested in was was beginning to be a "curious" place to visit.
Soon people started sending Marks dogs from all over the United States. A few were even sent by servicemen stationed around the world.
Marks was overrun with canines! So he continued using the stones he and his family had spent years collecting and created spaces to house all of his thousands and thousands of dogs.
He made room for dogs on see-saws and china dogs on merry-go-rounds. He had plastic dogs and chalk dogs and metal ones that wagged their tails. There were little dogs sitting on big dogs' tails and Marks even had his own version of a "hot dog."
There was a Buster Brown dog named Tiger. Marks even had a couple of outhouses marked "setters and pointers" with a sign between the two reading, "For any old dog."
Partway during construction visitors began arriving at the Mark's home. They entered large stone gateposts and followed similar stone structures up the drive and along the sidewalk to the front door.
Rock edgings bordered the drive and along the walks to the doghouses, as well as all around a fishpond in the center of the yard.
The fishpond had a lighthouse sitting in the middle of it, which housed small dogs in six small glass-covered alcoves built into each of the four sides. All were made from the collected rocks cemented together.
By the time Marks was finished building houses for his collection he had constructed five seperate structures.
Every dog was protected by glass windows or panels, and over all of them reined Nipper. He was a happy pup, because he knew he was most beloved by his master, even more so than the oldest dog in the collection, an English bulldog that was brought to this country by the grandmother of one of Marks' neighbors.
Besides being the best loved, Nipper was the largest dog in the collection, standing three and one-half feet high. The smallest dog was so little that in all the construction Marks actually misplaced it and it was never seen again.
The mechanical dogs in the collection were the most interesting to those who visited and spent countless hours watching the parade vignettes created by Marks.
One dog had come from Mexico and sat placidly smoking a cigarette, the tip of which glowed intermittently.
Marks had even installed magnets inside the snouts of some of the plastic dogs, which he placed on turntables. When the dogs would pass each other the magnets would cause the pooches to either "kiss" or "turn away" from each other, as they passed on the moving circles.
At least one company, the Sargeant Flea Powder Company, sent Marks a dog at one time. It showed off by scratching its own ears and blinking its eyes repeatedly.
Once during a town celebration, Marks became acquainted with a couple operating a bingo stand and the conversation turned to Harry and his doghouses. Marks forgot about the conversation until long afterwards he received a box through the mail. When he opened it to see what it contained, there nestled in amongst the packing material was a vast array of different dog novelties from the "bingo" couple.
Harry's Doghouse was gaining in popularity with each installation. It was not long before the locals in the community felt as if Marks and his collection belonged to them.
When newcomers to the area arrived, tall tales of Harry and his collection emerged to form local myths. The most popular tale was that a person could not be sure they would survive a trip to Harry's Doghouse. They might not live to tell of their adventure.
Time has a way of marching forward and aging both owner and place. Finally, Harry's Doghouse was no more!
Marks was no longer there to care for his collection. The buildings began to crumble and disappear. The dogs were in danger of being homeless with no one to care for them.
Through the endeavors of many, a way was found to continue to care for the collection; not at the Doghouse, which had fallen into disrepair, not even in Humeston, where it had given pleasure to so many.
The entire collection of puppies, dogs and pooches, headed up by Nipper made their way to the Wayne County Prairie Trails Museum in 1980. The final tally was between 8,000 and 10,000 dogs.
They are still there today, with Nipper proudly sitting in command behind the glass wall, his head slightly tilted to one side, quietly listening and trying to see if he can still "listen to his master's voice."
(Article from the Humeston New Era)
Our Iowa Signs are Here!
The signs are here...the signs are up...if you can't read them...just slow up.
When Peggy Rash first read in her "Our Iowa" magazine about the contest that would place a single set of Burma-Shave-style signs in each Iowa county, she nominated Humeston. Unknown to Rash, Nancy Gunzenhauser and Linda Arnold also sent in nominations to bring the signs to Humeston.
Paul Gunzenhauser, left and LaVern Tueth, right.
The staff at "Our Iowa" liked the trio of nominations. Humeston was the only town in the state to have three people so eager for the unique and historic signs submit nominations. They recognized that having the signs could become a tourist attraction and bring more customer traffic for dining and shopping in Humeston. Unlike some of the other county winners, the Humeston women were asked to select the jingle from a list of original jingles that at one time were posted throughout 45 states. They chose, "Proper distance...to him was bunk...they pulled him out...of some guy's trunk." The last sign bears the "Our Iowa" logo.
A series of signs in each county will carry a different original Burma-Shave jingle. Humeston's signs are on the east edge of town, where traveler's can read them as they head east on County Highway J22. Bill and Phyllis Carlton graciously allowed the signs to be placed on their property. LaVern Tueth and Paul Gunzenhauser put up the sign posts and signs. The exact locations in each county will be noted in future editions of the magazine, so magazine readers may find them as they travel throughout Iowa.
The history of Burma-Shave signs is almost as interesting as their teasing jingles. They roadside rhymes were started by Allan Odell in 1925, with $200 he borrowed from his father who owned the Burma-Vita Company.
Odell came up with the idea as a unique way to promote the family's brushless shaving cream. At first, his father was hesitant about this "new-fangled advertising idea," but he was reluctant to discourage an ambitious son and went along with it. The rest is history.
Odell wrote the original jingles himself and personally erected the first set of signs in southern Minnesota along U.S. 65 near Albert Lea. Across the U.S., the signs were placed where motorists would see them in a staggered sequence usually along a rural, monotonous stretch of highway.
The signs quickly caught the attention of drivers and shaving cream buyers. The idea not only worked, it became an American institution. Burma-Shave grew from a small Midwestern company to the number two brushless shaving cream in the country.
Each set of rhyming lines was broken into short snippets and placed on sequential signs that could be read at speeds up to 50 miles per hour. The last sign always had the "Burma-Shave" logo. The light-hearted jingles added a smile to drivers and passengers. Many touted the benefits of using Burma-Shave, like,
"To kiss a mug...that's like a cactus...takes more nerve...than it does practice."
Others promoted safe driving, as does Humeston's jingle or this one, "A guy who drives...his car wide open...is not thinkin'...he's just hoping."
It is reported Odell kept a flashlight, pencil and pad next to his bed to write down ideas for jingles which came to him in the middle of the night.
For almost four decades, the signs dotted the American countryside. At one time, there were 7,000 sets of Burma-Shave signs in 45 states. Many regarded them as a slice of Americana.
As highways improved and interstates crisscrossed the country, the signs became more of a blur. At speeds faster than 60 miles per hour, they were hard to read. In addition, right-of-ways became wider and signs were required to be placed farther from the traveled portion of the road. These conditions eventually led to the demise of both the signs and the company.
But in spite of their absence, many people remember the signs and their favorite jingles and requested the Burma-Shave-style signs for their town. The eventual selection was based on many things, especially the proposed location of the signs and the community's commitment to maintaining the site, trimming grass regularly and keeping the signs standing straight.
Humeston's set of Our Iowa signs will be the only ones in Wayne County, but there will be others in every Iowa county, ready to offer a chuckle or a bit of driving advice to every passerby.
Oh, my, oh, me...you thought you knew...where those signs would be...and now you do. Humeston.
(Article from the Humeston New Era)
Fallon Forum Broadcasts Live From Humeston
On May 12, Fallon Forum broadcast live from the Humeston Library. Fallon Forum aired 7-8 p.m. on WOW FM 98.3 and was hosted by Ed and Lynn Fallon. A former state legislator and 2006 gubernatorial candidate from Des Moines, Ed Fallon was the guest speaker at the Mormon Trail Chamber and Development annual meeting several years ago.
When he returned to Humeston during his run for the governor's seat, he was impressed with the changes. Fallon had asked to bring their show to Humeston, where they broadcast from the library and spoke with several community members on efforts in the last few years to revitalize our charming town.
Jill Tueth, Sarah Lovett, Paul Gunzenhauser and Nancy Gunzenhauser were interviewed and spoke about area businesses, local attractions, community support, continuing efforts and funding initiatives. If you missed Fallon Forum's live broadcast and would like to hear it, click on the following link and enjoy! http://983wowfm.com/article.asp?id=1803601&SPID=36183
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This site created by Kerry A. Sullivan
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