Mason City, IA, to Des Moines, IA
The Iowa cornfields continue to roll in all directions as our path heads southeast. When pioneers first entered the Mid-West they had a great deal of difficulty preparing the rich soil for crops. Unlike the rocky soil typical of the east the top soil of the plains was difficult to plow. When wet the sticky soil required farmers to stop every few yards to scrape it from the plow blade. In 1837 a young blacksmith named John Deere noticed his neighbor’s struggles and fashioned a new type of plow from a broken sawmill blade. The rest, as they say, is history…
The highway skirts the Cedar River and rises up and down a series of small wooded ridges as we arrive in Waterloo, home to the John Deere Tractor and Engine Museum. The banks of the Cedar River were first settled in 1845 when Charles and Mary Hanna arrived on the banks of the river and established a homestead. Other families arrived the following year and eventually the town of Waterloo was founded. Rapid growth occurred during the ensuing years, especially from 1895 to 1915, when the population increased from 8,500 people to 33,000 during a period of rapid growth in manufacturing and railroad operations. One of the manufacturing operations that moved into Waterloo at that time was the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company. The Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company, founded in 1893, was one of the first companies to manufacture and sell gasoline powered farm tractors. This company formed the roots of the John Deere manufacturing presence in Waterloo.
John Deere Tractor and Engine Museum
John Deere built his first factory in Moline, Illinois, and by 1849 had 16 employees who produced 2,136 plows that year. In 2012 (the John Deere Company’s 175th anniversary) a replica was created of John Deere’s first 1837 plow and is on display at the entrance to the museum galleries. I was surprised to see that the plow only had a blade on one side rather than the “V-shape” that I had imagined.
Throughout the rest of the 19th century only five product lines dominated the company’s output: plows, cultivators, harrows, drills and planters, and wagons and buggies. An 1877 Rotary-Drop Corn Planter is on display. The machine, pulled behind a horse, allowed the farmer to plant two rows of corn at a time.
At the same time that the John Deere Company was growing in Illinois the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company was flourishing in Waterloo, IA. Their gas engines were used in a variety of industries at the beginning of the 20th Century and the company advertised in the media of the day.
In 1912 the company released its first Waterloo Boy tractor, which quickly became a success. A fully restored 1914 Waterloo Boy Model “R” is on display. Note that rubber tires were not yet in use.
During World War I Waterloo shipped over 4,000 dismantled tractors to the Overtime Tractor Company in England where they were reassembled and distributed under the Overtime Tractor name to assist with the war effort.
At the same time that Waterloo was becoming an industry leader in the production of tractors (selling over 6,800 tractors by 1917), John Deere officials were debating the wisdom on expanding into tractor manufacturing. After doing some initial tractor development on their own, Deere executives decided that the most effective way to enter the tractor market was to purchase Waterloo. In 1918 John Deere purchased Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company for $2.25 million dollars and began expanding operations in Waterloo. The museum details the evolution of the tractor over the next 100 years.
In a very well done series of information galleries the growth of the John Deere Company is detailed.
The evolution of the tractor seat is traced in a “butt’s-on” display so one can experience the change in comfort. A seemingly small detail, the comfort and support that the seat provides is crucial to a farmer who is sitting in it for 12-14 hours a day.
The last major display details the building of a tractor along the assembly line. In 1970 from beginning to final assembly prepped for painting, a John Deere 4020 Tractor took about two hours to build.
The very last step in the process is the attachment of the John Deere nameplate.
Leaving the Cedar River Valley at Cedar Rapids the horizon to the southwest is again dominated by the rolling hills blanketed with fields of corn. During the 1850’s this was the “Promised Land” to settlers looking for fertile lands on the frontier. A small group of German immigrants living a communal lifestyle who had initially settled in upper New York near Buffalo decided to strike out further west. This group reached the valley of the Iowa River in the mid-1850’s and for the next 80+ years lived and flourished in what came to be known as the Amana Colonies.
Amana Colonies
The Community of Inspiration formed in 1714 from a group of Germans who believed that God would inspire a few chosen people to speak the word of God. Inspirationalists sought to avoid conflict, difficult to do during the 1700’s in central Europe. In 1843 the group pooled their resources and bought 5,000 acres of land near Buffalo, New York. By working cooperatively and sharing their property, the group was able to live relatively comfortably and soon grew to nearly 1,200 members. They called their community the Ebenezer Society and formalized a communal way of life by adopting a constitution that guided their way of life. The increased numbers created pressure to expand and in 1855 the group settled in the fertile Iowa River valley of central Iowa. They christened their community “Amana”, a word from the Song of Solomon which means “remain true.” Eventually seven villages were established along the Iowa River a couple of miles apart and collectively became known as the Amana Colonies. The original town of Amana was the largest of the villages and the center of colony commercial life. All work was done in a communal fashion. Roles were assigned by the village elders with shared responsibilities. For example, communal kitchens prepared all of the meals and groups of families ate together. The community flourished until the early 1930’s when a combination of factors lead to increasing dissatisfaction within the colonies. A disastrous farm economy, rebellion amongst the younger generation who increasing wanted to adopt modern ways, and a growing sense of the needs of the individual rather than the group lead to the “Great Change” of 1932. The colony voted to disband and a corporation was created, with each adult receiving one share in the corporation. Today the Amana Colonies are all still thriving little towns with the original town of Amana still the commercial center of the valley. The road from Cedar Rapids into the colonies winds amongst gentle hills covered with grain and vast fields of corn.
Right next to the campground harvest is underway.
When the colonies disbanded the various buildings and enterprises passed into either the hands of the Amana Society Corporation or private ownership. The main street of Amana is lined with original colony buildings, now housing restaurants, stores and a museum.
The center of town is the Amana General Store, jammed with tourist items as well as an entire annex devoted to Christmas.
The colonists started a number of manufacturing businesses that became known around the nation for the quality of their goods. The east end of Amana is home to two of the most successful craft industries. The Amana Furniture Company is housed in the historic Amana Calico Mill.
Calico was a term that came to be used for various types of printed cotton cloth. White cloth was purchased from the south and east, brought to Amana, then dyed and printed with patterns. The business was very successful until World War I interrupted the flow of German dyes from Europe. Without the dyes the colonists were unable to produce the quality of product that they wanted and so the mill was closed. Use of the building evolved into the production of hand-crafted furniture and clocks. An observation hall provides a look at the craftsman at work.
One of the other successful Amana businesses is the Amana Woolen Mill. Construction of the mill began in 1859 and the complex was continually added to until 1943. The low salesroom on the left as added in the 1960’s.
Wool for the mill came from flocks in East Amana until demand out grew supply and colony supplies were augmented be outside purchases. Quality woolen products are still produced today.
Colonists at Amana were amongst the early pioneers in refrigeration and Amana appliances were well-known for their quality. I was quite surprised to find out that the legacy of those early entrepreneurs, now part of the Whirlpool manufacturing empire, still thrives in the Amana Colonies. About half way between Middle Amana and Amana in a driving thunderstorm I bypass an enormous Whirlpool manufacturing plant.
About an hour south of the Amana Colonies another group built a different way of life at Kalona. One of the striking similarities are the surrounding rolling hills of grain and corn in the Iowa countryside under a stormy sky.
Kalona, IA
Kalona is the center of one of the largest concentration of Amish and Mennonite settlements in the United States. The Amish first were formed in Europe as an off-shoot, more conservative arm of the Mennonites, and both share a strong belief in pacifism, individual/family responsibility and industriousness. Over the 170+ years that the groups have lived and worked in the Kalona area, the Amish themselves have separated into two groups: the “Old Order’ are strict adherents to the original tenets of the faith and have no churches (rotating worship amongst individual homes), while the “Beachy” Amish worship in churches. Both groups have begun to integrate more (though not all) modern technology into their work, especially the use of tractors on their farms. Many still use the traditional horse and buggy for travel.
Kalona itself is a village of around 2,500 and while a center for tourism in the area, is not a tourist “trap.” There are no ‘cutesy” building lining the main street, just a ramshackle collection of buildings constructed over time.
Amongst the arts and crafts that draw in the tourists the most prominent is quilting. Kalona is known as the quilting capital of Iowa and if you look closely at the picture above you can see that the intersection has been built in a quilt design. Smaller, more colorful quilt blocks are imprinted in the sidewalks along Main Street.
While walking around the small town center a number of Amish rolled by in their buggies.
A couple of blocks east of the commercial center is the Kalona Historical Village. A number of historical structures from around the area have been moved (and some restored) to the village so that visitors can get a snapshot of life in the past. The South Sharon United Methodist Church congregation was first established in the area in 1867, this church was built in 1907 and used for approximately 75 years before being replaced.
The 1892 Wahl House has been restored to portray the upper-middle class world at the turn of the 20th century.
The 1842 Snider/Figgins log cabin was home to a family of 12 in essentially one room with an attic above.
A trundle bed takes up one corner, the lower level has no mattress, just the rope trellis that would have supported one.
Summit School, built in 1850, was also known as “Straw College” after the straw that was stuffed in the walls during the winter to provide some insulation against the Iowa cold.
The 1879 Kalona train depot served as both a train depot with waiting room and agent’s office on the first floor and living quarters for the agent and his family on the second.
When the Amish farm manager grew too old to do the work of managing the farm, he and his wife moved out of the “big house” and into a small one-room cabin called the “Grandpa House” so that his son could assume the role of the manager and live in the big house. This is an 1890 Grandpa House.
A pouring rain cut short my tour of the outbuildings so I returned to the main building to see the inside exhibits. The two main galleries highlight the local specialty, quilting. The first gallery displays Amish quilts. These tend to done in simpler patterns and darker colors. The Amish were relatively late in taking up quilting, preferred the feather comforters common to their European heritage until the late 1870’s. The second gallery displays “English” quilts, generally more experimental in the pattern and brightly colored. Throughout both galleries is an astonishing collection of spool cabinets, housing spools of thread. The invention of the sewing machine in 1846 lead to a change in sewing threads. The type of thread previously used for hand sewing was not strong enough to be used in a machine. Most thread was imported from Europe prior to the Civil War, but the war disrupted shipping and provided the impetus for an American thread industry. A Kalona local, Steven Reifs, owned Reifs Family Center, a family-owned business in Kalona that lasted 125 years and spanned six generations. He collected spool cabinets and quilts. Most of the quilts in the collection are from the last half of the 19th Century.
The Amish Quilt Room
The English Quilt Room
A rare 1890 coin-operated spool cabinet is on display. Customers rotated the case until their choice was in the selection spot and then inserted a coin.
As our path now turns to the west the land temporarily flattens, though still carpeted with corn, soy beans, and grains.
Next up: “The Monks”
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