Nick Foster, co-owner with his wife Annette Foster of the Mason House hotel in Jefferson IA, shared stories of the historic inn for members and guests of the Greene County Iowa Historical Society at our meeting Friday, June 7, at the First United Methodist Church in Jefferson. "It's been bought and sold many times," said Foster, who purchased it a year ago from Dr. Jim & Nancy Teusch, who'd owned it 10 years. "The Teusches deserve a lot of praise. They spent a lot of money on it and they basically saved it." It its 130-plus years, the hotel initially served passengers arriving on the north-south railroad. Today it serves a lot of bicyclists arriving on the Raccoon River Valley Trail, which has been built on the old railroad route. Foster said he and Annette are always on the lookout for stories from the hotel's past. One puzzler -- old newspaper articles seem to indicate that from 1901 to 1904, the facility was apparently owned by Drake University and the Iowa Christian Convention. He said their goal is to renovate "but keep it as close to original as possible. We don't expect to make any money on it -- it's definitely a non-profit business! -- and whatever we do make we'll be putting right back into it."

At the Pleasant Hill Memorial Homecoming service on Sunday, May 26, Wallace Teagarden, 96, a 1941 graduate of Grand Junction High, a retired attorney & insurance claims adjustor who has lived for years in Ames, did the patriotic oration he's been doing since junior high school, reciting excerpts of several important American documents and then the full Gettysburg Address. Teagarden has done this at the Pleasant Hill Church services on Memorial Day weekend every year since 1960, and does it from memory. His oration this year was flawless and inspiring as ever. At the right is his cousin Jerry Evilsizer, of Fairmont, Minn., who chauffeured Teagarden for the day. More photos are in the story below here.

Featured speakers at the Pleasant Hill Memorial Homecoming service were Iowa Rep. Phil Thompson and Melissa Bosshart Frederick, both of whose families have deep ties to the church and pioneer community -- and they are classmates from the Jefferson-Scranton High School Class of 2009. Both are rising young leaders in our area. The event was organized and sponsored by the non-profit Pleasant Hill Memorial Inc. with support from the Greene County Iowa Historical Society. More photos are in the story below here.

Retired journalist Chuck Offenburger was the moderator of the Greene County Iowa Historical Society program on the life & career of Churdan native Deil Otto "Gus" Gustafson on Friday, May 3, at the Churdan Public Library. More than 60 people attended. Important input and stories came from this panel of Churdan natives -- (left to right) Paul White, Doug Tucker, Rosemary Fay Cassell and Cy Hoyle. Tucker and Cassell were 1949 Churdan High School classmates of Gus Gustafson. White and Hoyle are both authoritative on the community's history.

"Gus" Gustafson is shown here as a graduating senior at old Churdan High School in the spring of 1949. He went on to earn three college degrees, became a lawyer, college professor, owner of a chain of banks and leading businessman in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, then in the 1970s bought the Tropicana casino and resort and several other properties in Las Vegas. His empire came toppling down in the 1980s, and Gustafson died at 67 years old in 1999. His amazing life and career were the subject of the Greene County Iowa Historical Society program on Friday, May 3, in his hometown of Churdan. Find details elsewhere on this page.

When the Greene County Iowa Historical Society met Friday, April 12, at the United Methodist Church in Cooper, the program was "The Return of Isaac Cooper," namesake of the town. He was portrayed by actor Dennis Peer, a native of Cooper who taught theater for 38 years at Ellsworth Community College in Iowa Falls. Speaking as Isaac Cooper, he told the story of the mid-19th century settlement and development of Iowa, the city of Des Moines and, in 1881, of little Cooper IA. That's when Frederick M. Hubbell, of Des Moines, and some partners were building a railroad to the Iowa Great Lakes, brought it through our territory, founded the town and named it after his father-in-law Isaac Cooper.

Special guests at the April 12 meeting of the Greene County Iowa Historical Society at the United Methodist Church in the town of Cooper were father & son Mike and Cooper Hubbell, of Des Moines. They are respectively the great-great-grandson and great-great-great-grandson of Isaac Cooper, the pioneer Des Moines businessman after whom the town of Cooper is named. Since the younger Hubbell goes by "Cooper," the Franklin Township Board of Trustees, who govern the Cooper area, had a brief ceremony at the historical program and named him "Honorary Mayor" of the town.