John Van Nostrand: What towns will be remembered in the future?
May 9—I had a comment for Rosa Snyder after her presentation Friday in Corning. I said I would be curious to know how this same presentation would be 70 years from now.
For those of you who didn't see our front page Monday, I attended Snyder's presentation about her research of the places and towns in Iowa that don't exist anymore. There are still pieces of evidence of some of the towns as abandoned buildings, collections of houses, churches, some still in operation, and cemeteries are still visible.
Snyder referred to change generations ago. We are still seeing change in rural Iowa.
Today, a collection of Orient-Macksburg school students presented their findings on the condition and future of the school. We hope to have that story in a near-future edition and in our sibling newspaper in Greenfield. Orient-Macksburg is sandwiched between Creston and Nodaway Valley schools. Orient has a gas station, post office, restaurant and a church. Snyder said some towns in her research ended with the same amenities. (I'm not implying Orient will be a ghost town. The towns Snyder referred to had other factors for their demise.)
Orient-Macksburg may be the closest example of how rural Iowa and America has changed. We've heard it before, family farms are getting larger while the family itself is getting smaller, hence the school's declining enrollment. Sure, students can open enroll into a neighboring school, which happens, but there are still fewer families in that district.
Orient-Macksburg isn't alone. After our teacher appreciation pages last week, one which featured Creston High School instructor Todd Jacobson, I heard from a couple of people with South Page school ties. Jacobson taught at South Page, which is south of Clarinda, earlier in his career. A former student of his and a retired South Page teacher thanked me for the story on Jacobson. The story got passed around.
Those comments turned into what South Page was like 20 years ago or longer with the larger class sizes and multiple activities. South Page ended all of its sports teams a few years ago. South Page school sends its high school students to Bedford for complementary classes because it doesn't have the staff. It had been using Clarinda.
College Springs has less than Orient. College Springs did have a small college, hence the town's name.
Snyder said a driving force to start a town was its hopes to be on a rail line. But, like with agriculture, railroads also changed over the generations. Creston, also a historic train town, has fortunately managed to keep that characteristic. I have to wonder if the changes in rail business is what severely hurt certain southwest Iowa towns. You can still see in some places where the tracks were laid. Those tracks led to people and commerce. Both are gone.
More change is probably coming to southwest Iowa.
Fontanelle United Methodist Church is expected to close later this year. It just doesn't have the congregation numbers to justify staying open. There have been other United Methodist churches in southwest Iowa closed just in the past 10 years for the same reason. There's not more churches now; there's just fewer people attending.
To keep what we have going, and hopefully not it lose it, is pretty simple. Try and support it. I know we don't have every need and want around here. There are places where longtime owners retire and can't find someone to continue the business.
Snyder said 37 of Iowa's 99 counties had population growth from 2010 to 2019. Dallas County west of Des Moines has been in top 10 across the the country of various growth categories. I've mentioned it before, and I'll say it again; we need to have more of a regional attitude to keep our corner of Iowa viable and appealing. We should be sharing our ideas, success stories and wealth with the others so we can all have a future and be a consideration for others looking for a place they want to live, work and play.
Or, like the audience last Friday, people 70 years from now will be passing down the stories of the places that once were.
