Trading One Hell For Another St. Elizabeth's Hospital Fire Davenport

Firefighters responded at just after 2 a.m.

January 7, 1950, began quietly at Mercy Hospital’s St. Elizabeth’s psychiatric ward in Davenport, Iowa. One nurse was away in Des Moines, leaving Anna Neal in charge of nearly seventy patients. Another aide, Josephine O’Toole, was off duty and asleep upstairs.

Shortly after 2 a.m., Nurse Ellen Hildebrand spotted flames rising from St. Elizabeth’s and alerted her supervisor. Within minutes, smoke filled the halls.

Hospital worker Murray Francis, fifty-seven, saw the fire from the main building. He kicked in the door, carried patients to safety, and then helped firefighters man a hose. Merchant police officer Bill Stagen arrived as crews battled to break through barred windows. He saw women clinging to the iron bars, screaming for help, then disappearing into the smoke.

Patrolman Richard Fee was the first police officer on the scene. Flames poured from the upper windows. Firefighters doused him with water before he climbed into a bucket, ax in hand. Breaking through a window, he found six women huddled together “like bewildered animals.” He pulled them out, describing the bitter cold outside as “trading one hell for another.”

Mother Place Mitchelville Iowa Baby Farmer

A young woman handing her baby over to Mother Place

Back in 1895, Mother Place was just Mrs. Martha Place, a widow who looked exactly like every widow looked in rural Iowa—gray dress, gray bun, gray outlook on life. She lived on a little patch of land near Mitchellville, and kept to herself, which everyone said was respectable until it suddenly wasn’t.

Her business was simple, if you didn’t think too hard about it. Women from Des Moines or nearby towns would arrive, holding bundles they didn’t want to hold anymore. They’d hand them to Mrs. Place—and she’d take them in exchange for a few crumpled bills and the promise they’d be “well cared for.” Nobody used words like “adoption” or “surrender.” It was more like handing over a problem that couldn’t be fixed.

To the neighbors, it all looked perfectly ordinary. They’d see her hanging laundry, waving from her porch, or tending her garden. Maybe a baby’s cry drifted through the open window now and then, but it wasn’t anything you asked about. In 1895, if someone said they were running a “baby farm,” that was just what it was called. Nobody stopped to ask why it sounded so terrible.

Who's Haunting the Hotel Julien in Dubuque Iowa

Hotel Julien (circa 1930)

There’s something strange going on at the Hotel Julien in Dubuque, Iowa. It doesn’t look haunted at first glance, but if you spend the night—look out—because you just might meet Public Enemy No. 1.

Locals say it’s haunted by the ghost of Al Capone. He rolled into town in the 1920s, and took over the entire eighth floor. His men spread out like killer bees, patrolling the hallways, their jackets bulging where guns hid.

Some say he owned the place, or had a stake in it. The hotel had been struggling for years. Then overnight, it was transformed into the finest joint in town. Suspicions, yes—but people understood, curiosity could buy you a case of lead poisoning.

Then, as quickly as he came, Al Capone disappeared—back to Chicago, and a fast-growing empire of booze, women, and bullets. But something stayed behind.

Murder of the Huber Brothers in Carroll County Iowa

The sheriff gave it one more look before removing the bodies

There’s something foul in the soil of Carroll County. You can feel it even now — that twitch behind the eyes of the people who still talk about “the Huber boys.” Two brothers, Henry and John, farmers, hard cases by every account. Dead in their own kitchen in 1874 — skulls split like kindling, blood on the stove door, an axe standing proud in the corner like it had just finished its shift.

 No robbery. No fire. Just two men beaten to a pulp on a weekday morning, and a county that couldn’t decide whether to pray or sharpen its knives.

 

The papers called it “the Carroll County Horror.” What they meant was: somebody ended a family with a tool meant for chopping wood. The sheriff rode out with one deputy, two cigars, and no idea what he was walking into. The neighbors had already turned the place into a sideshow—poking at footprints, whispering about money, jealousy, the usual frontier rot.

They Caught Him With His Pants Falling Down

Whynak Johann

Every murder story starts with a question. This one has three: Where does love end? Where does insanity begin? And why do they always live in a rented room above someone named Bessie?

 In 1910, Whynak Johann married Marie in Vienna, Austria. He was built like a bull—five-nine, 190 pounds, all muscle. She was tiny, ninety-five pounds soaking wet, with a face that said, I could survive anything except this marriage.

 

Two weeks in, he marched off with the Austrian Army. Marie got sick and went home to her parents. When Whynak returned, she was living with her ex-boyfriend, Franzl Hervieu. Most people would take the hint. Whynak didn’t.

 

In 1913, moved to Davenport, Iowa, and got a job at Kohl’s Packing Company, making $2.50 a day turning animals into dinner. He sent for Marie. To his shock—she came.

 

They rented a two-room apartment at 1226½ Harrison Street for a dollar a month from Bessie Estess. Marie took in boarders; Whynack brought home paychecks. Love in the immigrant slums—cheap beer, sausage smells, and dreams of not freezing to death.

 

Then Franzl showed up. Again.

A Short History of the Savery House Des Moines Iowa

 

Savery House (circa 1930s)

The Savery has been part of Des Moines since the 1870s, when the first Savery House opened downtown. It was a gas-lit affair where businessmen in stovepipe hats struck deals and ladies in bustled skirts watched from behind their fans. James C. Savery built it with his wife Annie, a suffragist and reformer.

The early Savery burned down, was rebuilt, and burned again—twice. Each time, Des Moines rebuilt it. Every city needs a place where strangers cross paths and stories linger, and the Savery refused to vanish.

In 1919, the current Savery rose eleven stories on Locust Street, a mix of brick and limestone. The Chicago firm H.L. Stevens & Co. gave it Georgian lines and symmetry that suggested order in a world still recovering from war. Each of its 233 rooms had a private bath, which was a small miracle at the time.

Harry Truman and Eleanor Roosevelt stayed there. Carol Channing demanded a window she could open before agreeing to spend the night. In the 1980s, Tiny Tim made the Savery his home, strolling the halls in his trademark tuxedo, humming to himself.

Burlington County Poor House

It stood like a castle or medieval fortress on the edge of town, except no one went there willingly.

The Burlington county poorhouse served as Des Moines County’s refuge for the poor, sick, and elderly. Locals called it the “county home” or “poor farm.” Every county had one back then.

It was a working farm where residents, if able, helped raise crops, tend animals, and kept the place running. The steward and matron lived on-site, managing the chores and caring for dozens of “inmates,” as census records coldly described them.

County funds kept the operation going, with a doctor visiting regularly and local officials inspecting the grounds. Life there was simple and sometimes harsh, but it offered shelter to those with nowhere else to go.

A small cemetery nearby held the graves of those who died without family. Like other poorhouses across Iowa, Burlington’s stood as both a symbol of compassion and a reminder of hard times.