Boone Iowa High School Class of 1890

 

Boone High School class of 1890.

Back row: John Goeppinger, Omar Mann.
Third girl from left: Mrs. C. Canfield.
Bottom row: W. W. Goodykoonts, Mrs. H. T. Cook, Arthur Crary, and Fred Crary.

(Photo from the Des Moines Register. April 24, 1927)

Book Review: Murder & Mayhem in Scott County

You pick up Murder & Mayhem in Scott County, Iowa expecting a tidy little history lesson—maybe some musty courthouse trivia, a harmless stroll through the polite past. Instead, the thing hits you like a warm Schlitz can lobbed from a moving pickup. Scott County isn’t the wholesome Midwest postcard you were promised. It’s a long, low scream under the polite small-talk.

Grace Reed on Utica Ridge Road? That story crawls under your skin and refuses to pay rent. Margaretha Nehlsen poisoning her own kids with chocolate—chocolate, of all things—makes you want to interrogate every candy dish you’ve ever seen at a church potluck. And Harry Hamilton, the ex-cop who decided law enforcement was more exciting when you were shooting at it—he’s the kind of character you expect to find at 2 a.m. in a tavern that claims it closes at midnight.

The book doesn’t guide you so much as shove you down a gravel road at high speed, shouting facts at you through the open window. There’s a feverish energy to it, the sense that the author has been living on gas-station coffee and county-archive dust for far too long. Each chapter feels like it was pulled from a file drawer that local officials swore didn’t exist.

The Union Brewery and Iowa City Beer

Workers outside a brewery in the 1860s

The Union Brewery in Iowa City felt like a place that survived on nerve alone. Built in 1856 by Simeon Hotz, a shoemaker turned brewer, it grew into a brick stronghold at Linn and Market, a place the Iowa State Register said operated with “a confidence that must be admired, considering the temperance sentiment now fashionable in the Capitol.”

The brewery didn’t just sell beer — it sold identity. Hotz and Anton Geiger were German immigrants who brought their lager brewing with them, and Iowa City drank it up like a man who’d been wandering the prairie too long.

 

By 1868 they expanded into the big building — three stories, beer cellars underneath, steam heat, the whole industrial symphony. Locals wandered in and out of the taproom, leaving footprints in the sawdust and carrying home gossip hotter than the kettles.

Mason Motor Car Company Des Moines Iowa

Mason Motor Co. ad, 1906

The first thing you need to know about the Mason Motor Car Company is that it never should have worked. Not in Des Moines, not in 1906, not in a state where most people still trusted a good horse over any contraption that hissed, rattled, and tried to kill you on a dirt road. Yet for a few bright, reckless years, two brothers with machine oil on their hands and speed on their minds tried to drag Iowa—kicking, screaming, and occasionally bleeding—into the automobile age.

Fred and August Duesenberg weren’t normal. They looked at a peaceful bicycle and thought, What if this thing went 60 miles an hour and tried to shake its rider’s fillings out? The Des Moines Daily News called them “the sort of young men who consider mechanical noise to be a form of conversation.” They were tinkerers, racers, mechanics, engineers—whatever you want to call them—but above all, they were hungry. Hungry for speed, recognition, and the clean snapping sound an engine makes when it finds its rhythm and behaves. So when Des Moines attorney Edward Mason threw some money at them and said, “Make a car,” they didn’t hesitate. They built the Mason, a small, explosive two-cylinder machine that rattled windows, terrified horses, and made its owners feel like they were cheating death—or at least borrowing trouble from it.

 

Hopkins Bros. Baseball Team Des Moines

 

Hopkins Bros. Baseball Team

Top of letter: “Smoke” Madigan, Thomas, Bowman, Parsons, Honska.
Bottom of letter: Franklin, Evans, Fahey (manager).
Left side: Crandall, Mendenhall.
Right side: Wilkinson (captain), Wasson.

(Des Moines Register. June 17, 1906.

Senator Frank Jones Villisca Axe Murder Suspect

 

Ever since the Villisca Axe Murders, there had been rumors that Frank Jones and his son Albert had skin in the game. Some residents traced it back to when Joe Moore left Jones’ implement business and opened his John Deere dealership. Supposedly, there had been hard feelings ever since.

Another story making the rounds was that Joe Moore was sleeping with Albert Jones’ wife. But that allegation held little water; rumors had linked Dona Jones to half the men in Villisca.

Like the case against Mansfield, the charges against Jones went nowhere. Investigators brought in more suspects over the years, but nothing came of it.

You can read the full story of the Villisca Axe Murders here.

Blood on the Roadside: The West Liberty Tourist Camp Murder

Harland Gabe Simons

The West Liberty tourist camp murder hit the front pages in July 1924 like a thunderclap.

Orton and Diana Ferguson had been on the road for almost a year, wandering up and down the West Coast, drifting from camp to camp, letting the dirt roads decide their path. July 12 was Diana’s thirty-fourth birthday. They were heading home to Atlanta, Michigan, tired but happy, planning to catch a concert in town and sleep under the stars afterward.

 

They pulled into the West Liberty camp just before dusk. A man stepped out of the trees and waved them down. He called himself the park ranger.

 

He told them someone had spilled crankcase oil on the grass up front. He’d show them a better spot. Something quiet. Something private.

 

He guided them deep into the grounds, well away from the other travelers. He helped them settle in, then said he had other campers to look after, and vanished between the tents.

 

His name was Harland “Gabe” Simons.

 

Later that afternoon, he reappeared, casual as a neighbor dropping by to borrow sugar. He chatted, joked, and offered to watch their tent while they went into town. He seemed kind. Polite. Harmless.