Brent Hegstrom
The first and pioneer railroad through the Perry area, the Des Moines and Fort Dodge, operated until about April 1887, when it was taken over by the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad -- the Rock Island, for short.
One...
More than $50,000 worth of property went up in flames and smoke when the Clement block at Second Street and Willis Avenue burned to the ground in December 1906. The fire was the biggest Perry had seen since the...
In the small town of Granger, coal mining was the number one industry in the area in the 1930 but because it was seasonal work, it caused problems with the men working the mines. Their work most times slacked...
The body of a man presumed to be John Bodenberger, a farmer living just south of Perry, was found Sept. 9, 1954, in a patch of weeds by the Raccoon River just south of the old Graney bridge.
His brother,...
"The Birth of a Nation" was released Feb. 8, 1915. In the course of three hours, D. W. Griffith's controversial epic film about the U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction depicted the Ku Klux Klan as the valiant saviors of...
Celeste Council, Perry's venerable last popcorn lady, was born Aug. 17, 1882, near Perry, the daughter of Hannah and Bartlett White. Bartlett's father was Aaron White, living just southwest of town, at one time the owner of the Asford...
On Sept. 29, 1949, a Des Moines man by the name of J. C. Wier of Center Street was one of about 50 people on the last run of the Des Moines & Central Iowa (DM&CI) Railway to Perry....
In 1881 the first Milwaukee engine, No. 389, arrived in Perry, coming over the Chicago Northwestern to Grand Junction. Perry already had a north-south railroad in the Des Moines Valley line but wanted an east-west line, too, and made...
Sometime about 1856, Union Township was organized. The settlers wanted to call it
Buffalo Grove, but Judge John Montgomery of Boonesboro gave it the name Union.
In about 1858, a town was laid out and named Unionville, but it never developed...
Dallas Township was first surveyed from 1849 to 1851, when there were just two families living in the area that would become Dawson. One of those was the Crabb family, whose homestead was just north of the Raccoon River...