(39) Butler County 3.8.2024

Before we begin regaling you all with our Butler County adventures, we want to note that in our research we found out that Butler County is the only county in Iowa that does not have any stop lights, four-lane roads, a hospital, a movie theatre, or national fast food chains—that’s quite the feat!

We started off Butler County by doing a drive-through Austinville to check out the Historical Society that is in the 1911 bank. If you are here on Tuesday mornings, stop in for a chat!

 

We then headed to Aplington. If you’re looking for some quiche, stop by the Peppercorn Pantry. We didn’t actually try the quiche, but it sure did look good! We did have some coffee in the tea room though.

Aplington is also home to the historical society that is in the only surviving building from the 1901 fire.

 

Next up was Parkersburg. We couldn’t resist taking a picture in front of this helicopter.

We stopped by the Depot Park. It wasn’t open today, not sure if it ever is, but it was a nice park!

The best part of Parkersburg though was a tour of the Parkersburg Historical Home, the Wolf residence. Definitely worth coming to visit- it’s so neat to see these old homes comes to life. They have several events throughout the year—check out their Facebook page!

After our tour, we headed to Shell Rock.

We had to get a picture of the old mill and full concrete arched bridge. The Mill is actually open as an Airbnb if you so desire!

We did stop by the 1919 bungalow with a matching garage which is a historical society—unfortunately, it is only open on the 3^rd Saturday of the month so we missed it on this stop!

 

Clarksville is the home town of Maddie Poppe- Iowa’s sole American Idol winner. We had no idea Iowa had this claim to fame, but Clarksville does—check out this mural!

Clarksville also has Pete & Shorty’s—90 years running strong! We weren’t quite sure since it was a tavern, but the good was quite good!

Of all the counties we have been to, we have never seen the “popcorn stand phenomenon” that Butler County has. Evidently Parkersburg used to have one—as told to us by our tour guide at the Parkersburg Historical Home. We found this one in Clarksville. This alone makes this county worth coming back to!

 

If you have time in Clarksville, go to the County Conservation Center in Heery Woods State Park. We were not able to go today, but we hear it’s a gem.

Our next stop was “Trains on the Farm” with Frances. Frances has 35 years of railroad safety service and he knows his trains! He has created warehouses full of trains, toys, and historical memorabilia. What can we say, we have never seen anything like this before- he has it all- we are not kidding- it was pretty amazing!

We had to hurry on over to Allison for our next tour of the day—the yellow school house, “Hall of Fame” cupola, and Allison Historical Museum. The cupola was removed from the old courthouse by helicopter. Normally you can go inside the building, but we were not able to today—still neat to see! 

We were really disappointed that the Anna Pals 1908 Sears House was also closed in Allison. These 

were homes that you ordered out of the Sears Catalog which was then delivered to you to put together.

Next up was Bristow, home of yet another of “Iowa’s smallest churches.” This one is actually owned by a local resident who happened to see us drive up, and she let us in!

 

We made our way to Aredale, where we were excited to see the official Aredale sign donated from Jay Lenno to the United States youngest mayor (at the time)—Jeremy Minnier—he was still a senior in high school, age 18, when voted in through write-in ballots. We found a sign. We aren’t really sure if it was the official one from Jay, but here it is!

Last stop in Butler County was Dumont, where we found another popcorn stand—what a great way to end the day in Butler County—if only we could have had some of that delicious popcorn—next time!

 

Rate: 2

Other Things to See/Do

• Historical Society, Austinville
• Historical Society, Aplington
• Historical Museum, Shell Rock
• Heery Woods Nature and Conservation Center, Clarksville
• New Day Dairy Guestbarn, Clarksville
• Poprcorn Stands, Clarksville and Dumont
• Wilder Park, Allison
• Historical Museum, Greene
• Cold Water Church (1873, folk architecture style), Greene