(53) Guthrie County 5.24.2025

May 24, 2025

(53) Guthrie County 5.24.2025

Guthrie County had many surprises! We started off in the town of Stuart, home of the Iowa famous Doe A Deer boutique. We also shopped the other stores and boutiques on the main street and would return to Guthrie County just for another quaint shopping experience!

Stuart is just as famous for the last Bonnie and Clyde robbery- located at the historical First National Bank- this is all that remains of it, but just imagine what it would have been like back in the day

If you happen to catch the Saints Center Museum while they’re open, we think it’d be worth seeing, but unfortunately, it was closed so we didn’t get to see inside this beautiful old church building.

Stuart also has a nice depot, and they are currently renovating Hotel Stuart- we’ll have to come back and check out the renovations.

Following along the White Pole Road- the old carriage line- we made our way to Menlo and had to take a picture with the Kalbach Oil Friendly Gas Station Man.

Continuing westward, we found this awesome merry-go-round in Casey- this alone is worth the stop, but while you’re there, you might as well check out the Casey Creamery which was absolutely delicious! And we happened to find ANOTHER other merry-go-round that we couldn’t pass up😊

We were hoping to stop at the Casey Visitor Center, located in the former St. Jospeh’s Catholic Church, but it was unfortunately closed.

Surprisingly, the only place that seemed worth stopping in in the “city-center” of Guthrie Center was the library where we did enjoy playing some games on this touchscreen game table!

What was worth stopping at was the Sculpture Park outside of Coon Rapids (most of Coon Rapids is in Carroll County)—but not the Sculpture Park! We’ve been waiting to come back to this since our trip to Carroll County.

And, yep, we did take a picture with every single sculpture, but we’ll just give you a peak at a few :D

We’ve also been waiting to come back to the Whiterock Conservancy which is also just outside of Coon Rapids but is in Guthrie County. We stopped at the Garst Farmhouse and took a walk on one of the many trails. We’d love to come back and enjoy more of the conservancy.

Guthrie County would not be complete without a visit to Jamaica- a wonderful island in a sea of corn.

Making our way to Panora, we took a drive through Yale and stumbled upon the Yale Saddle Club!

And the Round House gymnasium which was the first round gymnasium built in Iowa—in 1932.

We made it to Panora which has a thriving main street, thanks to its neighboring Lake Panorama (which we did not get to enjoy today because it was rather cold for May). We did do some shopping and stopped at Crafty’s Coffee .

Our best surprise of the day was the Guthrie County Historical Complex in Panora. This was such an enjoyable complex and so fun to explore. Our favorite exhibit was the Pullman Train Car, fully furnished, just like it would have been it its hey-day. This is the first train car we’ve been in that is so well replicated!