Places to visit – Independence Iowa

When we were on our bike ride in July,  I saw an advertisement for an ‘Underground City Tour’. Now honestly, doesn’t that title just grab your attention? I grew up not that far from Independence and I had no idea what this tour was all about. And for me – I was sure hoping that I could get back for it.

So today was the second time of the year that they do these tours and it just so happened that it was going to work for me to get back and take it. Yea!! After some laundry and other stuff around the house, I hurried up and headed to Independence. They were only offering it today and for a limited time and with about an hour drive ahead of me to get there, I was sure glad that I made it to get a ticket!

The tour starts out with everyone getting a card with 7 business names on it. I was given the instructions on how to follow this card by one of the coordinators in the Grist Mill (now called the Wapsipinicon Mill) This is where you started. And if you remember we took a tour of it back in July. So with my card in my hand and the camera in the other hand.. off I go to find out just what this was all about. Well let’s just say that this is truly a town with a very colorful history! I’m sure that I won’t get all the facts down, but this is most of it.

The county seat was established in June of 1847 and called it Independence Iowa. In 1853 Independence had less than 12 people living there. So I’m thinking that this is kind of a bold move – don’t you? Well, by then end of the century they had over 1500 people,  so I guess they did know what they were doing. There was a small town called New Haven just on the other side of the river from Independence and it sounded like both towns would constantly get flooded out by the Wapsipinicon River that separated the them. But in 1854 the State Legislature combined the two towns. With the river going through the town you can just about imagine how much damage it caused when it would flood, and it flooded often. So around the 1860’s the town got together and after a couple of major fires, decided that they would rebuild the stores, but they would have to have the original first floor be their basements. They raised the town 5 to 6 feet and literally buried the first level of the city. Now even though this does make sense it is just so unreal isn’t it? The store owners left their store fronts the way they were with the glass and doors in tact and filled it in with dirt. Now with the town raised up 6 feet, this also allowed the bridge to be raised up and helped with the high waters from the river.

Below are some random pictures from my tour

They used these types of shoots for unloading merchandise when the street was raised

Picture that was at the mill when they replaced the sidewalks on the street

Picture at the mill when they replaced the sidewalks on the street

I had about an hour for the tour and that was just about right for me. Then at the last stop it was a little shop with both antiques and wine. Yup, what a good store to visit last 🙂 Even though I didn’t have any wine, I did check out the store. And for some reason this little table caught my eye. Now I had no idea what I was going to do with it and much less it really did need to get cleaned up. But it was cute and in my budget so off to the car I go with it. I had a couple of different groups of ladies comment on how cute the table was when making my way across the street – so of course it must be some type of treasure right? On the way home I came up with a plan for it and Daryl just gave one of those ‘you paid money for that?’ looks. I’m going to use it in the bathroom. And after I put the extra paper inside it, Daryl had a great idea to put a toilet paper holder on the side of it Perfect!

OK, she looks a little tough….

I got the spider webs and dirt all cleaned off of it and it looks pretty good

Now I just need to get the paper holder on the side and it’ll be perfect!

And to end the night we headed to the races in Decorah. My one brother always says that when the sweat starts to run in places that you shouldn’t talk about, then it’s time to go the races! Well it was hot today and we went to the races for the night.

Fun night at the races. Perfect weather for them!