Farm implement store
Flater's meat shop
Grand Opera House
millinery shop
Newspaper office
Blacksmith
J.W. Witmer & Company Insurance
Livery stable
Ice Covered Roads, Forest City, ca. 1922
Iowa's Population Shifts
Entertainment During the DepressionTo Town
For
Iowa's town dweller a stroll down main street in 1900 was nothing special.
People who lived in Iowa's small towns lived, worked and played in a close-knit
community of friends, neighbors and family. On a daily basis folks in town
enjoyed concerts, social and academic clubs, speeches, parties and other community
events. All these happenings contributed to the character of a town.
Farm Families Visit Town
But when farm families paused from
their work in the early 1900s to walk, ride or drive into town, usually on
Saturdays, main street exploded with people and energy. Farm families came
to town to stock up on supplies, meet with friends and exchange news and gossip.
Men and women met at different places. Men hung out at the barbershop, the
blacksmith's shop and the tavern. Women congregated at the milliner's, where
they had dresses and hats made, and at the general store. Children tagged
along with parents, hoping a kindly merchant would give them a free bag of
candy.
Musical Entertainment
Adelaide Lloyd's childhood visits
to town on Saturday during the summer meant a concert on the city square.
"Farm families anxious to get the week's groceries before the music began,
came to town first," Lloyd recalled. "Everyone gathered on the sidewalks
surrounding the bandstand. At eight o'clock, the director gave the signal
to begin."
"While the band played stirring marches or dreamy waltzes, farm women
sold their eggs or bought groceries or dress material in the general store,"
Lloyd remembered. "Farmers discussed crops and prices. Older children
sat on the curb and talked; younger children played tag around their mothers.
The soda fountain in the drugstore grew crowded. Children whose pennies would
not cover the cost of a fifteen cent soda were usually able to produce a nickel
for an ice cream cone."
Simple Pleasures
Going to town on Saturday night
also was a family ritual for Ellen Graham Lemke. "Daddy gave sister and
me a dime a piece for the movies," Lemke recalled. After the show they
wasted no time getting to the ice cream parlor.
Later, walking arm-in-arm, Lemke and her friends strolled through the streets,
window shopping. "The jewelry shop window held our interest the longest,"
she wrote years later.
As the hour grew late, Saturday
nights on main street wound down. People wandered home, already looking forward
to the next week's trip to town.
