Kevin Schuchmann Photography, Dyersville, IA (2026)

09/06/2026

HEBRONVILLE — A PLACE THE MAP DID NOT NAME

For about a week, I have been trying to learn what Hebronville was, who lived there and exactly where it belonged.

That search is what led me to the old Forestville drawing—not the other way around.
While digging through old newspapers for mentions of Hebronville, I came across a 1931 article announcing the discovery of an 1869 wall map of Delaware County. It had been found among the belongings of J. W. Swinburne, the first mayor of Delhi.

Naturally, that sent me looking for the map.

I eventually found an 1869 Delaware County map online. It may be the map mentioned in the article, or another copy from the same printing. Either way, it shows Richland Township when this part of Iowa was still taking shape.

FORESTVILLE CAME FIRST

Forestville stood in Section 22 of Richland Township. A sawmill was established there in 1847, followed by a gristmill in 1853. Forestville received a post office in 1851 and was later platted as a village.

When George Hebron settled in Richland Township in 1856, and William Hebron followed in 1857, Forestville was the nearby mill, post office and trading place. That helps explain why old records sometimes described George as being “of Forestville,” even though the Hebron farms were several miles north of the village.

FINDING HEBRONVILLE

The name Hebronville does not appear on the 1869 map. It does not appear on the 1875 map either. Forestville is plainly marked, but Hebronville is not.

Still, the reason for the name becomes fairly clear when the landowners are examined.
The 1869 map shows William and Stephen Hebron owning land in Section 11, with George Hebron nearby in Section 12. These adjoining Hebron holdings formed a family neighborhood roughly two miles north and northeast of Forestville.

One curious detail is that Stephen Hebron did not move permanently from New York to Iowa until 1878. His name on the 1869 map therefore represents land ownership, but not necessarily residence. An old map can tell the truth and still leave a fellow with another afternoon’s work.

By 1930, Hebron names still covered a substantial part of Sections 11 and 12. George C. Hebron owned 94 acres, Edwin Hebron had 106 acres and other Hebron property lay nearby.

Hebronville was not an incorporated town. I have found no town plat, post office or separate Hebronville church. It appears to have been an informal country neighborhood named for the cluster of Hebron family farms.
There may never have been a sign welcoming travelers to Hebronville, but local people plainly knew where it was.

THE NAME IN THE NEWSPAPERS

In 1904, the Arlington News reported a baseball game between Flint Ridge and Hebronville. Flint Ridge won, 14–2. Whatever else Hebronville lacked, it apparently had enough young men—and enough confidence—to field a ball team.

In 1913, the Edgewood Journal reported that W. D. Davis had driven “up to Hebronville” to meet with appraisers. The newspaper offered no directions, which tells us that the name was already familiar to its readers.

References to Hebronville also appeared in Strawberry Point newspapers. That may be one reason the place has occasionally been confused with Clayton County. Richland Township reaches the Delaware–Clayton county line, and Strawberry Point was one of the closest newspaper and business centers.

Hebronville, however, belonged in Delaware County.

THE HEBRON FARMS

The Hebrons were not merely occupying the land. They were helping build the agricultural reputation of Richland Township.

George Hebron developed a large dairy operation and reportedly kept as many as forty cows. At an 1879 butter-and-cheese gathering in Manchester, one of the butter exhibits was identified as George Hebron’s entry from Forestville.

George and William also received recognition for their Shorthorn cattle. In 1880, George exhibited cows, calves and a bull, while Eliza Hebron entered oil paintings. George even displayed fossils and geological specimens, proving that a man could milk cows, raise cattle and remain curious about the rocks beneath his boots.

The livestock tradition continued through the next generations. A 1918 sale at the George Hebron farm offered 38 Shorthorn cattle and 12 horses. A pair of registered Morgan mares was sold for the benefit of the Red Cross.

As late as 1939, another George Hebron sale included 45 purebred Shorthorn cows and heifers, along with eight bulls.

These were substantial working farms. Hebronville was not a village of storefronts. It was a rural neighborhood of related families, livestock farms, schoolchildren, neighbors and hired hands.

FORESTVILLE AND HEBRONVILLE

Forestville and Hebronville belonged to the same local world, but they served different purposes.

Forestville was the mill and early trading center. It had a post office, surveyed lots and a name printed on county maps.

Hebronville was the countryside north of it—the place where the Hebron family owned adjoining farms and where neighbors used a familiar name that official mapmakers never bothered to print.

Forestville gradually declined as a business center as transportation and commerce shifted toward other towns. Dundee became the nearby railroad station, while the countryside around old Hebronville remained agricultural.

As the Hebron farms changed hands, the neighborhood name slowly disappeared.

A LASTING HEBRON LEGACY

The story did not end when the name Hebronville faded.

George C. Hebron, a member of the later generation, became a successful Richland Township farmer. After his death, his estate contributed exactly $123,470.57 toward the construction of Baker–Hebron Hall at Upper Iowa University in Fayette.

The science building was completed in 1962 and still carries the Hebron name.
So Hebronville was real, though not in the usual town sense. It was a family settlement and rural neighborhood in Sections 11 and 12 of Richland Township, about two miles north of Forestville.

I started this search wondering where Hebronville had been. I ended up finding an old county map, the Forestville Mills, generations of farmers, baseball players, dairy cattle, Shorthorns and a family name carried all the way to a university science building.

Old history seldom travels in a straight line, and it has no respect for a person’s original plans. An old map has a way of answering one question and then handing you three more.
That is what happened when I went looking for Hebronville.

09/05/2026

How one thing leads to another.

While listening to the Hawkeye game this afternoon, I was looking through some old newspapers. I came across this story from May 26, 1931, about an old map of Delaware County found among the belongings of J. W. Swinburne, the first mayor of Delhi.

It piqued my interest, so I searched for the map and found a copy online. Maybe it is the same one mentioned in the story and maybe it is another copy. Either way, it is the same map published by Thompson & Everts in 1869.

Tucked away in one corner is this drawing of the Forestville Mills. The caption reads “Colman & Sons, Propts.” The spelling later appears as Coleman in other records.

The history of the mills goes back to 1847, when William Turner built a sawmill along the Maquoketa River. A flood carried it away in June 1851, but it was rebuilt. Daniel Leonard bought the mill in 1852 and added a gristmill the following year. When Forestville was surveyed and platted in 1854, Leonard was listed as the proprietor of the town.

By the time this map was published in 1869, the mills were being operated by Colman & Sons. On August 7, 1875, George Sowles bought the mill from James Coleman. By 1878, Sowles was operating both the sawmill and gristmill.

I have not been able to prove who the “sons” were. A few other Colemans lived around Forestville, but the records do not clearly connect them to the mill.

An old newspaper story, found while listening to a football game, led to an old map. The map led to a drawing hidden in one corner, and that little drawing opened another piece of Forestville history.

08/30/2026

These advertisements were meant to bring in business, but nearly 150 years later they do something more. They let us hear Otisville at work: wheat being ground, water turning the machinery, farmers arriving with wool and finished cloth leaving the valley.
The accompanying advertisements were digitally restored from the surviving newspaper clippings.

08/24/2026

It had been a while since an American eagle stayed close enough for a portrait.

This roughly four-year-old eagle watched the Coffee Creek valley between Dyersville and New Vienna from the bare limbs of an old creek-bottom tree.

The good Lord supplied the sunlight, the eagle supplied the pose and that piercing look, and I merely brought the camera.

08/24/2026

From 60 years ago…

On May 1, 1966, The Cedar Rapids Gazette laid out this map of Iowa’s state parks and forest areas for the coming summer.

There was Backbone, Pikes Peak, Bixby, Maquoketa Caves, Lake Macbride, Geode and plenty more. This was before GPS. Your directions came from a folded map and the fellow in the passenger seat who swore he knew exactly where he was going.

Some roads have changed. Some names have nearly been forgotten. But Iowa still has no shortage of fine places where a person can wander off for a day and come home with a story.

I cleaned up the original map and kept the wording of its 1966 key.

How many of these places have you visited?

08/23/2026

Now’s the time to visit New Wine Park, where thousands of these flowers are standing in full bloom. Nature has put on her finest colors—and, unlike most grand shows, she doesn’t charge a penny for admission.

08/22/2026

Maybe it was the thunder rumbling to the south that gave this young Red-tailed Hawk second thoughts about taking flight. Very calmly, he sat perched along Coffee Creek in Dubuque County, with no desire to go anywhere. Off in the distance, a Bald Eagle was doing much the same—two masters of the sky content to sit still and watch the weather.

08/22/2026

Late this afternoon, I stood southwest of New Vienna as thunder rumbled beneath this towering storm. Barely a drop fell where I was, but by the time I returned to Dyersville, the rain had beaten me home. The gutters were flowing, and the streets were wet.

Just another Iowa afternoon—the storm passes you by, then waits for you at home.

08/21/2026

When Elk Creek Turned Loose: The Bonney Flood of 1896

Elk Creek is a pleasant little stream most days, but on Sunday night, May 24, 1896, it forgot its manners.

Heavy rain fell north and northeast of Greeley. At the railroad grade, water began collecting behind timbers placed in an old cut where a bridge or trestle opening had once carried the drainage. The railroad company had blocked the cut the previous summer. When the timbers finally gave way, forty acres of backed-up water were suddenly released into the narrow Elk Creek valley.

The Manchester Press reported that Elk Creek rose twelve feet in twenty minutes. A wall of water, estimated at eight to ten feet high, rushed downstream, gathering trees, fences, farm machinery and pieces of buildings as it went.

The Bonney home

About five miles northeast of Greeley, near the old Cummings sawmill, Mr. and Mrs. George Bonney (An error cited the home of the son Johnny) had retired for the night.

The flood struck their home with enough force to tear it apart and carry it downstream. Mr. Bonney was thrown into the water. He survived by catching hold of floating debris and was carried roughly a quarter to half a mile before reaching safety.

Mrs. Bonney was last seen sitting on the edge of the bed moments before the house broke apart. She was swept away.

About fifty men searched Elk Creek and the surrounding bottomland, but neither Mrs. Bonney nor much of the house could be found. A month later, a newspaper addressed a rumor that her body had been recovered and declared that the report was a mistake.

Her remains were not reported found until early July 1906—approximately ten years after the flood. A later newspaper history said Roy Ingles discovered bones identified as hers. Another account placed the discovery on the Henry Gleason farm, a short distance upstream from the covered-bridge crossing, along with a purse containing corroded money.

Farms left in ruin

The torrent continued down Elk Creek, leaving fields filled with driftwood, wrecked wagons, fences and pieces of barns. Livestock drowned, bridges disappeared and bottomland farms were covered with water and mud.

The disaster became known locally as the Bonney Flood.

The bridge people remembered

The famous covered bridge belongs to the aftermath of the flood—not to the bridge destroyed that night.

The covered bridge had originally been built at Otisville around 1870. It served that mill village for approximately forty years.
Meanwhile, in 1890, Stalnaker and Coonfare built the first bridge at the later Edgewood–Luxemburg crossing. S. P. Ross, who lived just east of it, hauled stone for the abutments. During the Bonney Flood of 1896, that bridge was swept away, but its stone abutments remained standing.

In 1905, after Otisville and its mills had faded away, the old Otisville covered bridge was moved about three miles south and reassembled at the Elk Creek crossing near what we now know as the Twin Bridges area. It was one covered bridge that served two different locations during its lifetime.

Another flood around 1922 or 1923 tore boards from its sides. By 1930, local residents were trying to preserve it by repairing the siding and changing Elk Creek’s channel so floodwater would pass beneath the bridge instead of circling through nearby farmland.

Their efforts delayed the inevitable, but they could not stop it. The historic Otisville covered bridge was finally dismantled in 1937.

Today, Elk Creek flows through Fountain Springs and Twin Bridges with little hint of what happened there in 1896. But beneath the newer roads, bridges and parkland lies the course of a flood that destroyed homes, altered farms and left Mrs. Bonney missing for ten years.

Sources: Manchester Press report, May 28, 1896, 1930 bridge and flood history, and 1970 covered-bridge history.

08/17/2026

After hitting a deer on the way home from GreenIsland Wildlife Preserve I figured I'd spend the two weeks at home doing a little research rather than renting a loaner.

OTISVILLE — THE MILL COMMUNITY ALONG ELK CREEK

BEFORE OTISVILLE HAD A NAME

The documented history of this place begins on February 1, 1848, when the federal government issued a patent to Thomas Cole and Joseph Grimes for forty acres in the northeast quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 10 in Elk Township.
The 1882 History of Clayton County records that Joseph Grimes and James Cole built a sawmill in Section 10 in 1848. Grimes operated a sawmill on Elk Creek for three years before returning to Colony Township. He later served in the Iowa House, the Iowa Senate and several local offices.

The Cole family also had an early connection to nearby Colesburg. Colesburg history records that James and Thomas Cole established a general store there in 1849.

THE OTIS FAMILY BUILDS A COMMUNITY

Isaac Otis and his son opened Elk Township’s first blacksmith shop and store in Section 10 in 1852. Isaac Otis Sr. was one of the township’s organizers and first officers. He made the township ballot box that was reportedly still being used in 1886.
The 1882 county history credits Isaac Otis Jr. with building a woolen mill in 1860. The growing settlement became known as Otisville, while advertisements also used the name Elk Mills.

By 1866, Isaac Otis & Brother were advertising their new woolen factory on Elk Creek as being in successful operation. The factory produced full cloth, cassimeres, flannels and stocking yarn. Experienced workers from eastern factories had been hired to operate it.

A larger 1867 advertisement offered custom wool work and cloth, flannels, blankets and yarn. The products could be purchased for cash or received in exchange for wool.

ELK CREEK MADE IT POSSIBLE

Everything depended upon the water.
A dam across Elk Creek backed up a millpond. Water was carried through a millrace to the mill machinery before returning to the creek. An 1868 advertisement announced that the Otis company had installed an American double-turbine water wheel. The mill claimed that it could grind between fifteen and twenty bushels an hour.

The setting must have been beautiful. Elk Creek flowed north through a narrow valley bordered by steep, wooded hills. The pond rested behind the dam, the millrace carried water toward the mills, and the mill buildings stood close to the creek.

A BRIDGE AND THE ROADS THAT MET THERE

Otisville was also a crossroads.
In April 1874, Clayton County acted on a road petition submitted by Isaac Otis and others. G. Cooley was appointed commissioner to establish the road, and the county appropriated $200 from its bridge fund.

Otisville’s covered wooden bridge carried the east–west road directly across Elk Creek. East of the bridge, the road continued along the route now recognized as C Level Road. West of the creek, travelers passed the mills and climbed the steep, winding wagon roads leading out of the valley. A separate road followed the valley north and south.

Farmers coming from different directions met at Otisville to have grain ground, wool processed, machinery repaired or goods purchased. The roads, bridge and mills made this small place a genuine center of activity.

WOOL CAME IN — CLOTH WENT OUT

The Elk Valley Woolen Mills drew business from both Clayton and Delaware counties.
In 1877, Isaac Otis advertised for any amount of wool. Farmers could exchange their wool for cloth, flannels and yarn or receive the highest market price in cash. A report from 1879 described a large force of men working at the factory and praised the mill’s fair dealing.

In 1881, Otis advertised for 10,000 pounds of wool. That same year, he offered to exchange a one-set woolen mill, its waterpower and an adjoining farm for a flour mill.

OTISVILLE AT ITS HEIGHT

An 1886 history called Otisville the main business center of Elk Township. It reported that approximately $40,000 had been invested there in sawmills, gristmills, the woolen factory and roller mills.
The newest roller mill could produce fifty barrels of flour a day. It required more than 4,000 bushels of wheat each month and about 50,000 bushels a year. At the prices then being paid, the mill distributed about $40,000 annually among area farmers.

Other industries developed nearby. The Elk Valley lime kilns were established in 1870 and had produced about 5,000 barrels of lime by 1886. John Pilkington opened a brickyard in 1871 that manufactured approximately half a million bricks before it closed.

Elk Township had 1,083 residents in 1886, along with nine schools, fifty-seven miles of roads, two churches and four cemeteries. Otisville was never just an isolated mill. It belonged to a working community of farmers, millers, merchants, craftspeople and families.

THE END CAME QUICKLY

The signs of change appeared before the final flood. Isaac Otis was already offering the woolen mill, waterpower and adjoining farm in exchange for a flour mill in 1881.
By June 1890, the Otisville mill had closed and its machinery was being removed to Elkport. Heavy water then washed out the mill dam. Without the dam, waterpower and operating mills, the reason for the settlement’s existence was gone.

The Otis milling story continued elsewhere. An 1895 profile in American Miller followed Isaac Otis through later milling ventures in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Dunlap, Iowa. At Dunlap, Otis and his sons Clarence and Grant rebuilt their roller mill after it burned on September 15, 1890.

THE BRIDGE OUTLIVED THE VILLAGE

Otisville’s one covered bridge survived the closing of the mills.
After the village was abandoned, the bridge was dismantled and reassembled on the Edgewood–Luxemburg road near the area now known as Twin Bridges Park. A 1930 newspaper account said that the bridge had served Otisville for forty years. During that time, hundreds of barrels of flour crossed it on their way to loading points for shipment as far away as England.

When the Edgewood–Luxemburg road was widened, local residents tried to preserve the old bridge. Despite those efforts, it was eventually dismantled.

WHAT REMAINS

The mills, dam, millpond, millrace and covered bridge are gone, but the shape of the place remains.
Elk Creek still winds north through the narrow valley. C Level Road preserves the eastern approach to the old crossing, while the steep hills west of the creek show what wagon travel once required.

Otisville disappeared because the mills disappeared. For several decades, however, this little place beside Elk Creek was one of the most important working centers in Elk Township—a community built by waterpower, connected by roads and remembered through the records its people left behind.

Sources include the 1848 federal land patent; the 1882 History of Clayton County; the 1886 Clayton County plat; the North Iowa Times; Elkader Weekly Register; Otis mill advertisements from 1866–1881; American Miller; and the June 29, 1930 Dubuque Telegraph-Herald and Times-Journal. Joseph Grimes’s public career is also documented by the Iowa Legislature.

Kevin Schuchmann Photography

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