The Iowa Catalog: Historic American Buildings Survey

Description

The historians view of the brevity of the settlement period and subsequent development of Iowa is nowhere so tangibly demonstrated as in the buildings and structures which were created in the process. In virtually every county the first settlers, regardless of the style of homes they left to come to Iowa, followed a common pattern. They availed themselves of whatever building materials the environment and circumstance dictated; dugouts, sod, or logs. Their primary concern appears to have been shelter; functional, expedient, and spartan. Once established and able, however, their permanence and affluence were demonstrated by the construction of buildings following patterns well established in the communities from whence they came. Those people arriving after the brief settlement period brought new concepts and styles with them, adding variety to the community and neighborhood in which they settled. The impact of this continuous flow of ideas is easily observable in Iowa, if one has a key to understanding what occurred.