A well-known brick mason built this home

With the cooperation of the Southeast Iowa Union/Mt. Pleasant News, the Mt. Pleasant Historic Preservation Commission will be publishing, every week or two, peeks at some of the featured homes in the 1909 book, Mt. Pleasant Beautiful.

In the series, the 1909 picture will be contrasted with one of recent vintage. The Commission has been collecting information for the eventual issuance of a new book updating the information on the still standing homes from the 1909 publication.

You can test your knowledge of historic Mt. Pleasant with this column. The identity of the featured home will be published with the next featured home.

The last featured home was the Joseph Green house at 301 North Jefferson Street.

The builder and original owner of this week’s house was Omer Stough, who operated a brick making plant and built many brick buildings in town. The house was built in the 1870-1874 period.

Perhaps his best known work was the extensive renovations he made to the Asbury Methodist Church which is now the Colonial Apartment building on East Monroe.

Stough also owned a building that housed a bakery and restaurant on the southeast corner of the square. A devastating fire destroyed most of the east side of the square in October of 1883 but brick mason that he was, Stough rebuilt the space by April of 1884.

In addition to the rebuild, the next year Stough built the structure further along Washington. It has housed law offices ever since, beginning with the original owner attorney George Van Allen.

Between 1860 and 1892 Gough had three wives, all of whom died while wed to him. Omar himself died in 1902, having lived out his last years as Overseer of the Poor, a job for which he was well respected.

In 1906, the home was purchased by Dr. and Mrs. John Laird. Dr. Laird was a graduate of Hahnemann Osteopathic School and practiced medicine in Mt. Pleasant for 38 years.

During the First World War, he served as a captain in the Medical Corps. He was a man of many interests, especially sports. He coached the Iowa Wesleyan baseball team, and was active in and instrumental in the starting of an amateur baseball league in the area and a Mt. Pleasant basketball league.

Laird died suddenly in 1943, and his obituary listed his membership in numerous medical societies and Mt. Pleasant civic groups. In addition to all this, he was a prize winning breeder of fancy chickens. Laird’s wife Ora, who lived another seven years, was also involved in many civic clubs including the American Legion Auxiliary, Daughters of Union Veterans, Eastern Star and White Shrine.

The appearance of the house today is somewhat different than in the 1909 book, a major redesign having been done to the front porch at some point over the years.