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Washington Evening Journal
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Washington, IA 52353
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Fairfield man digs deep into history of Fairfield homes
FAIRFIELD — A Fairfield resident is bringing to life the history of the town’s most storied homes.
Richard and Kendra Lint own the James A. Beck House at the corner of East Burlington Avenue and South D Street in Fairfield. The home is among the most recognizable in the town for its beautiful purple color and polygonal turret rising from its second story.
The Lints purchased the house in 2020, and moved here from Portland, Oregon. Though they have lived in Fairfield for just two years, the couple has taken a keen interest in the city’s history. As they make improvements to their 1896 home, they post updates on their progress on the James A. Beck Facebook page. The page includes newspaper articles written about the house, such as changes that were made to it and the various owners it’s had.
Richard said that, as he has been posting information about the Beck house, he’s gotten requests from Fairfield residents to find information about other old homes.
Once a week, Richard profiles a different home in town by posting a recent photograph of it and information he’s discovered in old newspapers through newspaperarchive.com. He posts the information to the Facebook group called “Fairfield Memories.” Luckily, much of this information was already gathered by Oscar Herring, who published a series on Fairfield homes in The Fairfield Ledger in 1932.
Herring’s series was titled “The Homes of Fairfield,” and included “an account of their builders as well as their owners and occupants, past and present,” according to the heading he used in The Ledger. Each day, Herring profiled five or six homes in town, and dedicated a paragraph or two to each one. The first house Herring profiled was, you guessed it, the James A. Beck house.
Lint transcribes Herring’s original article on the house, and adds information he found about its owners or occupants since 1932, with photographs if there are any in the records. Thus far, most of the homes featured have been on East Burlington Avenue.
Lint said he started this series as a way to find out more about Fairfield. One of the homes he wanted to find out about was the home Mr. and Mrs. Beck lived in while they were building the James A. Beck house.
“All we knew was it was on West Burlington, and it’s a house no longer standing,” he said. “It turns out it was a huge home where Summit Pharmacy is today. … It’s just been fun to discover these things and help others with some starting blocks.”
Lint said he recently visited a museum in Mt. Pleasant, and learned that the Mt. Pleasant News did the same thing in the 1930s, with a reporter profiling old homes in the town.
Lint said it would be fun to put all these entries about Fairfield homes into a book, and sell it as a fundraiser for the Carnegie Historical Museum.
Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com
Richard Lint researches Fairfield’s old homes through online newspaper archives, and posts what he finds on the Facebook group “Fairfield Memories.” Lint is retracing the steps taken by Oscar Herring, who published a series of articles on the town’s homes in The Fairfield Ledger in 1932. (Photo courtesy of Richard Lint)
Richard Lint loves doing detective work to identify old homes in Fairfield. He acquired the postcard seen here on eBay, which he believes to be a photograph taken in Fairfield around 1910. However, he has not been able to identify where in town this photo was taken. One of the names written on the postcard is "Spielman," which would make it 502 East Burlington, but Lint said the modern-day surroundings don’t match up well, and thus the mystery lives on. (Image courtesy of Richard Lint)
Oscar H. Herring wrote a series on “The Homes of Fairfield” for The Fairfield Ledger in 1932. Richard Lint is bringing that series alive by posting recent photos of the homes Herring featured, plus any new information he can find about them. (Image courtesy of Richard Lint)
This photo shows the exterior of the James A. Beck House in Fairfield, which was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The Beck house was the first house Oscar Herring profiled in his series on Fairfield homes in 1932, and is now owned by Richard and Kendra Lint. (Photo submitted)
