Mt. Pleasant Beautiful

With the cooperation of the Southeast Iowa Union, the Mt. Pleasant Historic Preservation Commission will be publishing weekly 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 the week following the initial publication.

Last week's featured home: E.L. Penn residence, 408 N. Broadway St.

This week's feature home was built in 1900 by Melvin Hall, who operated a lumberyard in Mt. Pleasant for 40 years. Over the years his firm built a number of houses in town. He and his wife Grace were civically active and moved from this house in 1905.

Hall's lumberyard suffered major damage in a 1914 fire that was described by the Mt. Pleasant News as the 'most disastrous fire in the history of the city.”

The 1905 purchasers of the house and occupants at the time of the publication of 'Mt. Pleasant Beautiful” in 1909 were John and Katherine Holland.

Holland had a medical degree from Bellevue Medical College in New York and practiced medicine here and in Donnellson for several years. Ultimately he closed that practice and operated a pharmacy on the square until he retired. Katherine was a teacher in the Mt. Pleasant schools.