This home was built by the manager of Mount Pleasant Milling Co.

MT. PLEASANT — 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 Cartwright House, 801 North Broadway St.

This week, we feature a house built in 1899 by William and Clara Bayles. William, a Mt. Pleasant native, had married Clara (Gloeckler), a native of Farmington in Van Buren County, in 1889.

Bayles is shown as manager of the Mount Pleasant Milling Company but later reports indicate he had some financial interest in the company.

It was located on property between Lincoln and Vernon Streets. At the turn of the century it was one of the largest operations in the county, annually milling thousands of bushels of locally grown oats, corn and wheat.

In January of 1902, a major fire wiped out the operation. It was the second fire the company had suffered within a few years and although it was indicated at the time they would rebuild and the property seemed well insured, no rebuilding took place. Three years later all of the property rights had been sold and the principals moved on.

Newspaper reports at the time of the fire pointed to it being the work of an “incendiary” but no further reports of that or any investigation are available.

The Bayles couple (they had no children) moved to Seattle, Washington, in 1905 where they lived a long and apparently prosperous life, both passing in the 1940s.

The buyers of the home were Charles and Charlotte Smith and they were the owners of record at the time of the 1909 printing of Mount Pleasant Beautiful. In fact, Charlotte continued to live in the house until her death in 1956, more than 50 years later, at age 95.

Charles Smith, who died in 1932, was a partner in a livery business started by his brother and also served as president of the Mount Pleasant Telephone Company. He was vice-president of the Henry County Mutual Insurance Association and a director of Central States Insurance Association.