This home was once considered one of the city’s most modern

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 Stough home at 306 South Main St.

This week, we feature a home that, although it was deemed by the Daily News as “one of the most modern and best equipped residences in the city,” the original builders/owners, William and Julia Powell kept it only a few months before selling and moving on the Pacific Northwest. They had left a farm in Lee County in 1900 in order to allow their daughters the advantage of the schools available in Mt. Pleasant. They moved on in 1906.

The buyers were Walter and Elva Sater. They lived in the home only a couple of years when they also sold it, although they did not leave town. Perhaps it is telling that both Sater and Powell were engaged in the real estate business.

The third owners and residents at the time of the 1909 publication of Mt. Pleasant Beautiful were Jacob and Mary McCabe. They too had previously farmed in Lee County where they were prosperous farmers and among the early settlers there. Jacob also enjoyed the house for only a short time. He was tragically killed when thrown from his horse, while riding home from a visit in Lee County in October 1910.

Mary McCabe continued to live in the house until her death in 1933 at the age of 99. Meanwhile her daughter, Hulda McCabe Hazen and son-in-law Hervey Hazen had purchased the home. The Hazens lived there until the late 1950s.

The next owners were J. Merrell Harper and his wife Majoria. They were both involved in local historic preservation. Harper served in the Air Nation Guard, rising to the rank of Lt. Colonel. He was a telephone communications engineer. They both passed way in the first decade of this century and had moved away from Mt. Pleasant prior to their passing.