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Washington Evening Journal
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Amana continues celebrating 170 years
Amana Heritage Society brings food, music to Festhalle Barn
Southeast Iowa Union offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
AMANA — The Amana Heritage Society celebrated Amana’s 170th year and raised funds for its museums Sept. 3 at the Festhalle Barn.
The celebration included beer, a buffet catered by County Line BBQ out of Cedar Rapids and music by the GRAMMY-nominated Alex Meixner Band.
John Zuber, board president of Amana Heritage Society said about 215 dinner tickets had been sold, and he expected about 250 people for the performance by Alex Meixner Band.
The 170th celebration continues Oct. 2-5 with the 60th annual Oktoberfest.
According to the Amana Colonies website, the Inspirationists of Germany left Europe in the 1843 due to religious persecution. Led by Christian Metz, they pooled their resources and purchased 5,000 acres near Buffalo, New York.
They called their community the Ebenezer Society and adopted a constitution that formalized their communal way of life.
As the community grew, it needed more land, and the society sent scouts west. They opted for Iowa, a free state, rather than taking their chances in Kansas, according to an article in the Aug. 28 Amana Society Bulletin.
The scouts rode west along the Iowa River to look for tillable land, timberland, stone and clay for brickmaking and a stream or two that could power mills, the Bulletin says.
They eventually found a wide green valley with forest and some open prairie meadows.
They met a homesteader who was eager to make a profit on his holding and leave Iowa as Nebraska and the Dakotas opened up.
The scouts returned to Iowa City and purchased about 26,000 acres which they financed from the sale of their land, mills and shops in New York State.
In July of 1855, 33 settlers arrived to start building Amana. The leaders chose the name from the Song of Solomon 4:8. Amana means “remain true.”
Six villages were established — Amana, East Amana, West Amana, South Amana, High Amana and Middle Amana. The village of Homestead was added in 1861, giving the Colony access to the railroad.
In 1932, a ruinous farm market and changes in the rural economy contributed to the abandonment of the communal way of life. Communal life was seen as a barrier to achieving individual goals, so rather than leave or watch their children leave, the families in Amana established the Amana Society, Inc. as a profit-sharing corporation to manage the farmland, the mills and the larger enterprises and encouraged private enterprise.
The Amana Colonies became a National Historic Landmark in 1965 and attract hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.
