The Victorian Inn Story

MARENGO — When Interstate 80 was built in the 1960s, it brought new and interesting businesses to many small towns in Iowa to attract those thousands of cars and people buzzing down the interstate.

  Buy Photo

The Victorian Inn was one of those businesses.

Built at Exit 205 near Victor, the Victorian Inn, a restaurant and gas station were built in 1965 by Orrin and Doris Fetzer and Fetzer Enterprises.

Gene Van Hamme leased the restaurant, and Bud Gwin the gas station. The Fetzer’s later sold it to Gene Van Hamme.

The décor of the restaurant was elegant, with velvet drapes and red, flocked wallpaper. A mural of Victor, painted by Fred “Skipper” Schlesselman, Gene Van Hamme’s uncle, was a beautiful addition.

The canvas for the mural was imported from France. A local painter, Hollis Fish, applied it to the wall of the dining room. The mural, done in pastel acrylics, showed Victor at the turn of the century.

Schlesselman was a former professor of art at Drake University in Des Moines, the University of Northern Iowa and New York University.

The mural is very large, 17 feet long by 6.5 feet high. It depicts Victor in detail as it would have been from about the year 1900.

Schlesselman used an old postcard from the time in addition his memory of how Victor used to be to create the mural. He added a man, the local doctor perhaps, in an early “horseless carriage” and a puddle that is about the splash water on a lovely young lady who is holding her skirt to avoid getting it wet as she crosses the street.

The Victorian Inn was an elegant place for a dinner or a party. Foreign meals, such as the French dinner and the Hawaiian Luau, became specialties. The Inn was known for its wonderful salad bar and the best cinnamon rolls in Iowa. It was often filled to capacity.

The Inn frequently provided live entertainment on weekends. Bruce Feller or Mary Helen McGrory played organ for singalongs. Other entertainers included Verla Van Dee, Connie Kasal and Leonard and Donna Van Hamme.

Celebrities who dined there included singer Don Williams, newscaster David Brinkley, singer Brenda Lee, game show host Bob Eubanks and Wayne King and his band, the Ramsey Louis Trio.

The younger brother of Johnny Cash, Tommy Cash, stopped at the Inn as did James McArthur, the Ambassador of Costa Rica, basketball coach Lute Olson and Conrad Johnson.

Following the closing of the Victorian Inn, an auction was held to dispose of the contents. Victor State Bank purchased the mural, and it was installed in the lobby for years.

It is still owned by the bank but is not presently on display.

Visitors to the Pioneer Heritage Museum in Marengo can see the original menus from the Victorian Inn and those prices from 1960s.

Sources: Iowa County Historical Society Library, The Victor Quasquicentennial History Book, 1863-1993. Printed by permission from the Iowa County Historical Society.