About Jefferson
With all the awesome things that Jefferson has to offer, you'll wish you could stay for more than one night!
Mahanay Bell Tower
The Mahanay Bell Tower in Jefferson is one of the main attractions in Greene Co. With its fourteen-story tall body, you can hop into the elevator to look all across Greene Co. on its 120-foot-high observation deck. Even higher than that are the fourteen bronze bells that chime every fifteen minutes, and even plays songs!
Info found here
Danger Hill
Three miles west of Jefferson, on the Lincoln Highway, the roadway bears a little north, then takes a radical curve south and starts a quarter-mile climb of 250 vertical feet or more, up what’s known as “Danger Hill.”
Is Danger Hill really dangerous? Well, old timers say that three or four people have died in accidents between the bridge and the hilltop in nearly a century of travel there. But excessive speed and alcohol were said to have been as much or more the problem as antiquated road construction.
Info found here
Raccoon River Valley Trail
DA great trail on a historic railroad right-of-way, the Raccoon River Valley Trail uses the former right-of-way of a railroad built in the 1870s and early ’80s to connect the city of Des Moines with the Iowa Great Lakes region in the northwest part of the state.
Info found here
Courthouse Architecture
In 1854 Greene County was officially organized and in 1856 the first courthouse on the town square of Jefferson was built. Prior to 1856 Judge Phillips held court in a log cabin located southeast of Jefferson.
Our present courthouse was dedicated in 1917. Three structures have been located on the present site in Jefferson. The first, a wooden structure, was built in 1856 at a cost of $1,825.00.
The second building on this site, more often referred to as the Red Brick courthouse, was built in 1870.
The current building was built at a cost of nearly $180,000.00 and was included in the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. Some of its most prominent features, materials and architecture are modeled in many State Capitols throughout the United States.
Info found here
Deal's Orchard
Deal’s Orchard has approximately 45 acres of apple trees, with over 25 varieties of tasty Iowa apples available throughout the season. The Apple Barn and gift shop are open mid-July through mid-January. Available in season are tomatoes, sweet corn, cucumbers, cherries, onions, squash, pumpkins, etc. In addition to produce, we offer HOMEMADE apple pies & dumplings, jam, honey, caramel apples, popcorn, seasonal gift items, fall decor, woodcrafts, kitchen gadgets, gift baskets & much more.
Info found here
Gallup House
The Gallup House was the boyhood home of Dr. George Gallup, founder of the Gallup Poll and co-founder of Gallup & Robinson.
Located in Jefferson, Iowa, this unique octagonal structure was built by Dr. Gallup's father, George H. Gallup, at the turn of the 20th century. According to family, George Jr., known as “Ted”, was born on the property and lived there through high school. This was the second octagonal home built by the senior Mr. Gallup in Jefferson. The distinctive style, which enjoyed some acceptance in the United States during the mid to late 1800's, was said by builders at the time, to be more withstanding of wind and the elements as well as providing for improved air circulation within the home.
Info found here
Sierra Theatre
Sierra Theatre and Video Warehouse was founded in 1974 by Robert L. Fridley. Fridley Theatres is a Iowa family owned business that strives to bring quality motion picture entertainment at fair prices to the communities it serves in Iowa and Nebraska.
Old Lincoln Highway
Old Lincoln Highway is a highway that stretches from the east, to the west coast, going through 500 towns and cities on the way.
Telephone Museum
The Jefferson Telephone Museum features a collection of historical telephone equipment including old telephones, switchboards, and other communication items.
Bunkers Dunkers Glazed
“I was on vacation at Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida, and I happened to be wearing a RAGBRAI T-shirt,” Juskiewicz said. “Another guy standing there in line came over and said hello, shook hands and said he noticed my T-shirt. He asked if I was from Iowa or had ridden on RAGBRAI. I said, ‘Well, I’m from Des Moines, and I’m the director of RAGBRAI.’
“Then the guy said, ‘Well, I run a donut shop in Jefferson, Iowa, and I’m on the city council there, and if RAGBRAI ever wants to come to Jefferson, we’d sure love to have you!’ Nice guy!”
The six local residents in the Chamber of Commerce office for the meeting all broke out in smiles and almost in unison yelled, “Randy Bunkers!”
Eva Leonard
Eva Leonard was born on a farm in 1898, grew up in the railroad hub town of Grand Junction on the east edge of the county, graduated from the old Catholic high school there, then went off to Drake University and Des Moines. There she began to develop her song and dance skills to match her drop-dead good looks, including her figure of “perfect symmetry.”
By 1927, she had taken Des Moines and Chicago by storm, becoming a heralded songbird on nationwide radio broadcasts. Then she was off to New York City and starring roles in the Zeigfeld Follies on Broadway. She was being wooed by the most eligible bachelors and some meandering married men, from Des Moines to the Big Apple and beyond. The New York newspapers panted after her, calling her “the Venus of Iowa.” She appeared in hundreds of photographs and was featured in a dozen or more oil paintings, in elegant gowns and revealing robes.
Her entertainment highpoint may have been her star role among a cast of 168 for a major Broadway show “Rio Rita,” produced by her mentor Florenz Ziegfeld. She was the marquee performer for its 494 performances on the live stage over a two-year period, and then that show circulated for 10 years as a movie made and re-made by two studios. Ziegfeld said his star was “the perfect specimen of Ziegfeld beauty.” She was the most glamorous thing ever out of Grand Junction, that’s for sure.
And when she’d come home on visits to her hometown, which today has 950 people, the newspapers in Des Moines, Jefferson and Grand Junction would go as wild over her as the New York papers did.
Eva Leonard never married, although she was engaged a time or two.
After retiring from the stage in 1943 at the age of 45, she went to work in New York City as an interior decorator – the field she’d been educated in and trained for when she attended Drake University 30 years earlier. She was living in an apartment provided her by George W. Colby, a portrait painter who employed her in his own interior design and architecture work. He painted the beautiful life-size portrait of her that hangs now in the Greene County museum. He had also once proposed marriage to Leonard, but she had turned him down.
On May 7, 1947, Colby notified police that he heard what he thought sounded like her falling in her apartment. The newspapers said that when he checked on her, she seemed to be having trouble breathing, but he was able to get her into her bed. When the police arrived, they found her dead with a small pool of blood beneath her head. They called a priest and a doctor.
First reports back to Grand Junction were she had died from an overdose of sleeping pills, or an overdose of alcohol and barbiturates, and that she had left a note about being despondent over the death of a friend, although no one in her family or among her true friends in New York seemed to know about any genuine friend having recently died.
Her brother Claude Leonard and another family friend Francis Foley traveled from Iowa to New York to claim the body, but they were given neither a suicide note nor a death certificate.
“Eva was brought home for her funeral service at St. Brigid Catholic Church in Grand Junction,” narrator Roberts reported in Sunday’s performance. After preparing her body, “the funeral director suggested Eva had been strangled. So after the services but before the burial, X-rays were taken of the body, and her neck was indeed broken.”
People have wondered about the real circumstances of her death ever since.
She is buried in Mount Calvary Cemetery in Grand Junction.
Info found here
Prairie Blue
Greene County's only coffeehouse. It overlooks our small town square in Jefferson.
The Stitch
Susanne Sievers recently opened a quilting and fabric design company located in Jefferson. She has everything from traditional designs to fun/funky/tie-dyed creations that are perfect for the RAGBRAI set. She also holds classes for those who wish to learn to sew like her.
American Athletic (AAI)
Since 1954, American Athletic, Inc. has been manufacturing world-class gymnastics equipment. Headquartered in Jefferson, Iowa, the company operates three facilities totaling over 240,000 square feet and employees 145 people. AAI is the official supplier and partner to the USA Gymnastics and is proud to partner with the Federation Internationale De Gymnastique (FIG) and National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). For more information on AAI, please call (800) 247-3978 or visit www.americanathletic.com.
Powerlift
Power Lift began in 1999 with a plan to manufacture Olympic lifting
platforms for athletic and sports performance facilities. Since then we
have been on an uphill growth against competitors and have added a high
quality weight equipment line. We pride ourselves with being an innovator
in this exclusive market. One of the key components to this success is our
precise engineering process, as well as the high quality of our
manufacturing. Our clientele includes: high schools, colleges,
universities, professional sports teams and athletic performance
facilities. Our equipment is popular for its unique design and appearance,
professional and student athletic recruiting appeal and its safe,
multifunctional training capabilities.
Microsoy
MicroSoy® Corporation is located in the heart of soybean country, Jefferson,
IA, USA, the largest and finest soybean producing region of the world. Since
1991, MicroSoy® has been producing MicroSoy® Flakes through a patented
technology. MicroSoy® Flakes are produced using a mechanical process of de-
hulling, cracking and flaking without the use of solvents or additives. This
technology preserves all the natural goodness of soy.
West Central Co-op
West Central is a full service, farmer owned cooperative with a nationwide and international presence. Currently, West Central is one of the 20 largest grain companies in the United States with 3,148 stockholders, and inbound grain of 80.9 million bushels in 2006. The company is a full service agronomy inputs provider, and further processes soybeans into a variety of value added products. These products include SoyPLUS®, SoyChlor®, and other livestock nutritional products.
Caleris
Caleris is a leading information technology company that specializes in corporate, IT, and product helpdesk services. Caleris also performs business process outsourcing, including non-traditional web based applications. As an outsourcing partner, Caleris supports your business by professionally
serving your customers and handling processes at a cost and level of efficiency your company cannot likely match internally.