Sanborn Old House Lover’s Driving Tour #1
The town of Sanborn owes its existance to the railroad. Platted north of the tracks in late 1878 it was nothing more than stakes stuck in the dead prairie grass with perhaps a plow furrow running along a future street. Once the news was out, it didn’t take people long to locate in the new burg to take advantage of living near rails. Since the west edge of the forty acre town was Floyd Street, most of the early homes were located on the east side of Main Street, an area commonly referred to as “Railroad Ridge”.
By the census of 1880 taken in June, Sanborn boasted 70 dwellings many rolled across the prairie from Primghar. Most were simple frame structures with no wiring, plumbing or insulation and were relocated in a single day. At various times the distance between the two towns was described as “dotted” with buildings on the move. One of those early dwellings is still standing. This tour begins just off Main on East Second St. and features homes from the 1880s. As you drive or walk along, keep in mind the featured houses are not in order of age but of location. Information was gleaned from old newspapers, earlier town histories, old plat books, courthouse records and other research. Any old pictures of houses you may want to share would be welcome! Enjoy the tour!
203 E 2nd Street (Block 16 lot 8)
Patrick and Margaret Cowan moved to Sanborn from Prairie Du Chien, WI with their two daughters and purchased this lot for $150.00 in June, 1881. The house, handily located just north of OshGosh Lumber was built that summer. Patrick was a machinist and most likely found work at the railroad shops. During 1884 a new fence was erected around the residence. Daughter Isabelle married Ed Cavanaugh at a pretty home wedding in April, 1885. The property was sold to Thomas Burns in 1900.
204 E 2nd Street (Block 15 Lot 3)
Sanborn may have had but one building when Lem C. Green moved his family and the oldest portion of this home from Primghar on December 8, 1878. The first house in the new town, it was originally located at 112 East Second near Mr. Green’s livery business which fronted the alley. The first church services were conducted within its walls by a Methodist minister, the Rev. Brashears. Around 1889 it was moved to this location by David Palen who had purchased the livery and built a new home on the site of the old. Considering its three different locations, this charming little house has provided a roof over many heads through the years!
310 E 2nd Street (Block 18 lot 7)
Between the fall of 1879 and spring of 1880, George H. (38) and wife Julia (35) Olmstead spent $155.00 on three lots at the east end of Second St. and built a nice residence/boarding house on the north side for $800.00. Considering that you could build a small house for under $200.00, this was a larger structure than normal. George was a railroad engineer who eventually became foreman of the Sanborn railroad repair shops. Julia was an artistic painter whose work decorated the walls of her home. Julia’s mother, Charlotte Puffer (55), a servant/cook and four boarders shared the dwelling. The first cast iron fence in the village was installed around the property perimeter in 1881. The Olmsteads celebrated their anniversary at a party in this home February, 1884. One hundred fifty guests enjoyed themselves in the elegantly furnished “splendid” residence. Olmsteads sold the house in 1903.
311 E 2nd Street (Block 17 Lot 4)
Charles Cechman was an early hired laborer in Sanborn. During 1881 he and wife Elizabeth paid $35.00 for their lot at the end of East Second and built a small home for their family of three on the south side of the street. At one time the Ringling Brothers Circus played in town on the lots south of their house fronting First Street. The Cechmans prospered in Sanborn and in 1896 hired carpenter W.H. Austin to tear down the old house and build a new, larger dwelling which was completed in May of the same year and remains on the site today.
208 Carroll Street (Block 23 lot 4)
Lucius W. and Jennie Barr with their two young children arrived in Sanborn from Shellrock on April 22, 1880. A wagon maker/carpenter by trade, L.W. immediately purchased a lot and began the construction of a “neat little cottage on Railroad Ridge” for approximately $225.00. He worked as a carpenter around town or at times for the railroad. In October of 1886 he made a substantial addition to the dwelling costing $800.00. The Barr couple were active in the community for 39 years until Jennie’s death in March 1919 at 73. The property was sold to Angeline Lowery the same month and L.W. moved to Montana near his son J. Allen Barr and family. Lucius died at age 90 near Poison, Montana in 1939 and is buried there. The house he built in Sanborn remained in the Lowery family 82 years selling in 2001.
212 E 3rd Street
In March 1879 Mr. and Mrs. Allen Crossen left their rural home and purchased a lot on the northwest corner of Third and Sibley for $15.00. Lumber was on the ground for their home in April and building commenced immediately making it the first house actually built within the infant city’s limits. When completed it served as the site of the first school as a room was rented for the approaching term with Mrs. Crossen as the teacher. This arrangement lasted until early summer when the township built a much needed schoolhouse at 212 West Fourth St.
In May of 1880 the Crossens moved to Hartley where Allen started a newspaper. The property was sold to Cal and Hattie (Brady) Broadstreet for $300.00. Cal (28) was a lawyer who set about adding a barn, picket fence and other improvements to the house totaling $350.00. In March of 1885 the Broadstreets sold the home to Myron E. Perry for $1000.00, the first of numerous owners throughout the next 142 years.
211 E 3rd Street
Iva F. Inman, a young single school teacher purchased this lot for $75.00 from the town lot owners Stocum & Lawler in 1880. She married Frank Turner in 1883 and moved to Primghar where he served as Clerk of Court.The lot remained empty until 1888 when R.M. and Alice Wilson purchased it from the Turners for $166.00. They took out a $300.00 mortgage and built a small but substantial home valued at $1,250.00.
Robert Wilson was considered the “boss painter and paperhanger” in the village. By 1899 he was also running the town pump. A son Ray Wilson, graduated from Sanborn in 1903, married Myrtle Kane, a local gal, served in WWI and eventually located in Redwood City, CA. He was one of the founders of the American Legion—part of a group of men who met in St. Louis, Mo. to formulate plans for the organization. Robert and Alice Wilson left Sanborn in 1904 but their home remains.
112 E 4th Street
As a young married couple Pete and Anna (Mayne) Velie spent $200.00 on two lots (that may have included a small house) in January of 1881. Pete was the head clerk in the large mercantile of Teabout & Valleau on First Street and the future appeared bright. About the time the “new residence of Pete Velie was looming up on the Ridge” that May, the young man resigned his position with the firm and began clerking for Slocum & Sweet downtown. The Velies lived in the home over ten years, selling to Crick Carroll from Chicago in 1894. Crick lived there for a time and eventually rented it out until William Bonner purchased the property in 1899. He suffered the loss of a barn and severe damage to the upper portion of the home during the tornado of 1914. The house was salvaged following the storm with some changes to the second level that exist today.
212 E 4th Street
In February of 1880, I.W. Daggett sold an empty lot to Frank Brainard (27), a newly promoted conductor on the Chicago Milwaukee Road, for fifty dollars. A dwelling was built early that spring and the family—Frank, Fannie and two young daughters moved in. Dwight R. Phelps, builder of Sanborn’s first upright grain elevator, doled out $775.00 for the property in May 1881 and it changed hands several times over the next ten years, described as “nice, comfortable and pleasantly located”. When the Catholic Church was built across the street to the east in 1883, places had to be rented in town to house the resident priest. According to the local paper, the church purchased this property in March 1894 as a residence for Father Corbitt. This proved satisfactory until the death of the good man a year later and the home was sold again. One wonders how many of the owners in later years were aware of the property’s “holy history”.
The Driving Tour is courtesy of the Sanborn Pioneer and Sanborn Preservation. Watch future issues of The Pioneer for more “old house” history as time and space allows.