This weekend, one of Iowa City’s oldest neighborhoods is celebrating its history as the Lucas Farms Neighborhood Association holds its annual History Days.
“Our neighborhood is absolutely loaded with history,” Judy Nyren, one of the organizers of History Days, told Little Village.
Nyren has lived in the neighborhood for over 40 years and has extensively dug into its history, starting when Robert Lucas, the first governor of the Iowa Territory, moved his family into the newly-constructed home on 80 acres of farmland. In the early 20th century, Lucas’s family began selling off the farmland to builders. As the neighborhood’s name implies, most of it is located on what used to the Lucas’s farmland.
The Lucas family home, Plum Grove, is now maintained by the Johnson County Historical Society, and will be open for History Days with special tours.
Lucas isn’t the only governor the community bound by Lower Muscatine on the east, Gilbert Court on the west, Hwy 6 on the south and the railroad tracks can claim. The man Kirkwood Avenue is named for also lived there.
Samuel Kirkwood, Iowa’s governor during the Civil War, lived in a two-story wood-frame house on the street that is now named for him. It will be featured in the Civil War walking tour of Lucas Farms that Nyren will be conducting on Sunday morning. The tour will touch on a wide variety of stories related to the era, from Kirkwood’s work that led Iowa to contribute more soldiers per capita to the Union army than any other state, to the story of an army drummer boy who lived in the neighborhood, as well as an Iowan taken prisoner early in the war, and a relative of a companion of John Brown before the conflict began. Nyren will be dressed in an era-evoking costume for the tour.
“I like wearing clothes from a period for a tour,” she explained. “It helps people visualize the stories.”
On Friday evening, Nyren will be dressed as Rosie the Riveter as she leads a walking tour touching on Lucas Farm’s connections to World War II. There will also be a walking tour focused on one particular resident from a century ago.
“We’ll have the Constable’s Walk down Keokuk Street at 5 p.m. on Saturday,” Nyren said. “Constable John Matthes is far and away the most colorful, outlandish person to have ever lived in Lucas Farms. Constable was an elected position, and he served from the 1890s to 1930ish.”
Matthes was occasionally called “the unluckiest man in Iowa City,” because angry people would chase him with pitchforks and axes after he served a court warrant. Always wearing a black bowler hat and chomping on a cigar, Matthes was a familiar sight around Iowa City for decades.
Nyren has plenty of stories about Matthes, his less-than-pristine approach to law enforcement — his son was one of Iowa City’s leading bootleggers during Prohibition — and his side businesses, which included skunk milking, and a couple of lawsuits he was personally involved in, one of which hinged on whether he ate pigeons.
But there’s more than than history to History Days. There’s also a variety of family-friendly activities. On Saturday, there will be bike ride around the neighborhood — the Tour de Farm — and a mini petting zoo for kids. Kids will also have a chance to do some metal detecting on Sunday afternoon and hunt for fragments of the past. There will also be live music, with the Old Man Band covering rock classics on Saturday night and the Iowa City Community Band playing on Sunday night.
Details about all the events at this year’s History Days can be found on the Lucas Farms Neighborhood Association’s Facebook page. All events are free and open to the public.
