Iowa centennial farm program

In the past 45 years, more than 5, farms have received the honor. The deadline for the March ceremony is November 1 and the deadline for the August ceremony is April 1. If your family wants your farm history to be published in this book you must contact Acclaim Press directly. They left the farm in when Henry went to work in Fort Benton. Their son Stuart became a partner in , and eventually took full ownership with his wife Lila in As of , Hank still lived in the same home that Henry built in Requirements for induction include:.

Thursday, January 13, Copyright - All Right Reserved. January 3, Share 0 Facebook Twitter Email. December 31, Don Revis, who was employed by Hamilton Brothers, Keota, Iowa, breeders of fine saddle horses before the war, is teaching Shirley Temple to ride. The pony was given to Shirley as a gift. The land on which the quarry is located had been owned by the Cady family for 70 years before the present owner Harold Pepper bought the place in the fall of The Pepper family lived on the place 17 years before they purchased it.

Slabs of limestone were removed from the site of this quarry during the early years of Keota when some of the buildings that now stand along Broadway were being erected.

The limestone was used in the basement walls and for the foundations. The quarry then lay idle until when a group of WPA workers from Keota were employed there. Their tools were picks and shovels and the dirt was removed with wheel barrows. Ed Wahl of Victor, Iowa, moved a crusher to the location in During the summer months of that year many tons of crushed rock were produced and used for road constructions.

Again the quarry lay idle until when Don Hayes of Grace Hill, after determining the depth of the layers of stone, leased the site and moved in big machinery to operate on a large scale. This continued for several years when he then sold to Dillon Stone Company. Many kinds and qualities of crushed limestone are produced in this quarry as well as agricultural lime. View at the quarry in Leroy Lillig at work at the quarry in Vittetoe Slat Flooring, Inc.

Francis Vittetoe. The origin of the company dates back in At that time the Vittetoes started making and using slats in various types of livestock buildings, at first on their own farm and then they began selling them on a small scale to others to see the results. The product seemed to be basically good so with improvements and changes over a period of time it worked well as a labor saver in raising hogs.

In the product was patented. Since it was different in the fact that it was a self-cleaning slat in the type movement it had within each slat. The slat flooring was further improved and specific size units were made to fit easily into all farrowing crates.

This change created a greater market and sales began growing at a greater rate. The product is now manufactured on the Vittetoe farm one mile south of Keota. A small shop is set up there and additional equipment is available to complete the various type hog set ups.

In mink became a business in Keota, Iowa. Ed Conrad and his two youngest sons, Donald and Ronald, started a partnership called " E. Conrad and Sons Mink Farm. As each of the sons finished high school in the early 's, they took a wider interest in the business and expanded a female and 50 male herd to 1, females and males, as it is today.

As the business grew, the ideas of mink ranching modernized too. The fellows built sheds to cover their animals. This helped make chores easier to handle and protects pens from damage by rain, snow and ice. They built up a quality herd of pastels and mutations. They learned their business by helping at other fur farms in Iowa during the different cycles of producing the animals.

They took second high points at the International in In son Ron left the partnership to become a CPA. The ranch produces approximately 9, pelts per year. They are skinned and dried at the ranch, then they are shipped to New York to be sold at auction. The partnership has entered into the pet business and has a Federal Licensed kennel.

Keota Chemical, Inc. In , lots were purchased and a building put up at the present location on East Broadway. An addition was built in on the north end of the building. The corporation has grown over the past eight years. The name was changed to Keota Chemical, Inc. Keota Chemical is engaged in custom agricultural spraying, lime spreading, fertilizer spreading and shop work. They do local repair work, manufacture disc markers, conveyors and so some contract manufacturing.

They employ seven full-time men and seasonal part-time help. The seed corn business at Walden Farm didn't "just happen. Kirkpatrick in the past few years many pages are devoted to the developing farm program. There are two certificates attesting to first place yield contests for corn growing in and In January of , C. Kirkpatrick was pictured in the first class of Master Farmers by the farm magazine "Wallaces Farmer.

This involved building a dryer, and before long the volume of business required four dryers. In early stages of the business Will and Frank Klein were involved in financing and crop production. Omar J. Stoutner was also a partner in production and sales. In , customers made official records of more than bushels per acre in the Iowa Yield Test. Harold Palmer, using Pfister seed grown by Walden Farm, made a record of On November 7, , guests attended the corn banquet in the Keota High School gym to honor the customers of Walden Farm who made the lbushel yield records.

Thirty-four of these were on farms in Lafayette Township. This celebration was well advertised, given radio coverage that was not so common as it is today. On March 2, , Mr. Pfister sold foundation seed to contract growers with terms which allowed them to operate as a separate corporation. Charles D. Kirkpatrick was elected to the Board of Directors. On July 28, , the parttime detasselers and the regular employees together numbered people on the Walden Farm payroll.

The amount of mail that went out from Walden Farm through the Keota Post Office was probably larger than any other business in town.

Kirkpatrick was a great believer in "printer's ink. Over the years he wrote many articles for Wallaces Farmer, newspapers, and special interest publications, such as the hog paper, "Inbred News. In the seed corn business was sold to the Pfister Associated Growers Corporation. Kirkpatrick never threaded a loom or threw a shuttle until about six years ago. Now he has been obliged to give up milking the cows in order to put in more time at his principal business as a weaver.

Dear reader, you never met any body who can hold a candle to Grandpa Kirkpatrick when it comes to sewing carpet rags.