Berwick Iowa, When Coal Was King By G.C. Stevens

 

Travel poster created by AI using the authors photos seen below

Along the meandering Four Mile Creek, a small town, a quiet place tucked in the pocket

of the past, when coal was king and the railroads laid the path, an old church and a post office to serve the those who settled the prairie and mined the coal. The old town has no main roads, passed by, almost forgotten, except for the lucky few, who come to feel the solace. 

-G.C. Stevens     

Located near the confluence Fourmile Creek and Muchikinock Creeks, 

Berwick was first settled in 1846. Henry Taylor platted the town in 1884 

and secured a station on the newly constructed Diagonal Railroad. He 

served as the first postmaster and named the town after his hometown of 

Berwick, Maine. In the early 20th century, Berwick was home to several 

coal mines, including the 200-acre Norwood-White’s Klondike No. 1. For 

nearly twenty years Berwick compared in size to the neighboring towns 

of Altoona and Ankeny. By 1920, the mines had played out and these 

other communities began to surpass Berwick in size. 

Ref: Chichaquavalleytrail.org

In the early 20th century, Berwick and Norwoodville, a mile southwest, were home to several coal mines. The Norwood-White shaft No. 1 (also known as the Klondike No. 1) was 215 feet deep, accessing a 4-foot-thick coal seam. By 1908, this mine extended over roughly 200 acres. Norwood-White shaft No. 2 was half a mile to the east. This mine was newer, covering over 40 acres in 1908. The Delaware Coal Company had a shaft a mile northwest of Berwick, with a shaft 170 feet (52 m) deep. By 1908, this mine covered less than 15 acres. In 1914, Norwood-White produced over 100,000 tons of coal, ranking among the top 24 coal producers in the state. In 1912, United Mine Workers Local 318 in Berwick had 220 members, and Local 845 in Norwoodville, one mile south, had 129 members.

The Railroad in Berwick

The Milwaukee Road (officially the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad) in Berwick, Iowa, was originally built in the late 19th century as a part of the Des Moines, Northern & Western Railway (the "High Bridge Route") before being acquired by the Milwaukee Road. Running as an important branch line northwest of Des Moines, it supported Berwick and the surrounding area's booming early 20th-century coal mining industry.

The corridor is now part of Central Iowa's extensive recreational trail system. 

The Milwaukee Road in Berwick Original Route: The tracks running through Berwick were originally part of a narrow-gauge Des Moines line that the Milwaukee Road took over in 1895 and subsequently converted to standard gauge.

The Post Office in Berwick founded in 1884 by Henry Taylor photo by the Author

The Berwick Congregational Church (Originally the Union Chapel) founded in 1875

Photo by the Author

An old Chrysler 1960 Windsor greets visitors as the enter Berwick from north. 

Photo by the Author

Photos: Civil War Days Jefferson Iowa By G.C. Stevens U.S. Photographer

 

 All Photos by G.C. Stevens  

*U.S. Photographer: Photo gallery*

The Army of The Southwest Keeps History Alive!

The Army of the southwest (ASW) held the annual civil war reenactment in Jefferson Iowa as part of the Bell Tower Festival. Saturday was very damp due to the ongoing rainstorms that have passed through Iowa over the last few weeks. But Sunday was a beautiful day. Jefferson is located in a very bucolic setting in western Iowa and one of my favorite things about this event, was that the train horns can be heard in the air from the local Union Pacific railroad line. This was my first event for 2026, and I decided to incorporate one of my passions to my historic impressions as a field photographer. But it took some work to create this impression, so I built a camera housing that would accommodate both a traditional black and white film camera and a small digital camera. I was already in possession of a vintage Kodak Brownie Camera (120) that I purchased many years ago when I was experimenting with different film formats. I included a small digital camera for quick and expedient photos. I will be adding more photos to this article later when the roll of 120 film return from the processor.

Seargent OJ Fargo conducts drill

The camera housing with the digital camera

The digital camera in a home made adapter

The digital camera

The homemade camera housing

The camera hosing with the vintage Brownie inside

                                         Camp Photos

Soldiers sitting for photos 

Drill

Trains, Trails & Outlaws, By G.C. Stevens: Now on Amazon

 

Trains, Trails and Out Laws: Western Poetry & Stories III invites readers onto dusty roads, steel rails, and prairie paths where the American frontier still breathes. G.C. Stevens blends original Western poetry, short stories, personal photographs, RPPCs, postal history, and vivid historical sketches to celebrate Iowa and the Midwest as the doorway to the West.

From Jesse James, Wyatt Earp, Black Hawk, Butch Cassidy, and the Sundance Kid to the Pony Express, Chisholm Trail, Rock Island Railroad, and Sitting Bull, this collection captures legends, landscapes, and working people shaped by courage, hardship, memory, and myth, an affectionate tribute to Western heritage and imagination for readers of history and folklore alike.

 Also find Trains, Trails & Outlaws on Amazon.com and Jones Book Store

Trains Trails & Outlaws on Amazon (Paperback)

Jones book store

CHECK OUT OUR MERCHANDISE STORE AT BONFIRE

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Postmortem Photos, When Life and Death Lived Under the Same Roof. By G.C. Stevens

 

     Photo public domain 

Cambridge, Iowa 

 The smell of wood smoke hung in the air; the old towns have their own ways. The past still lives here: old bank buildings, old brick jailhouses, old houses near the square. A railroad town, once bigger than now. The sign painted on the side of an old brick building read: The Big Store—Furniture—Undertaking—Rugs—Linoleum—S. E. Cooper and Sons.

A time when undertaking became a necessary side hustle and full time American profession.

 —G.C. Stevens 

An enhanced version of an advertisement painted on the side of an old brick building, 

See the faded original at the end of this article.

 Photo taken by the author in Cambridge Iowa

One of the lesser talked about aspects of living on the early frontier, even in small towns, up until the late 1800's. Is how families reconciled the death of loved ones. Thoughtfully speaking, it could be said that technology, legality, and the pace of life, not only made it more difficult for families to deal with the death of the departed, and it became more expedient to hand their loved ones over to morticians. The 1800's (and before) was however a very different era. A time in which death and life resided together as a fact of living. And the modern convenience of undertaking services, did not begin in earnest until the civil war created a need for trained and ready men and women to assume the roles of caretaker of the dead. But before that time, consider this, that many early homes were built with a room, which we now we refer to as "the living room." This particular space was at one time called a "parlor," and was in fact, not only living space, but rather the parlor where family members would lay out the dead for visitation and funeral after a death in the family had occurred.  For those of us living in current times, it is indeed difficult and sometimes perceived morbid for us to view such a lifestyle in connection with our relationship with the dead, but in those days, it was a very normal for family members to be close to the death in its final stages and the family would have the responsibility of preparing and interring the deceased.                                                               

                                                Enter Photography

In the autumn of 1839, the invention of the daguerreotype photo in America radically altered how the nation recorded its history and conceptualized its memory. Invented in France by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, this pioneering process utilized a polished, silver-coated copper plate sensitized with iodine vapors and developed over heated mercury to lock in a highly detailed, mirror-like image. While European audiences viewed the invention as a marvelous scientific novelty, Americans embraced as part of their culture.

​Prior to the 1840s, having a personal likeness recorded was a luxury exclusive to the wealthy who could afford commissioned oil paintings. The rapid proliferation of the daguerreotype galleries, pioneered by figures like Mathew Brady in New York and the partnership of Albert Southworth and Joseph Pennel, (also see Josiah Hawes who was a later partner) in Boston, for the first time, average working-class citizens could obtain an exact, enduring "likeness" of themselves or their families for the price of a few dollars. By the 1850s, the mainstreamed the medium had become so deeply woven into the American identity that international commentators frequently referred to it as "the American process."

 Postmortem Photography

​Beyond documenting the living, early American photography served as a profound and intimate partner in navigating the era's high mortality rates through the profession and practice of post-mortem photography. In the 19th century, death was a highly visible domestic reality for family members. Medical science was limited, epidemics were common, and families routinely cared for the dying and prepared corpses for burial within their own parlors. Because the photographic process was still relatively expensive and required long, perfectly still exposure times, many individuals—particularly infants and young children—passed away without ever having had their picture taken while alive.

​Consequently, mourning families frequently commissioned photographers to capture a final, permanent visual record of their deceased loved ones. Far from being viewed as macabre, these images were deeply cherished sentimental keepsakes. Early post-mortem photographs were thoughtfully staged to reflect the Victorian concept of the "Last Sleep." Deceased children were often photographed resting peacefully in cribs, tucked into couches with a favorite teddy bear, or cradled in the arms of grieving parents.

​To heighten the illusion of life, photographers employed various delicate techniques. Because living subjects often blurred due to micro-movements during long exposures, the deceased—who remained perfectly still—frequently appeared with striking, crystalline clarity in the finished image. Photographers would sometimes gently prop open the eyelids of the deceased or meticulously hand-paint lifelike pupils and a soft pink flush onto the cheeks of the cold tin or silver plates.

​By the dawn of the American Civil War, newer, cheaper and reproducible mediums like ambrotypes, tintypes, and paper albumen prints replaced the singular daguerreotype. As the 20th century approached, the rise of the commercial funeral industry and hospital care sanitized death, removing the corpse from the family home. Concurrently, the invention of affordable snapshot cameras meant families captured abundance of images during a person's lifetime, causing the cultural necessity for post-mortem photos to gracefully fade away. Today, these early photographs remain a poignant testament to a young nation's ingenuity and its tender, deeply intimate relationship with memory and loss.

Photo courtesy Gary Shamrock collection

Photo courtesy of Gary Shamrock collection.

Postmortem photo, photographer unknown, approx. 1850

Postmortem photography took a strange twist when photographers such as the famed Arizona photographer C.S. Fly went into the field to capture photos of the life of the wild west. Based in Tombstone, Arizona, C.S. Fly documented the peace treaty between Apache Chief Geronimo and the U.S. Army in 1886, as well as other iconic moments of the Old West. Many images were captured that showed the publics hangings and the results of clashes between law enforcement and famous bandits. The photos below are copies from the authors collection.

C.S. Fly's Gallery in Tombstone Arizona, photo public domain

Death photo of the Clanton and McClaurys after the gunfight at the O.K. Corral in 1881

Tom McClaury, Frank McClaury and Billy Clanton

Members of the Dalton gang killed in Coffeyville KS

Left to right, Bill Powers, Bob Dalton, Grat Dalton and Dick Broadwell

​References

​Gillespie, S. K. (2016). The Early American Daguerreotype: Cross-Currents in Art and Technology. The MIT Press.

​The Daguerreian Era and Early American Photography on Paper, 1839–60. (2004, October 1). The Metropolitan Museum of Art. https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/the-daguerreian-era-and-early-american-photography-on-paper-1839-1860

​Post-Mortem Photography: An Overview. (n.d.). University of Michigan Clements Library. https://clements.umich.edu/exhibit/death-in-early-america/post-mortem-overview/

https://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2014/01/06/strange-past-post-mortem-photography-by-steve-huff/?amp=1

A faded wall advertisement for the business of  S.E. Cooper and Sons, Cambridge Iowa.

Photo by the author.

Wakinyans Fugitives: Return of The Dime Novel By G.C. Stevens

Coming soon

 The dime novels emerged in 1860's when publishers Erastus and Irwin Beadle released Malaeska, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter by Ann S. Stephens, launching an affordable paperback revolution priced at a dime (with many later nickel weeklies even cheaper). These sensationalized, paperbound stories—often 100 pages of melodrama, adventure, and frontier action were read by young readers, exploding in popularity during and after the Civil War. Early volumes drew from James Fenimore Cooper's style, focusing on conflicts with Native Americans, but quickly shifted to cowboy heroes, outlaws, train robbers, and Wild West legends like Buffalo Bill. 

Dusty Trails of the Old West Publishing brings back the Dime (and nickel) western novel with issue #1 "Wankinyans Fugitives." With two new frontier heroes, Frontiersman-trappers Levi Boone and Jean Cadotte, two bold figures from the old northwest territory, who do battle with the great Dakota Warrior Chief Ackicita, at the sacred ground of Pipestone.

Story City Carousel Honors Wild West History: By G.C. Stevens

 

Story City Iowa is a very quaint and picturesque town located just north of Ames Iowa off of I-35. Once you arrive there you are greeted with beautiful parks, a nostalgic old downtown and fields of the color of Kelly green. But Story City has one really unique tourist attraction on the west side of town, and that attraction is the vintage Story City Carousel. The carousel dates back to 1913, and it is a beautifully preserved living mechanical artifact, that puts smiles on peoples faces. The old time ride is adorned with symbols of the American west and loaded with breathtaking hand carved horses. The carousel is a step back into a time within the confines of an Americana icon.

All Photos were taken by the author

Paintings on canvass deck out the upper part of the ride. Symbols of the American West

Story City Carousel