Gilbert, Iowa
Historical Perspectives

Main Street Memories
reflections of life in Gilbert around 1915

by Eugene Eness

Kramme & Jones Drug Store
I think one would have to say that the Drug Store was the social center of Gilbert. Whenever a person who had lived around Gilbert would return they would either go to the Drug Store, or to the barber shop.

The year I was in the eighth grade, the last year we lived on the farm before we moved to Ames, I used to go in and buy a maple nut sundae for $.10. If I only had a nickel, I would get a gingerale or a green river.

This store started business in 1908, and sold many other items besides soda and drugs like office supplies.

Kent & Ray General Hardware
I liked going in the Hardware store with Dad. So many interesting things in his showcase. In 1917 Burt Kent bought the old high school building and had it moved to Main Street. His old store was located next door, north of the school building he moved in. In a 1916 newspaper article this hardware store was known as Kent and Johnson.

I remember when we lived on the farm, that when a milk pail sprang a leak, we would take it to Burt and he would solder the leak. He also installed most of the coal fired furnaces in the area.

Gilbert Confectionery Store
Ed Holmes’s store may have been where I had my first ice cream cone. Ice Cream was the first item he sold in his store, when he started it in 1902.

Ice cream was considered a hot weather dessert and trying to bring it home in the buggy on a hot day created a melted mess. I remember Ed wrapping it in a lot of newspapers.

Ed went into the grocery business in 1916, buying many of his items, like eggs, cheese, and vegetables from the local farmers. His store was still in business up until the late 30's.

Billy Barnes, the Blacksmith
Billy’s shop was inside a stockade, it had four walls, with no roof. He wasn’t a very tall man, but had a stocky build, full beard and a bald head. When he worked in his shop he had a leather apron on.

Gunder Holmes Fresh and Salt Meats
Operating a meat market in the old days was not a job for a weakling. In 1914 Gunder purchased his store from E. C. Robinson. I used to watch Gunder come out of his ice cooled cooler carrying

a quarter of beef or a half of hog. He was a tall raw-boned man.

During the heat of the summer it was so hot in the cellar that a family couldn’t store meat there so it was someone’s job to bring home a fresh supply of meat every day.

Ice for the cooler had to be harvested every winter. Gunder and some of his friends would go to Lake Comar in the winter and cut ice in large blocks and haul it to his ice house that was located near the back door of the butcher shop. The ice had to packed with sawdust.

Gunder’s shop was the most interesting store. There was a deer head and a snake on the walls, ducks and geese perched on a shelf.

Mary Wright
Mary Wright was the postmistress and Gilbert’s cheerleader. She sold subscriptions to newspapers, and gathered local news for the Ames and Story City papers. When she didn¹t get enough news from people on the street she would go door to door and say "What have you done this week? Did you go anyplace...?"

I think what people will remember about Mary most is when she started promoting the sidewalk from the Gilbert schoolhouse corner to the cemetery — a distance of 3/10 of a mile. The money to build the sidewalk was paid for by donations. One sales pitch Mary used was "wouldn¹t you be willing to pay for three bags of cement and a load of gravel to have a nice sidewalk to the cemetery?" She even got donations from farmers who probably would never use it.

The Stockyards
Gilbert Station was a place where, when cattle and hogs from the area farmers would be driven into town when they were ready for market, they would come up Main Street herded by several men on horseback like in the old western movies. The cattle were raising dust and bawling until they reached the stock yards beyond the north elevator.

There they had to be weighed and watered. As soon as possible they were loaded in stock cars and taken to Ames where they were switched to a freight train going either to Chicago or Omaha. If the farmer had many cattle he would obtain a stock pass and ride in the caboose of the freight carrying his livestock.

Editor's note: Eugene Eness was born in September 1906 Ames. He moved briefly to Chicago with his family then lived most of his growing up days on the Eness homeplace farm north of Gilbert. The Eness family also resided for a short time in a house on Main Street in Gilbert. Eugene graduated from Ames High School, farmed in the Gilbert area for 25 years, then worked in maintenance at the Iowa State University Entomology Department for about 20 years. He died in January 1996. For further information, contact his son, Paul Eness, who lives in rural Stratford, Iowa.