Hawks Vie for Rolling Hills Title

BIG ROAD WIN TUESDAY OVER O-MACK, 48-38

East Greene picked up a big win at Orient-Macksburg on Tuesday to keep its Rolling Hills Conference boys basketball title hopes alive. EG downed the Bulldogs 48-38, keeping the Hawks just one game behind league-leader Elk Horn-Kimballton/Exira.

Orient-Macksburg had just handed EHKE its first league loss last Friday in Orient, upping its own record in the conference to 10-3, and moving OM to third place, just behind E/EHK (11-1) and EG (11-2), and a game ahead of Ankeny Christian Academy, 9-3.

EHKE won a big matchup Monday night at Ankeny Christian 54-48. The Spartans then beat Iowa Christian 68-50 the following night to move to 13-1 in the conference while EG upped its mark to 12-2 with the big win at Orient. Each team has just four conference games remaining including a key matchup next Friday night, Feb. 4, at Elk Horn.

EG faces a tough Glidden-Ralston squad tonight in Rippey. The Wildcats have won 5 of their last 7 games including a 70-41 drubbing of Ankeny Christian on Jan. 18 in Glidden. GR is just behind OM and ACA (both 10-4) in the league with a 9-4 mark. (GR and PC have each played one less game than the other 8 RH teams, but will make up their snowed out game from Jan. 11 on Monday, Jan. 31, in Glidden).

EYE ON GJ SAYS: The Hawks are playing solid ball and they showed real fortitude by making a very good showing in Orient on Tuesday night after losing by just one point to Class 2A Woodward-Granger Saturday in Rippey. The Hawks got a sweep of county rival and RH foe Paton-Churdan with a big 68-34 win on the home court on Friday night. The Hawks are now 13-3.

EG girls also picked up a conference win and a sweep of PC as they downed the Rockettes in Rippey, 36-27. The Hawkettes fell to Woodward-Granger the following night, 67-44. The win over PC moved the Hawkettes' conference record to 5-9. Overall, the Hawkettes are 6-11. Besides the GR game tonight and the Feb. 4 matchup with EHKE, the other two conference games left for the EG squads are Adair-Casey next Tuesday, Feb. 1, and Iowa Christian on Tuesday, Feb. 8. Both games are in Rippey. The girls enter district action on Thursday, Feb. 10, against Coon Rapids-Bayard at Coon Rapids while the boys close out the regular season with a home game against Madrid on Friday, Feb. 11.

ROLLING HILLS
Boys Conference Standings
(through Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2011)

Elk Horn-Kimballton/Exira 13-1
East Greene 12-2
Ankeny Christian 10-4
Orient-Macksburg 10-4
Glidden-Ralston 9-4
CAM 6-8
Iowa Christian 5-9
Walnut 2-12
Adair-Casey 2-12
Paton-Churdan 0-13

ROLLING HILLS
Girls Conference Standings
(through Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2011)

CAM 13-1
Adair-Casey 12-2
Elk Horn-Kimballton/Exira 12-2
Iowa Christian 9-5
Orient-Macksburg 7-7
Ankeny Christian 7-7
East Greene 5-9
Walnut 3-11
Glidden-Ralston 1-12
Paton-Churdan 0-13

Hoopsters Continue EG’s Winning Ways

HAWKS’ SUCCESS ON FIELD EXTENDS TO BB COURT

The big news this fall and winter in Grand Junction has been the success of the boys’ high school athletic teams. The football squad qualified for the 8-man playoffs this year for the first time in school history. It was also EG’s first post-season appearance since qualifying three years in a row in the late 1980s in Class A.

This year’s EG grid squad finished third in District 7 with a 5-2 mark and advanced to Stanton where they took on the Stanton Vikings, a veteran playoff team. The final score of 44-6 is a bit misleading, as the Hawks were behind by just 14-0 at halftime and 20-6 well into the fourth quarter.

Fumbles and miscues had plagued the Hawks all night and things went from bad to worse and then some as the Viking’s responded quickly after EG’s fourth-quarter score with a 38-yard run for a TD and a 28-6 advantage. The Stanton defense then turned a fumble on the next Hawk series into another 38-yard touchdown and after the kickoff following that score, the Vikings picked of QB Tory Beger and ran the ball back for a 35-yard TD. Just like that—three quick TDs—saw Stanton with 44 points on the board while the Hawks were stymied. The Vikings moved on to the second round to face EG’s longtime rival and district foe Glidden-Ralston in Glidden while the Hawks ended the season at 7-3.

A good contingent of fans made the long trip to Stanton for the game in late October thanks to a chartered bus sponsored by Peoples Trust and Savings Bank. The team was honored at a big community pep rally held in the high school gym at Grand Junction the night before the game.

East Greene gets another banner and trophy to accompany the hardware earned from its participation in the state baseball tournament in 2009. (Last summer, the Hawks were just a run shy from making it back to Principal Park for a repeat state baseball performance, falling to Ar-We-Va 3-2 in the sub-state after winning the district crown with big upsets over highly favored Coon Rapids-Bayard in the semifinal round and undefeated Elk Horn-Kimballton/Exira in the championship game.)

Interestingly, teams from EHKE and CRB are integral to the Hawk’s continued current hoop success.

The EHKE Spartans are atop the Rolling Hills Conference in basketball with the Hawks right behind them (see related story on basketball). This season marks the first year that longtime neighboring schools and rivals Exira and Elk Horn-Kimballton are competing together in basketball (boys and girls) after initially competing last year as EHKE in football, wrestling, boys and girls track, baseball and softball. They competed separately in basketball and golf. This year, they are EHKE across the board in all sports (or, as some would have it, E/EHK). Exira will close its elementary school building on Main Street (built in 1913) next year with its area K-3 students and all middle school students from the two districts housed in the Exira Jr.-Sr. High Building on the south side of town. All high school students from the two districts will attend classes at the current K-12 school building in Elk Horn, as will the existing K-3 students in the EHK district.

EHKE beat the Hawks in their first matchup on Jan. 4 in Rippey in a defensive tussle, 40-37. The Hawks’ conference title hoops then took a big hit the following week when Ankeny Christian beat them Jan. 14 on the Eagle’s home floor in Ankeny, 54-48. This was a big turnaround from the first game between EG and ACA in Rippey, where the Hawks posted a big 60-48 win and marked them as a “team to beat” in the league as ACA is the defending league champion and qualified for the state tourney last year. Further, the Eagles returned high-scoring Tim Olejniczak, who was a Class 1A first-team all-state pick last year as a junior.

But EG got a big boost from Orient-Macksburg last Friday night when the Bulldogs upended EHKE in another low-scoring battle, 35-30.

Coon Rapids-Bayard also qualified for state last year, and as luck would have it, both CRB and Ankeny Christian have been assigned to the same 9-team district as East Greene for post-season play which gets underway on Thursday, Feb. 14. Also in the field is Colo-Nesco, a perennial power in central Iowa and former Heart of Iowa Conference-Small member that shifted to the Iowa Star Conference this year. As many as four Iowa Star teams—including Colo-Nesco—have been ranked among the top 10 teams in Class 1A this season.

OTHER NEWS IN GJ: New Cemetery Entrance for Mt. Calvary--Thanks to donations from the Rowles and Lynch families, a new entrance was constructed to Mt. Calvary Cemetery on Fifteenth Street, across from the home of Jerry and Janice Kennedy. Since it was established in the 1890s by St. Brigid’s Parish, Mt. Calvary’s entrance has always been on the gravel road that runs north along the cemetery—the extension east of Elizabeth Street. But for many years, most people—and most notably funeral hearses and the processions—entered the cemetery from an access road just off Fifteenth Street where it intersects with Herron Street. That road continues east a bit and then curves straight south to the cemetery. For many years, the road itself was the cemetery’s western border and the space between the road and Fifteenth Street (about a half-block wide and a block long) was an open field, but about 10 years ago the cemetery was extended to that piece of property and there have since been many burials in this newest section. So now the new entrance nicely integrates the new space into the overall cemetery. Some of the oldest (and largest) gravestones in Greene County are found in the oldest part of Mt. Calvary and many of the original Catholic families of Greene County are buried here as St. Brigid’s was the first parish in the area—at one time serving Catholic churches in Jefferson, Paton, Churdan, Scranton, Ogden, Cooper and the Lohrville area. GJ Native Returns; Moves to Family Farm—Alexis Clause-Hooper, daughter of Reg Clause (EG ’67) and Mary Holz-Clause (EG ‘73) of Jefferson, who were both raised on large farm operations east of Grand Junction, has relocated with her family from Jefferson to the Clause farm home occupied for many years by her great-uncle and aunt, Bob and Dena Clause. Bob and his brothers and sisters were raised on the farm, established by his grandfather in the early 1900s, as were Bob’s three kids (Joy, Jill and Rob). The family of his brother Roger and his wife Dorothy (Reg, Linda, Mary Ann, Connie and Cindy) lived just a mile to the west. Bob Clause, who spent his entire life on the Clause Farm in Section 34 of Junction Township except for his time at in the U.S. Navy and as a student at Iowa State, died Oct. 1. His funeral was Oct. 4 at the Methodist church in GJ and he was buried in Beaver Cemetery, which is just a mile east of the Clause home place and the resting place of several generations of Clauses. Alexis and her husband, Jason, and their four young children, moved onto the farm in late fall. Reg Clause tells Eye on GJ that the farm home the Hooper family moved into was built new for the Farm Progress Show hosted in the fall of 1968 by the Bob and Roger (who farmed together for years as Clause Brothers). Reg has continued with the Clause Brothers operation since his father and uncle retired, and last year Alexis extended the farming operation on the property by establishing a certified farming operation, Hooper’s Funny Farm, on a piece of this historic multi-generation, family-owned farm.

The ‘Lost’ Streets of Grand Junction

EARLY DAY CITY PLANNERS HAD BIG DREAMS

Most everyone is familiar with the early day history of Grand Junction and how it was formed when a new north-south railroad line was built in 1869 at its intersection with the transcontinental east-west rail line built a few years earlier through the middle of Iowa. Hence, the “grand junction” that gave the town its name.

But what is surprising is that most early published maps of Grand Junction are from just before the turn of the century and they don’t show the town as it was first conceived in 1869. A wonderful map published in 1875 as part of the Andreas Atlas and recently made available online by the David Rumsey Map Collection shows the original “game plan” of Grand Junction. It contained the same borders as we know today, but it had a much greater context of platted sections and street maps.

This map delineates in greater detail the four sections of Grand Junction as they were first designed—Grand Junction, Central Grand Junction, West Grand Junction and South Grand Junction. Central Grand Junction consists of the main parts of town, much as they exist today: Main Street and Hager Street, each stretching from 8th Street to 19th Street, which was then the town’s eastern boundary, and the area north of the C&NW tracks (now Union Pacific) known as “Browntown.” South Grand Junction covers the blocks south of Kelley Street. West Grand Junction begins at 8th Street (today’s Highway 144) and covers the blocks from there to the west on both the north and south sides of the C&NW tracks. Interestingly, in West Grand Junction the numbered north-south streets continue in sequence from Central Grand Junction, going from Eighth Street to First Street but the east-west streets were laid out with alphabetical names: J Street and K Street are north of the tracks and L Street and M Street are south of the tracks. These “alphabet” streets were marked on maps well up until the 1960s, and account for the little jog from where L Street connected to Main Street at the home and offices of Dr. Melvin “Doc” Karber right where Highway 144 curves to the east from Eighth Street into Main Street, with Main Street continuing east into the center of Grand Junction. (Recent maps indicate that changes were made so that Hager and Main now run west all the way to the town’s western border, eliminating in West Grand Junction what had been L and M Streets).

The north part of town is where things gets interesting, as Grand Junction, also marked on maps as Original Town of Grand Junction, covers about two-thirds of the town north of the C&NW tracks with 24 full blocks and six half-blocks abutting the north-south, or the Minneapolis and St. Louis (locally referred to as the “M and St. L”) railroad tracks (also now Union Pacific). But the rest of this part of town is laid out as a continuation of Central Grand Junction from south of the tracks.

It’s hard to think of the area south of the C&NW tracks and the area north of the C&NW tracks as being part of the same section, since the railroad is such a natural dividing line, but it is all Central Grand Junction.

But here is where the plan gets interesting as Central Grand Junction north of the tracks takes an inverse “L” shape, essentially wrapping around Original Grand Junction.

[NOTE: To get a clear view of the “lost streets” of GJ, pull up the map from this site and then follow along below as we compare and contrast that map with today’s GJ: www.davidrumsey.com. Just type in “Grand Junction Iowa” (also note that Grand Junction shares the page with 1875 plat maps of Mitchellville, Indianola and Clarion.) Just use the enlarge and scroll features to get an up-close look at the GJ map].

On the map, the Central Grand Junction blocks between 13th and 14th Streets south of the railroad tracks extend north of the tracks for roughly about 2 ½ blocks, with two east-west streets—Sandoe and Railroad—extending all the way east to 19th Street, much as they do today. The north-south streets on both sides of the tracks start at 14th Street and continue east to 19th. However, the street that serves as main north-south artery on both sides of the tracks today, 13th Street, is not on this particular map north of the C&NW tracks. The back of the blocks along 14th Street north of the tracks form the western boundary of Central Grand Junction and the land west of that is railroad property, as the connecting line from the M&St.L line swings down and out in an arc, connecting to the C&NW east-west tracks right at where 13th Street would have crossed the tracks north (or at least that is how it appears on the map, but most likely it was not that close).

The inverse “L” shape occurs because Central Grand Junction does not continue to the north between 14th and 15th Streets, but it does from 16th Street to 19th Street. So far north in fact, that there are six more streets beyond those found on present-day maps. These streets, which continue north beyond Division and then Percival, are, in a sense, the most notable of the “lost streets.”

So, starting from the railroad tracks going north we have the same streets than as we do today: Sandoe, Railroad, Division and Percival. These blocks are all in the same square dimensions of today’s city blocks in Grand Junction—marked with east-west and north-south alleys bisecting each of them.

Beginning at 16th Street and Division Street the east-west streets north of there are spread across three blocks—16th Street to 19th Street. However, from south to north beginning one block north of Percival Street, these six particular streets are avenues: Hatton Avenue, Scovill Avenue, Hill Avenue, Park Avenue, Grove Avenue and North Avenue. These blocks, too, are the same dimensions as all the other blocks of Central Grand Junction.

But on the other side of 16th Street, the men who laid out Original Grand Junction had a completely different game plan. Starting at the town’s northern-most boundary, which would be a direct line drawn from the three blocks facing North Avenue (on its north side) of Central GJ and continuing west to the M&St.L tracks, and then heading back south, we have a grid system of longer north-south blocks bisected by only north-south alleys. The east-west streets of Original GJ take the names of numbered streets: First, Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth, while the north-south streets take the names of avenues, starting at the railroad tracks with Third Avenue and continuing east with Fourth Avenue, Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue.

(If all of these lots on these various blocks in northern Grand Junction had been fully developed and sold, imagine the confusion of standing at the corner of Second and Sixth, as in Second Street and Sixth Avenue in Original GJ, and walking just two blocks east and being at 17th and Park, as in 17th Street and Park Avenue in Central GJ.)

DECIPHERING GJ’S SECTIONS

It’s important we take a moment here to explain who laid out these early streets and avenues of the four sections of Grand Junction and what greater intentions might have been behind their efforts.

As railroads were being built throughout Iowa and other parts of the Midwest in the post-Civil War era, much of the land along the railroads was purchased by real estate developers and businessmen. The Hager family, originally from Hagerstown, Md., represented by Fred Hager, already had a foothold in the Grand Junction area as they had a brick kiln business just a few miles to the west of the eventual town site on the Cedar Rapids & Missouri River Railway, which was completed between Boone and Council Bluffs in 1867. The western U.S. portions of this same extended rail line comprised the point where the nation’s eastern and western railroads met in 1869—forming the first trans-continental railroad in the United States. (In Iowa, the original east to west line was the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Railway but it changed hands and became the Chicago & Northwestern, or C&NW, shortly after completion.)

When it became apparent that a north-south railroad line would be built in Iowa from Keokuk to Fort Dodge, interest was obviously heightened for land along the route, especially where the proposed railroad would intersect with the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Railway (C&NW). The railroad was developed as a route to connect Iowa to Minnesota. The first part of the route was built by the Des Moines Valley Railroad, based in Keokuk, and extending from Keokuk up along the valley of the Des Moines River to Des Moines. The railroad reached Des Moines on Aug. 29, 1866. Plans were officially announced in April 1869 to build the next leg from Des Moines to the “Northwestern Railroad” depot and construction got underway in early June of that year.

The route was to be built from Des Moines to Valley Junction and then to Shirley in Dallas County, turning northward from there on to Minburn, Perry, Rippey and Grand Junction, also identified in early news articles as the “Northwestern” depot (and then on to Fort Dodge). Minburn, Shirley and Grand Junction were to be new towns and Rippey was relocated from an existing community west of the proposed line (“Old Rippey” had been situated near the Raccoon River in far western Washington Township), but essentially a new town also, and for many years was officially known as “New Rippey.” The railroad officials in Keokuk did not like the name Shirley, wanting a name with an Indian appellation, so they changed it to Waukee, according to the Iowa Daily State Register. (This information is from the present-day City of Waukee website.)

So with the line coming into Des Moines in 1866 and with three years before it reached [the proposed] Grand Junction, there was considerable time to make plans for this new town at this key railroad intersection. Perhaps that’s why four different groups purchased land at the proposed town site and each drew up separate sections.

According to one of the leading historical sources of early day Greene County, “Past and Present of Greene County, Iowa” by E. B. Stillman in 1907, Central Grand Junction was laid out by “Hager and Sons and Percival & Hatton of Des Moines.” Two railroad officials, “Howe, a division superintendent, and Eastbrook, roadmaster, laid out ‘Grand Junction.’ Herron & Kelley of Pittsburgh, Pa., laid out ‘South Grand Junction,’ and Seward Smith, of Des Moines, followed with ‘West Grand Junction.’”

The town itself covers parts of sections 32 and 33 in Township 84N and sections 4 and 5 in Township 83N. Originally, the township line would have cut right through Grand Junction, so government officials doubled the size of Junction Township, but after complaints from Washington Township, it was agreed to make Junction the size of 1 and 2/3 townships and Washington 1 and 1/3, so both ended up as over-sized townships.

Hager and Sons donated 20 acres to what was by then known as the Des Moines and Fort Dodge Railway Company, according to Stillman. These 20 acres were the land parcels north of the C&NW tracks on both sides of the north-south DM&FD (M&St.L) tracks. This area includes the above described intersecting connector between the M&StL and C&NW tracks, east of the M&St.L and the similar west intersecting connector on the opposite side of the M&St.L. These parcels would have been the lands just to the north of the area bounded by Eighth Street on the West and 13th Street on the east and located to the north of Main Street and the railroad tracks.

It seems clear that Hager and Sons laid out Hager Street and Main Street and then the section north of the tracks that encompasses Sandoe Street and Railroad Street. The other blocks in the “lost streets” area reflect the hand of Percival and Hatton, as they a named a street after each of them. Division Street actually represents the line that divides Section 4 from Section 33. North Avenue is self explanatory but the roots of Grove, Park, Hill and Scovill Avenues are not known. Grove could have corresponded to a nearby grove of trees and Park could have been named for Dr. C.B. Park, a pioneer Grand Junction businessman, or perhaps plans called for a park to be developed in one of the blocks along those streets, just as a full block was laid out for a city park in South Grand Junction.

This north part of Grand Junction is all in Section 33 of what is often referred to as “North Junction Township” while its western boundary with Section 32 on this early day map is Eighth Street, if extended north from Main Street to where it would meet the town’s northern boundary line. Interestingly, Eighth Street is also the dividing line between West Grand Junction and Central Grand Junction.

Closer inspection finds that the C&NW actually passes through Grand Junction at a slight angle from southwest to northeast, and the lots on the north and south sides of the tracks vary in size accordingly. The lots on the far west side of town south of the tracks are less than half a block in size and they increase in size until the lots on the east side of town in the blocks between Main Street and the railroad are almost full size. Actually, even further inspection shows that the blocks are just cut in two by the railroad, so that the tiny sliver of land shaved off by the railroad in Block 53 on Main between 17th and 18th is laid out on the opposite side of the track. (Essentially it all looks to be just part of the railroad right of way when traveling along Sandoe Street in present day Grand Junction). But to cause just a little more confusion, both Seward Smith in West GJ and Hager and Sons in Central GJ gave these “opposite the tracks” blocks their own block numbers.

As the blocks of Original GJ are larger, the streets—both north-south and east-west—are further spaced apart than the other sections of Grand Junction.

In West GJ, L Street is actually laid out parallel to the railroad on the same angle and the lot sizes between the railroad and the street are of the same size, but M street runs parallel and perpendicular to all the other streets, so the lot sizes between M and L gradually get larger from First Street heading east to Eighth Street. The blocks on the south side of M Street resume the normal size of those on the north side of West GJ along J and K Streets while those on the south side of K are the inverse of the opposite side of the tracks, going from larger to smaller.

HERRONS OF SOUTH GJ—1869, 1875 and 1896

Stephen Herron and James D. Kelley were the “Herron and Kelley” who laid out South Grand Junction. Herron was one from one of Pittsburgh’s oldest families. He became one of Grand Junction’s first citizens, and built the lovely 1 and ½ story grey home with white trim and side porches, a large bay window, and a cupola with windows that graced Elizabeth Street for well over a hundred years. The house was actually built in 1869 and was featured prominently in the 1969 centennial history written by Mabel Nair Brown and published by the Globe-Free Press. It was one of the very first homes built in Grand Junction and was the home of Herron’s granddaughter, Miss Violet Humphrey, until she died in the 1980s. The house was then razed.

Herron married Rebecca Kelley, daughter of James D. Kelley. She is the namesake of Rebecca Street and her father is the namesake of Kelley. This author cannot recollect offhand who Bennett and Elizabeth streets were named after but most likely they are other family members of either the Herron or Kelley families or both. This information is most likely covered in Brown’s history of Grand Junction noted above.

But South Grand Junction contains its own surprises and mystery because Elizabeth Street was not intended to be the southern border of Grand Junction. In fact there are two additional streets south of Elizabeth. These streets—High and Kellogg—are, in essence, also the “lost streets” of South GJ.

Interestingly, a map published in 1896 of Grand Junction shows even two more streets in South Grand Junction. This plat map shows Elizabeth, High and Kellogg Streets, and continuing south, Division Street and Howard Street, forming the southern town boundary, or corporation line.

[To view the 1896 map, go to www.historicmapworks.com and search for Greene County, Iowa.]
Both the 1875 and 1896 maps show the north-south streets extending all the way to the southern border on both sides of the railroad tracks and intersecting with the our “lost streets”—High, Kellogg, Division and Howard (the latter two shown in 1896 only).

The 1896 map is significant because if offers much greater detail than its predecessor map from 20 years earlier. The later map marks each house in town, all the businesses along Main Street and their lots, the public school, the Catholic school (St. Mary’s Academy), five churches (Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian and German Evangelical, which was on the north side of the tracks), and all the railroad infrastructure—depots, water tanks, stock yard and the infamous “roundhouse” which was the discussion point of much Grand Junction railroad lore in later years.

It shows that in the “Lost Streets” area south of present-day Elizabeth Street there are just four homes. One is the above-mentioned Herron House on the east side of Block 37 of South Grand Junction. Another home is also located on the south side of Elizabeth Street in Block 12, which would have been located across from the present day house owned and occupied by Jerry and Janice Kennedy. (The author can remember as a youngster in the 1960s when there was a house and small farmstead at that particular location on the south side of the street with its backyard being open country.)

Clearly, these homes were never “lost” as were the streets south of them but there is a house in this “lost area” located two blocks directly south of City Park which would have been at the northeast corner of 13th Street South and High Street. Most likely this house was reached via a long lane from Elizabeth Street and this particular 1896 maps shows homes only—no outbuildings. Most likely this was a farmstead with other buildings, similar to the farmstead that existed well into the 1960s as noted above on the south side of Elizabeth Street between 14th and 15th Streets.

The fourth house in the “lost streets” area is all the way at the very southwestern corner of South Grand Junction—the corner of Eighth Street South and Howard Street, roughly about the area where the old Miller’s Standard Station and Satellite Motel are located. Interestingly, this area of Grand Junction from 8th Street east to the railroad tracks and then back north up to Elizabeth Street actually survived into modern times, but was many years later replatted as Neel’s Addition with a reconfiguration of streets other than the traditional street grid. Sunset Drive snakes through this area in a u-shape with an L-shaped offshoot just about where the bottom of the “u” starts to form. Newer homes were also built along Elizabeth Street on both sides of the M and St. L about the time after World War II and into the 1950s, when the Neels started building new homes on Sunset Drive.

Comparing the 1896 map to present-day maps, the upper part of Sunset is right about where High Street was located and the lower part of Sunset is in accordance with the location of Kellogg. Interestingly, the bottom of the L-shape is right about where Howard Street was planned, so the officials who laid out Neel’s Addition followed to some degree the dimensions of the original blocks of South Grand Junction.

Howard Street extended west beyond the town limits becomes the current-day Old Highway 30. On the 1896 map, the entire NW one-quarter of Section 9 in South Junction Township just south of Howard Street which formed the town’s southern border (160 acres), plus the adjacent 80 acres south into the SW quarter section (forming a 240-acre parcel) are owned by Rebecca K. Herron, as noted earlier, the wife of early GJ founder Stephen Herron. The Herron land also extends to another 80 acres adjacent to the 240 acres to the east—forming a tidy piece of farmland at 320 acres.

A 1916 map of Grand Junction still shows the four lost streets and the blocks platted there. Yet across this area diagonally is written, “Rebecca K. Herron Estate.” (Ah, of course, the “K” is for Kelley, her maiden name), so clearly the Herrons always owned this segment of land which is adjacent to the 240-acre and 80-acre parcels to the south. Herron and Kelley most likely bought up all the land from that 80 acres in the SW corner of Section 9 and then all the way up to where it abuts the land owned by those who laid out Central GJ at Kelley Street.

So that grand house with the cupola had a greater purpose than just aesthetics. No doubt Mr. Herron liked to head up there to gaze out over his empire to see “how the crops are doing!”

REMNANTS OF ORGINAL GJ

Just as parts of the “lost streets” in South GJ live on in Neel’s Addition and through a few homes built further south of Elizabeth Street near the City Park area, so do a few remnants of Original Grand Junction in the north part of town. But most of Original GJ had pretty much disappeared by 1896. The “lost streets” (and avenues) of the northern part of Central GJ had inasmuch vanished by then too.

Most of the Original GJ by 1896 is a large 56-acre parcel of land owned by Jas. McIntyre. His property ran along a line formed by Second Street, which exists on the 1896 map, and from there all the way to the south to where a handful of homes had been built on the very southern row of blocks platted for Original GJ. (It looks as if these homes would have been built along the side streets as the streets all were to “dead end” at the southern edge of Original GJ as they are on the southern side of the blocks, so they don’t appear to have been built on the northern side as to face out into the proposed Fifth Street.)

The western edge of McIntyre’s land was Third Avenue of Original GJ, a street that continues to exist today (but not as Third Avenue; it is now marked as 11th Street North). But First Street does exist—in it its original iteration. On the 1896 map, both First and Second Streets stretch across the original platted area of 1875, with First Street ending at Sixth Avenue, the most easterly of the Original GJ north-south avenues, while Second Street continues east into Central GJ where it meets 18th Street North (which dead ends there) and continues to the town’s eastern border and then out into the country as a county road. On the 1875 map, this eastern portion was Park Avenue of Central GJ.

On the 1896 map where First Street ends at Sixth Avenue, that one block of Sixth Avenue going south to Second Street is marked as a street connecting the two, but it does not extend north or south.

Third Avenue as it runs from the railroad property at the southern edge of Original GJ to the northern edge is not marked with a street name (as all other streets in town) nor is the above noted one-block section of Sixth Avenue—although both are marked out as streets with access to them.

The rectangle created by Sixth Avenue on the west and Third Avenue on the east and 1st and 2nd Streets (as they are written on the 1896 map, not “First” and “Second,” as they are spelled out on the 1875 map) to the north and south, is a 13-acre plot owned by Hiram Allen with two homes at the extreme southwest corner of this parcel at 1st Street and Sixth Avenue. On the north side of 1st Street are three plots of land. The first shows a 5-acre space with two homes owned by M.D. Gulick. To the east is a 9-acre plot with a home owned by Hannah R. Underwood and to the east of that is a plot of 2.29 acres that is unmarked and with no home.

The only remnants of all the city blocks laid out on the 1875 map for Original GJ are along a line between the railroad tracks (by then the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad) and the un-named Third Avenue, and part of one block (43) that would have been bounded by Fourth and Fifth Avenues on either side, to the north by Fifth Street and to the south by the southern boundary of Original GJ.

The most intact remnants are two lots of Block 4, where 1st Street and Third Avenue intersect; the complete Block 13—just south of that—between 1st Street and 2nd Street; and continuing south, the complete Block 20 south of the intersection of 2nd Street and Third Avenue. Each of these blocks is just one-half the size of the other blocks in Original GJ as they back up against the railroad.

It’s also interesting to note that these block numbers start at “4” instead of “1.” It looks as if there might have been a plan to extend this part of Grand Junction to the western side of the railroad, as when you look at how the blocks are assigned numbers, starting from the top row of blocks, counting backward (from east to west), they are 8-7-6-5-4. But just below 4 to continue the count back to the east is 13 and then 12-11-10-9.

It appears if perhaps Howe and Eastbrook planned to extend their holdings to the opposite sides of the track and had already pre-mapped (not on paper but in theory) the remaining or missing blocks. If each of these six rows of blocks had were extended west of the tracks by 2 ½ or 3 blocks, it might have looked something like, and starting west of the tracks and continuing east, 1-2-3-RRtracks-4-5-6-7-8. Dropping down to the next row and back west, 9-10-11-12-13-RRtracks—14-15-16, and then picking up in the next row with 17-18-19 and then the tracks and picking up again the blocks on the platted map, 20 through 24. This pattern of missing blocks repeats itself downward for the remaining three blocks of Original GJ.

Another odd feature for these blocks and the line of directly adjacent blocks of the most northern part of Central GJ are that these two completely different configurations actually share a block where they meet up. As noted how when allowing for the missing 1-2-3 blocks, the top row of Original GJ actually begins with a half-block of 4 at the railroad tracks, then the next three blocks (5-6-7) are full, and then Block 8 is full, but Original GJ’s Block 8 is only one-half of that block. The other half is allotted to Block 4 of Central GJ, extending from Block 1 that starts in the far northeast corner along the north side of North Avenue and to Block 2 and then Block 3, from east to west.

As the Original and Central blocks were of different sizes, these streets do not align so that on the south side of North Avenue the blocks pick up at 6 and then head back east to 7 and 8. So in this case the extra-elongated Block 4, which spans all of Block 3 opposite 16th Street and one-half of Block 6, looks to have a little east-west alley dividing the north half from the south half, so perhaps they really meant to make Block 4 two small blocks, 4 and 5, and that is why the numbers continue across 16th Street as 6-7-8. The pattern continues as below Block 8 is Block 9, 10 and 11 as they continue west then jump across 16th Street to Block 12 and then down to 13 and over on blocks 14-15-16 between Park Avenue and Hill Avenue, down one block as 17-18-19 and then over and down a little to Block 20, and then skipping a number and starting over again in the next adjacent row between Scovill Avenue and Hatton Avenue as 22-23-24 and continuing with that pattern so 24 drops down to 25 then 26-27 and over to 28 which continues in succession on the next row with 29 and then back to the three blocks between Percival and Division as 30, 31 and 32 at 19th Street.

The blocks of Central GJ pick up in succession with just a little glitch for Block 33. It would have been a little sliver about a quarter-block size between 19th Street and the city line. But it is not there, the city line is right at 19th Street, but the little quarter-block exists just below that to the south as Block 34—another strange little quirk in GJ’s inaugural layout—and that block numbering continues back along Railroad Street to the west to Block 40 at the 20-acre rail yards property and then jumps over all the rail lines to the opposite side of the M. and St. L tracks to pick up with block 41 and then over one to block 42 and down to the next row which picks up as Block 43 and then jumps back over the rail tracks and railroad property to pick up with Block 44 and continuing east to Block 49 between 18th and 19th Streets and then over to another ¼ size block at the city’s edge, Block 50.

But just as Block 33 is missing, so is Block 51 as Block 52 picks up the continuation of Central GJ block numbering south of the tracks all the way west to Block 62, then down to 63 and back over to Block 73, but there is no Block 74 or a 75 which should be just below that, as the blocks pick back up again with 76 being below 73 and then heading all the way back east to Block 86—the last block of Central GJ. Below Block 86 is Block 64 of South Grand Junction, the last—or highest numbered—block of South GJ.

Closer inspection of the 1875 map show the missing blocks, or quarter-size blocks, of 51, 74 and 75 are present, but when the 1896 map was drawn it most likely reflected changes to the corporation line from when Grand Junction was officially (legally) incorporated in 1873, and the map published in 1875 might have been the first map reflecting how the town was initially laid out in 1869 but some modifications could have already been made four years later.

When reviewing the first map of 1875 it seems there is a strange numbering quirk with the South GJ blocks, which run in succession north/south, unlike the east/west configuration of Original and Central GJ. The blocks start at the northeast corner of Bennett and 15th Streets with Block 1, run down to 6 but then jump over to 11. They head back up to 16, over to 17, and then down to 22, but over one row to 27. What gives?

Apparently, Herron and Kelley planned to add the extra or “lost” streets in there all along, so when the 1896 map appears, the additional two streets—Division and Howard—are in place, creating a row of two more blocks, so that 6 continues down to 7 and then 8, over to 9 and back up to 10 and 11 and so on and so forth as South GJ continues its block numbering system east to west (still running north/south by successive numbers) with Block 57 at the town’s southwestern corner at Howard and Eighth Streets and moving up to Block 64, one block south of Central GJ’s Block 86.

West GJ also takes the north/south configuration (or up over and down) but thankfully there are no quirks or gaps in that system, even though they jump back and forth over the railroad tracks.

EYE ON GJ SAYS: Whew! This is a real lesson in following along and “connecting the dots,” isn’t it? I always knew Grand Junction had its particular quirks and eccentricities, and these maps clearly prove it.

Some interesting points to make:

1. When Howe and Eastbrook laid out Grand Junction which was formed by these two key east-west and north-south rail lines, there was considerable talk underway in railroad circles about creating a railroad line that would connect Grand Junction to Sioux City, and Grand Junction becoming a “Second Chicago.” The D.M. and F.D. was designed to keep going north beyond Fort Dodge to Minnesota, and it did. North of Grand Junction, the towns of Paton, Gowrie, Callender and Moorland were established along the rail line in the following years with Dana established about a dozen years later. North of Moorland the line veered to the east and on to Fort Dodge, connecting to points north, including Eagle Grove, Belmond and Mason City; Albert Lea, Minn.; and ultimately, Minneapolis.

For many years this was the only north-south rail line in the county, as the line that came down from Calhoun County and through Churdan, Farlin, Jefferson, Cooper and on to Panora in Guthrie County was not built until the early 1880s. Today, the north-south UP line that terminates in Grand Junction, designated by the Iowa DOT as the “Grand Junction Gateway,” connects to a line that veers to the northwest and connects with all the major grain cooperatives and elevators in much of Northwest Iowa. The grain is shipped down via UP lines to Grand Junction and then east to the Mississippi where is it downloaded onto barges for shipping down the river and to the Gulf of Mexico and overseas ports.

It might be that Howe and Eastbrook, owing to the fact they are identified as railroad officials (“division superintendent” and “roadmaster”) jumped on board first, or with the “Original” Grand Junction plat, with the idea that this rail line to the northwest would most likely branch off to the north of the existing junction and thus, they laid out their part of GJ with a street grid and lot sizes that perhaps would accommodate business and/or commercial enterprises, with flexibility for more railroad shops and/or residences.

2. Much of early Grand Junction history makes note of getting those railroad shops from the D.M. and F.D., but the dates are never noted. Jack Watts wrote a wonderful historical summation of Grand Junction in 1954 for the Greene County Centennial which was republished in 1985. He makes note that Hager and Sons donated the 20 acres for the “Des Moines, Keokuk and Fort Dodge Railroad Company to locate their shops here, so in 1874 the shops were moved here from Keokuk to Grand Junction.” This must be about the time the Keokuk was dropped and the line became just the D.M. and F.D.

3. A nice plat map of Grand Junction from 1917 has the various parts (Original, South, Central and West) distinguished by various colors so it easy to spot the remaining blocks of Original GJ and those of Central GJ that were platted north of Percival Street in the “lost streets” area. The only blocks that survived there were parts of 25, 26, 27 and 28 all on the north side of Percival and a part of Block 25 that would have been just north of Block 24. There is an un-named very short street than runs between the partial blocks of 24 and 25, which is the shadow of Hatton Avenue.

It’s interesting to note also that in the 1875 maps and 1896 maps, Percival is actually aligned with the streets to the north, because it is marked on both maps as Percival Avenue. It looks as if Division Street was the division between Hager’s version of Central GJ and that of Percival and Hatton. In fact, Division Street is so oddly formed (but accordingly placed when you consider it divides Section 4 from 33) that the block formed between Division and Railroad is ¾ size the other blocks of Central GJ. This street might also have been put in place to help with land ownership in legal descriptions, as a full block there would have spilled partly into Section 32 and partly into 33.

In 1917, the town map shows Percival now named as Percival Street.

4. These areas in the north part of town weren’t filled in, but the town did spread its wings elsewhere. The 1917 map shows that just east beyond the original town limits between Percival and Division was a new subdivision by Percival and Hatton. To the west of the M. and St. L. tracks beyond Original GJ was Joy’s Addition and to the east of the town’s border at 19th Street south of the C & NW tracks were Watts First and Second Additions and Eastland Addition.

The Eye Guy was very pleased to find these maps. He started the “Lost Streets” historical summary and comment when finding the 1875 map of Grand Junction in the summer of 2009. He has been working at compiling “Lost Streets” since then and is happy to share it with readers of Eye on Grand Junction.

Finding the story behind Original Town of Grand Junction is very rewarding because the Eye Guy’s grandparents moved to Block 43 in 1920, and he has always been curious as to the background of these strange parcels with all that open space above them. Considering that the Robinsons have deep ancestry in New England and many of Grand Junctions earliest residents and businessmen were also from New England, he surmised that perhaps this large open space of land on the 1896 and later maps was designed in some sort of large, open space “town green” concept; especially since there were homes at the bottom of this squared-off space, some on the side, and others on the top part.

It was with relief and excitement when he found the 1875 map with the intriguing layout of numbered avenues and streets, and he was even more fascinated when discovering all the “Lost Streets” of Original Grand Junction, southernmost South Grand Junction, and the furthest northern reaches of Central Grand Junction and, in particular, the named avenues that seemed to have vanished from the town’s history.

Alas, the lost streets are found!

Hawks Face Powerhouse Stanton Tonight

EG TRAVELS TO SW IOWA FOR PLAYOFF OPENER

East Greene heads to Stanton tonight to face the Stanton Vikings in an 8-Man State Playoff game. Kickoff is at 7 p.m. Stanton is an 8-Man football powerhouse, qualifying for the playoffs for the fifth straight year.

The two teams head into the game with identical 7-2 records with Stanton qualifying as the district runner-up in District 8 at 6-1 and EG as the No. 3 team in District 7 at 5-2.

The Vikings were 8-Man state champs in 2007. Stanton also qualified in 2002 and 2003 in 8-Man, and the Vikings made it to the playoffs in 1984, 1998 and 1998 in Class A. This is Stanton’s 10th football playoff appearance. The Vikings have a total combined won-loss record in the playoffs of 11-8.

This is East Greene’s first 8-Man playoff berth and the fourth in school history, as the Hawks went to the playoffs in Class A three years in a row, 1987-89, and compiled a 3-3 postseason record.

Stanton, state-ranked earlier this season until falling to District 8 champion Fremont-Mills (Tabor), is predominantly a running team, lead by Greg Focht, who has rushed for 769 yards in 123 carries and scored 11 touchdowns, and Tyler Havrum, who has a carried 131 time for 724 yards and 15 touchdowns. Havrum handles the QB duties for the Vikings and he has thrown for 464 yards, good on 49 of 108 passing attempts and four touchdowns. But Havrum has been intercepted five teams. Jeff Marshall has also seen quarterbacking duties with 5 touchdowns and no interceptions with a completion rate of 18 of 22 for 230 yards.

Stanton has passed for a total of 716 yards this year but its rushing yardage is a whopping 2,588.

East Greene counters, however, with the sixth-best defense in the state in 8-Man, giving up an average of just 14.3 points a game while scoring 41.7 (26th best). Stanton has scored at 48.7 points-per-game clip, 12th best in the state, while giving up 24.11 (20th best). [Add those up and 12th and 20th equals 32 divided by two equals 16, and 6th and 26th also equals 32 and divided by two equals 16, so these teams come out with exactly the same level of offense/defense when ranked among all the state’s 8-Man teams.]

Team stats are very close as EG has rushed for 2,293 yards and passed for 856.

The Hawks’ offense is led by running back Schyler Bardole, who ranks among the top all-time career leaders in touchdowns, total points scored, and rushing yards in Iowa 8-Man football. This season Bardole has scored 29 touchdowns and 7 two-point conversions (188 points) on 190 carries for a whopping 1,652 total yards.

He is also an anchor of the EG defense along with linebackers Zach Dearborn and Tory Beger. The Hawk’s have been known for their solid defense the last several seasons. Last year, Tom Beger, who played the same positions that younger brother Tory, a sophomore, plays this year (QB and linebacker on defense), was named second team all-state as a linebacker in his senior season. Tom is now playing defensive linebacker for the Simpson College JV team. Kyle DeMoss of rural Rippey, a graduate of Ogden High School, plays for the Simpson varsity this year as a senior running back and kickoff specialist.

The Begers are sons of EG co-coach and athletic director Tony Beger. Bardole is the son of co-coach Tim Bardole, an EG graduate who lettered in football in Iowa State after his days as a Hawk gridder a generation ago. Another son, Gabe, is a freshman on this year’s team.

The Begers are an “all EG” family as Traci Beger, wife of Tony and mom to the “Beger Boys,” is lead elementary teacher at the EG elementary school in Rippey and the high school girls basketball and softball coach. And there is still a third “Beger Boy” to wear the green and white, as Tyler will be in high school in a few years and has played in the youth county league in football.

100-POINT TURNAROUND: This football season has marked many accomplishment for the EG gridders, among them the first winning season since 2001, best season record since the 1980s, first 8-Man Playoff appearance, and first playoff berth in 21 years. Most indicative of the Hawks’ success is a 100-point turnaround against a very solid football program like Ar-We-Va.

EG shut down the Rockets 50-0 last Friday night in Westside to put a dramatic flourish on the last game of the regular season. Just three years ago—in 2007—the Hawks took a 57-7 drubbing from Ar-We-Va. The gap closed the next year to 39-20 in 2008 and last year, EG opened the season in Westside, losing to the Rockets in a tough, defense-oriented battle, 15-2. That’s an amazing 100-point turnaround in just three seasons.

The Hawks rolled up 388 total yards and 19 first down in last week’s game while holding the Rockets to just 48 yards rushing in 13 attempts and 8 of 29 passes for 88 yards—and no first downs for the entire game.

Bardole led the charge with 192 yards and five touchdowns. Beger had a great night at quarterback with 8 of 16 passing for 152 yards and two touchdowns. He threw one interception on the night but the Hawks had the overall advantage as they intercepted five Ar-We-Va passes and recovered a fumble.

Beger’s passes were spread among four receivers: Nic Nicoliasen, 3 catches for 68 yards; Reed Ostrander, 3 for 45 yards with two of them for touchdowns; Cooklin, one for 25; and Aaron Lyons, one for 14.

Beger and Bardole were sharp on the defensive side, leading the Hawks with 10 and 7 tackles respectively. Cooklin snared two of the interceptions and returned them for 56 yards total while Lyons, Beger and Rob Ritchie each picked off a pass.

Stanton also heads into tonight’s game after a big, lopsided win last week as the Vikings drubbed winless South Page (College Springs), 82-14.

STANTON’S DEEP TRADITION: This is the third year that East Greene’s district (7) and Stanton’s district (8) have been matched up in the playoffs with each of the top four finishers in the two districts facing off in the first and second rounds, and then the state quarterfinals. Two years ago, Coon Rapids-Bayard, the runner-up to CAM (Anita) in District 7, and Stanton, undefeated champion of District 8, met in the quarterfinals with Stanton winning 42-17 and advancing on to the semifinal round where the Vikings lost to Armstrong-Ringsted, which fell in the title game to Lenox. Last year, Adair-Casey, D7 co-champ and top seed, moved through the first two rounds and, again, the team advancing on the opposite side of the quarterfinal bracket was Stanton, but this time the D7 team had the upper hand as AC disposed of the undefeated Vikings, 42-26. AC met the same fate as Stanton had the year before, falling to Armstrong-Ringsted, 64-22, with AR going on to claim the state title.

Armstrong-Ringsted was the team Stanton defeated in the 2007 championship, 32-24. The Mustangs have now been in the last three straight championship games, winning the crown in 2008 and finishing as runner-up in 2007 and 2009. AR (9-0) has qualified again as the No. 1 seed from District 2 and the winner of the D7-8 quarterfinal matchup will again face the winner from D1-2 in the semifinal round in the UNI Dome in Cedar Falls. The Mustangs head into the playoffs as the No. 2 ranked team in 8-Man football by the Des Moines Register and the Associated Press, just behind Lenox, the team it beat last year for the title.

Lenox (9-0), District 3 champion, handed Stanton (7-2) one of its two losses this year in a non-district home opener for both teams, beating the Vikings 44-8 in Stanton. That loss snapped Stanton’s win streak of 30-regular season games, the longest in the state, and when Stanton lost to Fremont-Mills (Tabor) a few weeks later, that snapped a 26-game winning streak in district games.

Since 2001, its last year in Class A, Stanton has finished first or second in its district except for one year, 2004, when the team went 2-2 and 5-3 and finished third of five teams in District 5.

THE COFFEE POT TOWN: Stanton is a stand-alone town and school district in Montgomery County, located between Red Oak, the county seat, and Villisca. Total K-12 enrollment is 267 compared with EG’s 308. Stanton has a vibrant Scandinavian history and one of its most famous daughters is longtime character actress Virginia Christine, who gained fame as Mrs. Olsen of the successful television advertising campaign for Folgers Coffee. She also had significant roles in such films as “Guess Whose Coming to Dinner?” (1967), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), and High Noon (1952).

Ms. Christine remained loyal to her hometown and despite her busy life as an actress in Hollywood she visited Stanton often. And in her honor and the height of the success of during her 21 years as Folger’s Mrs. Olsen, the town rebuilt its water tower to look like a coffee pot. And Stanton topped that when it built a new water tower in 2000 and this one was built to look like a coffee cup. Stanton has also kept the first water tower. Both are designed with a Swedish motif, in further expressing the town’s deep Swedish heritage.

Stanton has a modern school facility on the north edge of town and the football field is just adjacent to the school at a lower elevation. The home side bleachers are actually built into the side of the hill, or rise, between the school and the field with the visiting team’s bleachers on the opposite side of the field. A new elementary wing was added to the school in 1994 and the facility now serves grades K-12.

Stanton has retained its older school building from the early 20th century and turned that into the Swedish Heritage and Cultural Center. It is located in the heart of the community not far from another landmark in the town center, the high-steepled Mamrelund Lutheran Church.

Stanton’s population is 714 (U.S. Census, 2000) and it is located on U.S. Highway 34 between Red Oak (pop. 6,197) and Villisca (1,344), the two other main communities of Montgomery County.

However, these communities are coping with declining populations and smaller school enrollments, as are most small towns of rural Iowa. As of 2009, the projected census for Stanton was 680, a 4.8% drop, while Villisca has decreased 8.8% to 1,226 and Red Oak is now down to 5,626, a 9.2% drop. Comparatively, towns in Greene County are seeing declines of anywhere from 10 to 14% but there are more communities in Greene County: Jefferson, Grand Junction, Rippey, Dana, Paton, Churdan, Scranton, Cooper and Farlin, all but two of them incorporated. Montgomery County has just 5 incorporated towns and one unincorporated: Red Oak, Villisca, Stanton, Elliott, Grant and Goburg (unincorporated). Overall, however, Montgomery County has a slightly larger population, 10,796 based on 2009 U.S. Census estimates, than Greene County, 9,251, due to the size difference between the two county seat towns, Red Oak and Jefferson. Montgomery’s population has decreased 8.3% since 2000 while Greene’s population has dropped 10.8%.

Stanton’s BEDS enrollment figures for high school sports classification is 71 compared to East Greene’s 84. Villisca, which is also an 8-Man school in District 8, is 94.

Stanton has long competed among the 10-member Corner Conference which was comprised of 10 school districts in the four southwestern-most counties of Iowa: Mills, Fremont, Page and Montgomery. Along with Stanton, the longstanding Corner Conference schools were Nishna Valley (Hastings), Malvern, Fremont-Mills (Tabor), Sidney, Hamburg, Farragut, Essex, South Page (College Springs) and Villisca.

The alignment has changed in the just last few years as Nishna Valley and Malvern embarked on a sports sharing and now whole-grade sharing arrangement and have renamed themselves East Mills as a combined entity with elementary students attending a school in each of the two main towns, Malvern and Hastings. The high school is in Malvern and the middle school in Hastings. When East Mills was formed, that dropped the Corner down to 9 teams but then Clarinda Academy, a private school formed a few years ago in Clarinda, the county seat of Page County, was added to make the league 10 teams again.

This past year, Hamburg and Farragut joined forces to share sports and now compete as Nishnabotna, taking up the slack since Nishna Valley is just the name of a school district and elementary school in Hastings (for the time being). Nishnabotna got out of the blocks in a good way as the baseball team qualified for the state tournament last summer, the first state baseball appearance for either school.

Nishnabotna finished fourth (4-3, 6-3) in District 8 and will travel to Glidden-Ralston tonight to face the Wildcats, the D7 champions and the seventh-ranked team in the state. Nishnabotna drubbed Essex (1-7, 1-9) in its district game on Friday, 92-6. East Mills heads to Coon Rapids-Bayard to take on the Crusaders, the No. 2 team from D7. Fremont-Mills, ranked sixth in the state, will host Boyer Valley (Dunlap), the fourth-seeded team from D7. F-M won the D8 crown Friday night in Tabor with a big 56-20 win over EM.

The Corner Conference is now reduced to 9 teams and it looks as if more sharing is on the horizon. It does not appear that Stanton or Villisca have approached any type of teacher or classroom sharing with either other or neighboring districts like Red Oak and Corning (just east of Villisca and the county seat of Adams County) nor in sports in the past few years. But now discussions are underway in earnest. Villisca has agreed to discuss pursuing whole grade sharing with Corning while Stanton is looking at several neighboring districts (one of them was Villisca) but it is most likely it would align with Red Oak, which is only 8 miles away.

Hawks Defuse AWV Rockets, 50-0

IT’S ON TO STATE (AND STANTON)!

East Greene shut down Ar-We-Va 50-0 tonight in Westside to put an exclamation point on an amazing 2010 football season.

But the Hawks are not done yet. The 50-0 blitzing of Ar-We-Va is just icing on the cake of a season that saw the Hawks clinch a playoff berth several weeks ago. By finishing third in Division 7 of 8-Man football, the Hawks will get the No. 3 seed and face off on Wednesday against the No. 2 seed from Division 8—the Stanton Vikings. Game time is 7 p.m. in Stanton.

Friday, Oct. 22 Scores:

East Greene 50, Ar-We-Va 0

Glidden-Ralston 32, Coon Rapids-Bayard 27

Boyer Valley 53, Walnut 12

Woodbine 66, Charter Oak-Ute 21

Final Division 7 Standings:

Glidden-Ralston 7-0, 8-1

Coon Rapids-Bayard 6-1, 7-2            

East Greene 5-2, 7-2  

Boyer Valley 4-3, 6-3

Woodbine 3-4, 3-5     

Ar-We-Va 2-5, 3-6     

Walnut 1-6, 1-8

Charter Oak-Ute 0-7, 0-9

Hawks Head to Ar-We-Va

LOOKING FOR FIRST WIN EVER AGAINST ROCKETS

Three points and three seconds. It could not have much closer, unless maybe it had been 1 point and 1 second.

Either way, East Greene suffered a heartbreaking loss to longtime rival Coon Rapids-Bayard in Coon Rapids Friday night as the Crusaders scored with just 3 seconds left to beat EG 29-26 and remain unbeaten in Division 7 at 6-0 while the Hawks fell to 4-2.

Of course, the loss was tempered somewhat by EG having clinched a spot in the 8-Man Football playoffs. It’s the Hawks’ first-ever playoff appearance in 8-Man football and the first since qualifying 21 years ago after three straight appearances (1987-89) in Class A (11 man).





East Greene came up short, 15-2, in last year's game at Ar-We-Va,

but running back Schyler Bardole, one of the all-time leading career

rushers in 8-man football in Iowa, will look to lead the Hawks to a

win tonight in Westside. (Photo from AWVCSD.com)                  

   East Greene heads to Ar-We-Va (2-4, 3-5) tonight to close out the regular season. The Hawks have qualified for the State Playoffs as the No. 3 team in Division 7 and will be waiting for the results to come in tonight from games in Division 8 as to determine that division’s No. 2 seed. That school—which could be Fremont-Mills (Tabor), East Mills (Malvern) or Stanton—will host the Hawks on Wednesday with kickoff slated for 7 p.m.

Coon Rapids-Bayard takes a perfect D7 mark (7-1 overall) to Glidden where it will face Glidden-Ralston (also 6-0 in D7 and 7-1 overall) to determine the Division winner and top-seed in the playoffs. First-place bragging rights will be determined in the “Lincoln League” (D7) right on the Original Lincoln Highway (today’s U.S. 30), where the GR gridders play, although both teams will host playoff games next week against the No. 3 and 4 seeds from Division 8.

Boyer Valley has already nailed down the No. 4 spot in Division 7 and will head to the top-seeded team in D8 on Wednesday.

CRB 29, EG 26: East Greene has had a fierce rivalry in boys and girls sports with CRB over the years, and this game was more of the same. It was a thriller from start to finish. According to the website of KCIM radio station in Carroll, CRB QB Michael Schwenk left the game in the first half with an injury, but returned to action in the second half. His top receiver, Jacob Esdohr, filled in at QB during his absence.

East Greene went into halftime with a 1 point lead but CRB went back in front after the break. But the Hawks kept battling and it looked like victory was in hand when they scored with just 35 seconds left in the game to go up 26-21. A two-point conversion would put them up by eight points forcing CRB to run the field in just 35 seconds, score a TD and then either kick to tie or add a two-point conversion to win.

But EG’s two-point conversion attempt was stopped and then the unthinkable happened. The Crusaders drove the length of the field in just 5 plays and scored with just 3 seconds on the clock. They added insult to injury by succeeding on their two-point conversion.

The Hawks only had time left to get the kickoff after the touchdown and return the ball all the way to payday, but that did not happen, so CRB got the win and the chance to host a playoff spot at home, in addition to setting up a somewhat expected CRB-GR finale for the Division title.

EG did everything it could to keep itself in the driver’s seat for a possible three-way tie atop D7. The Hawks certainly had the firepower, amassing a whopping 465 total yards to CRB’s 298. EG was clearly moving the ball as it had 27 first downs compared to just 12 for the Crusaders.

But four fumbles and an interception by QB Tory Beger really did the Hawks in. This is a problem that plagued the Hawks last year throughout the season but not as much this year, so that level of miscues in a big game was troubling.

The Hawk defense again rose to the occasion, limiting Schwenk to 13 completions in 27 attempts for 210 yards and intercepting him twice. Schwenk is one of the state’s all-time leading quarterbacks, and these numbers were way below his season average. EG’s Schyler Bardole showed why he is one of the state’s all-time best running backs as he racked up 268 yards on 48 carries and scored three touchdowns and a two-point conversion.

QB Tory Beger went 5-9 for 73 yards and the interception. Beger also carried the ball 18 times for 53 yards and a TD. Tyler Cooklin rounded out the offense with 12 carries for 68 yards.

Bardole, Beger and Cooklin all had good efforts on defense. Bardole led the Hawks with 9 tackles and he intercepted a pass and ran it back 12 yards. Cooklin intercepted a pass and ran it back 22 yards while Beger recovered a fumble.
 

HAWKS vs. AR-WE-VA: The Hawks will need to bounce back for a road trip to Westside to take on a tough Ar-We-Va Rockets squad. Ar-We-Va has a strong tradition, having qualified for the playoffs four straight years in 8-Man (2006-2009) and three times in the 1990s in Class A.




Nic Nicoliasen heads down the sideline toward the goal line after hauling in a pass deep in Rocket territory in last year's game at Ar-We-Va. (Photo from AWVCSD.com)

 

Ar-We-Va was eliminated from a playoff spot a few weeks ago, but will be playing for pride and upholding its advantage over EG, as the Hawks have never beaten the Rockets since Ar-We-Va moved to 8-Man in 2002, a year after EG made the switch.

Ar-We-Va gave D7 co-leader Glidden-Ralston a very tough game on Oct. 8, losing 24-13, and the Rockets fell to Boyer Valley by just one, 28-27, earlier in the season. The Rockets are 2-4 in Division 7 and 3-5 overall.

Most of the attention in D7 will be on the game in Glidden however, as the Wildcats are ranked 8th in state by the D.M. Register and the Crusaders are among a handful of teams right behind the top 10.

UPDATING THE RECORD BOOKS: Bardole ranks No. 4 for all-time career touchdowns in 8-man football, and the three scored at CRB moved him to 88, just one TD behind Shane Nicholson who played at Melcher-Dallas from 2005 to 2008. One touchdown against Ar-We-Va will move him into a tie and two or more touchdowns will move him past Nicholson into the No. 3 slot. Bardole is fifth in most points scored in a career (574) and four more points will move him to No. 4 past Jared Bruce (577) who played at Aurelia from 2007 to 2009. Nine points scored will move him into the No. 3 slot, now filled by Nicholson at 582. In career rushing yards, Bardole is fourth at 4,296 and closing in on Jeff Struecker (4,377) who played for Sentral (Fenton) from 2000 to 2003. Bardole has a been a starter in the backfield since his freshman season in 2007.

District 7 Standings
Coon Rapids-Bayard 6-0, 7-1
Glidden-Ralston 6-0, 7-1
East Greene 4-2, 6-2
Boyer Valley 3-3, 5-3
Woodbine 2-4, 3-5
Ar-We-Va 2-4, 3-5
Walnut 1-5, 1-7
Charter Oak-Ute 0-6, 0-8

Oct. 22 Results:
Ar-We-Va (Westside) 55, Walnut 22
Boyer Valley (Dunlap) 54, Woodbine 13
Glidden-Ralston 92, Charter Oak-Ute 6
Coon Rapids-Bayard 29, East Greene 26

Oct. 29 Games:
Coon Rapids-Bayard at Glidden-Ralston
East Greene at Ar-We-Va
Walnut at Boyer Valley
Woodbine at Charter Oak-Ute

EYE ON GJ SAYS: If the Hawks need any incentive for tonight’s game, they need only think back to July and the susbstate baseball championship game in Denison where Ar-We-Va edged the Hawks 3-2 and advanced to the state tourney at Principal Park in Des Moines. Most of the Hawk starters—Beger, Cooklin, Aaron Lyons, Zach Dearborn and Wes Onken with the exception of Bardole, a non-baseball player—played key roles on that Hawk baseball squad.

Or some of the pummelings taken in years past at the hands of the Rockets should get them psyched up. In 2007, when Bardole was a freshman, the Hawks were whipped 57-7 as Ar-We-Va rolled up an 8-1 record and 4-1 in Division 2, losing only to GR. Both teams qualified for the playoffs that year and posted first-round wins. In a quarterfinal rematch, Ar-We-Va drubbed the Wildcats 44-6 to get revenge for the regular season loss and advance to the semifinal round, where they lost a heartbreaker to Armstrong-Ringsted, 45-42, in overtime. In 2008, EG closed the gap, falling to AWV 39-20 in a non-division game in Grand Junction. Last year, the Hawks traveled to Westside in the season opener, but fell in a tough, hard-fought game, 15-2. The game goes back to Westside again this year as both teams are back in the same division again, this time it’s D7 whereas in the mid 00s it was D2. Next year the Hawks will host.

EG @ ?? ON WED.: Teams vying for the top spots in Division 8 are first-place Fremont-Mills (6-0, 8-0), along with East Mills (5-1, 6-2) and Stanton (5-1). Fremont-Mills hosts East Mills tonight in Tabor while Stanton is at home against winless South Page (College Springs). The most likely scenario tonight is that Fremont-Mills prevails over East Mills, claiming the D8 crown at 7-0 and dropping East Mills to 5-2 and third place in the district with Stanton easily dispensing of South Page to grab the No. 2 spot at 6-1. EG would then travel to Stanton next Wednesday in a first-round playoff game.

If, however, East Mills should beat FM, ranked seventh in the state in 8-man, one spot ahead of Glidden-Ralston, and Stanton should prevail, then all three of those teams would end up deadlocked for first at 6-1 and they would have to go the points differential tie-breaker. FM has an advantage there, however, as they have won all their games by 13 points or more, so a close loss would not drop their points down too much. Stanton’s point difference is presently at 8.17 but most likely they will beat South Page by more than 13, so their differential would increase slightly while a win by EM, which stands at 9.17 with the tie-breaker, would also increase, based on how many points it would score in the win against the points it would give up, so a 2-, 3- or 6-point win might not really shift its differential by much, so it really all comes down to the points, and that might leave FM in first, and allow EM to keep it advantage over Stanton.

But seriously, EG fans might want to get their maps out and start planning their route down to Stanton, which is in southeastern Montgomery County, six miles from Red Oak, the county seat.

Interestingly, no matter which D8 team EG takes on, should the Hawks win, they would then meet the winner of the first-round game matching the D7 winner (CRB or GR) with the D8 No. 4 team, which is Nishnabotna, presently at 3-3 in fourth place with a game tonight at Essex (1-5, 1-7). Villisca and Sidney are both 2-4 and they face off in Sidney, but even if Nishna were to lose tonight and drop to a tie with the Villisca-Sidney winner, Nishna would get the No. 4 spot in the head-to-head tiebreaker, as it has beaten both teams this season.

If EG does get by its D8 opponent in round one, it would meet the winner of the game between the No. 1 seed in D7 (GR or CRB) and the No. 4 seed in D8 (Nishnabotna). The way the playoffs are constructed in the second round, if a team that travels in the first round meets a team that had the home field in that round, then the traveling team gets to host in round two—that would be East Greene, versus [most likley] GR or CRB

Clearly, EG matches up well with CRB as noted in the 29-26 squeaker from last week but the incentive would be there to get one back from GR, too, as the Hawks are a much better team than the squad that ended up at the wrong end of this year’s Homecoming game with the Wildcats, 40-8.

CRB Ends Hawkettes’ Season

LOSE IN REGIONAL FIRST ROUND, FINISH 9-15

Coon Rapids-Bayard swept East Greene in three games, 25-19, 25-16, 25-12, in first round regional volleyball action at Coon Rapids on Wednesday. CRB (23-6) advances to the quarterfinal round in Madrid where they will face the Madrid Tigers, winners over Earlham.

EG ends the 2010 season with a 9-15 record. The Hawkettes finished in eighth place in the Rolling Hills Conference with a 3-6 mark.

Only AC and ICA were winners among the 10 conference teams in regional action on Wednesday. Adair-Casey sidelined conference foe Walnut to advance to a Region 3 quarterfinal match against Riverside (Oakland) next Tuesday in Adair. Iowa Christian beat Southeast Warren Liberty Center and will take on Martensdale-St. Mary’s on Tuesday at Melcher in Region 5. Regional quarterfinal winners will advance to the semifinal round on Friday, Oct. 29.

Paton-Churdan lost on Wednesday night to Southeast Webster in Burnside in Region 2, while Jefferson-Scranton got by Ogden in Class 2A first round regional action in Ogden. The Rams (16-21) move on to face Kuemper (21-10) next Tuesday in Carroll.

In the conference tournament at Elk Horn last week, EG took on Paton-Churdan in an opening round match, beating the Rockettes to advance to a second round match against Iowa Christian Academy, the No. 2 seed in the league tourney. ICA, ranked 12th in the state in Class 1A, beat the Hawkettes 21-9, 21-18 to advance to the semifinals. The Blazers won their semifinal match but fell to Adair-Casey in the championship. In a consolation round game, EG was edged out by CAM (Anita) 21-18, 18-21, 15-11.

FINAL CONFERENCE STANDINGS
(Conf. Record, Season Record Through 10-20-10)
Iowa Christian 9-0 18-8
Adair-Casey 8-1 23-6
Ankeny Christian 5-4 12-12
CAM (Anita) 5-4 9-15
Orient-Macksburg 5-4 8-17
Glidden-Ralston 4-5 10-15
Elk Horn Kimballton/Exira 4-5 6-17
East Greene 3-6 9-15
Paton-Churdan 1-8 2-30
Walnut 1-8 8-23

EYE GJ SAYS: It was an up and down season for the Hawkettes this year. After a strong start with a season-opening win over Southeast Webster-Grand and a good showing at an invitational tournament in Coon Rapids—and starting out 2-1 in the Rolling Hills—in looked like the Hawkettes could compete for an upper division finish in their first year in the RH. But key losses to teams like Orient-Macksburg and Ankeny Christian resulted in EG falling into the lower half of the conference which was dominated all season by Adair-Casey and Iowa Christian. EG did put some together some solid performances during the season, beating former league rival Guthrie Center, last year’s West Central Conference champion, and they pulled out some close matches which showed they could play well under pressure. After EG beat Guthrie, the Tigerettes turned around and upset Adair-Casey, but both EG and GC suffered from inconsistency throughout the season.

The West Central Conference fared much better in opening round regional action than the RH with the 9 teams posting a 6-3 mark. And two of those three losses were to other WC teams. Guthrie got by CAM (Anita), a Rolling Hills team, and will next face East Union (27-7). Madrid beat league foe Earlham to also advance in Class 1A. Woodward-Granger and Des Moines Christian, which has been ranked for part of the season, advanced in 2A as did Van Meter, which beat fellow conference member West Central Valley. The only 2A team to lose to a non-league for was Panorama.

The West Central will became a 10-team league again next year, as Ogden will leave the Heart of Iowa-Small after this season and fill the vacancy created by East Greene’s move to the Rolling Hills.

Five East Greene seniors played their last match in the regional loss: Katlynn Gannon, Molly Neese, Tia Lowe, Brittanee Heaning and Jasmine Kinney. Several younger players made significant contributions to the team this year, especially Chelsi Wilkens, who had a big impact on the front line as just a freshman starter, leading the team in blocks. Wilkens and sophomore reserves Tori Lowe and Brittany Gunn will serve as the nucleus for the varsity next year.

There were no juniors on the squad, so Coach Carly Tiffany will be fielding a young team next year in a somewhat of a rebuilding phase. EG also has a strong group of 8th graders moving up to the high school level for next year’s team—including Tiffany’s daughter Bailey Godwin— who could step in and play key roles. The team that takes the court next fall will essentially be in place for back-to-back seasons, so this year’s sophomores will be called upon to show leadership for the younger team members.