Marking Union County’s bygone towns

People often drive past historical markers in seemingly the middle of nowhere, wondering what may have occurred in such a location. Maybe they even turn the car around to read the information, learning of a battle once fought there or about a historical figure who was born in that spot.

While these little brown signs can be found around the U.S., Union County just got a batch of their own, focused on the towns of yesteryear.

Steve Francis, a member of the Union County Historical Society, said the idea for these signs first came from the Union County Board of Supervisors.

“Dennis Brown came up with the idea and Rick Friday (and Dennis Hopkins) joined in with him and thought it was a good idea,” Francis said. “They encouraged us to do this. It actually started two years ago, the research and where things were located around the county.”

Francis has spent hours upon hours researching each defunct town, looking for both interesting facts and the exact coordinates of each location.

“I was at the courthouse looking at deed records and did find some maps with town plats,” Francis said. “David Mott [in the Annals of Iowa] wrote a big article about all the former or abandoned towns and post offices clear throughout the state.”

Francis would reference and cross-reference each detail before confidently stating where a town once resided. On one trip he took to scout out a location for the historic sign, Francis even found physical remnants of the town.

“There was a town called Olio, or a post office, I guess it was. The maps show it as being on the road from Hopeville to Afton, but the maps were not detailed enough to show what section that the road would be located in,” Francis said. “I went there and was talking with the farmer about putting up a sign there and he says, ‘right there where they located that on that map, there’s a limestone foundation sitting there and we always wondered what that was.’”

The foundation was likely the post office for Olio, the city that Francis was looking for.

To get the most bang for their buck, Francis suggests interested parties head to see a trio of signs for Talmage, Petersville and Afton Junction on Talmage Road off of Highway 34.

“Talmage, Petersville and Afton Junction were all up about a half mile from each other, but Petersville is out in the middle of a field and Afton Junction, I mean there’s no roads to either one of those,” Francis said. “Talmage is the closest one to Highway 34 there, so I kind of just put all three of those signs up together.”

Overall, Francis has created 28 historical signs showing almost-forgetten towns of Union County, with 23 currently posted. The final five signs will go up once his research is complete. Once all the signs are up, Francis will post a map will all the signs’ locations on the Union County Historical Village website.

“As I put these signs up, I’ve been dropping a pin on the Google Maps, so I don’t have it made yet,” Francis said. “I do have a page dedicated there that I will put that map up and the street address if somebody wants to visit the various sites or maybe take a Sunday afternoon tour of the county.”

More information on each town and the signs can be found at uchistoricalvillage.com. The historical village will open for the summer May 26.