Off the Map: ‘Christmas City’ rings in the season

WYOMING - For 75 years, Wyoming has been known as Iowa's 'Christmas City.”

Residents of this small community in Jones County have been stringing lights above the town since 1939. Jim Eichorn has been at the helm since 1979.

'It's been pretty much the same since I was a kid,” Eichorn said of the lights. Eichorn said a bunch of guys always shows up to help put the lights up around Thanksgiving, and the Lions Club is the sponsoring organization.

It takes the volunteers about three hours to put the lights up because a lot of the wiring involved on Main Street is permanent, Eichorn said.

Twenty-three years ago, the Wyoming Area Betterment Corp. decided to put together a Christmas City festival to go along with the light display.

'There was pretty good weather the first few years, but the last few years there has been ice and snow and it's been close to zero,” Eichorn said.

Joyce Fishwild, secretary of the Wyoming Area Betterment Corp., agreed that the festival is at the mercy of the weather.

'The first year we had it, it was really nice and just starting to snow. It was just like a fairyland, and people just really came out,” Fishwild said. Fishwild said the celebration always takes place the first Sunday in December.

Last night, the temperature was 34 degrees, and a crisp wind blew as the festival got underway. A steady stream of people walked up and down Main Street under a rainbow-colored canopy of lights.

Kids were able to meet Santa at the public library, and other events included a soup supper, live Nativity and horse-drawn wagon rides.

This was the first year Richard McAtee of Wyoming was taking part in the festival with his '10- or 11-year-old” 41-inch horses, Sugar and Spice. McAtee said he bought the horses for a corn picking contest in the Amanas, but this year he was invited to bring them to the festival.

Lavern Meyer of Anamosa was driving a regular-sized horse and wagon team up and down Main Street, as Christmas carols echoed over the loudspeaker. Children - and some adults - were invited to say 'ho ho ho” into the microphone in exchange for a package of Hostess Ho-Hos.

Organizations in town also decorated a number of trees that were on display in Calkins Barn. One, a squat tree covered in 'bad bulbs,” was jokingly dedicated to Eichorn.

Eichorn said during the year, the town's Christmas lights are stored in the Citizens State Bank building.

'The second floor is one big room,” he said. 'We lay everything on the floor up there, and nobody bothers them all year long.”

Eichorn said he figures there are about 18,760 feet of wire involved in the light display.

The lights are turned on for the first time the night of Thanksgiving. They usually are turned on each day around 5 p.m. and go off around 10, except on nights when there are games in town and on Christmas Eve, when they stay on later, Eichorn said.

'We like to have them on for the kids,” he said.

The lights are turned off after New Year's.