Sidewalk project provides portal to the past

INDEPENDENCE -- A sidewalk replacement project has opened a window to the past, providing a brief glimpse of what the city's business district looked like before it was deliberately buried nearly 140 years ago.

“Seeing it from the outside provides a new perspective,” said Wanda Goins, vice president of the Buchanan County Historical Society and a leading authority on the hidden remains of Independence's 1870s-era business district.

As contractors have removed sections of the sidewalk this month, onlookers have gathered to peer into the concrete holes at the town's original business district. The opportunities have been fleeting as crews have quickly closed the holes with new sections of sidewalk.

Duane Kress, proprietor of the Wapsi Vintage Wares antiques store, took advantage of the opportunity Tuesday to examine the long-hidden exterior of the basement beneath his store.

“It's one of the few with an original window still in place,” said Kress, who like most downtown merchants intends to preserve the underground façade as an important part of the community's history.

People had gotten to see parts of the underground business district during tours sponsored by the historical society during the past two summers.

“But it's easer to understand what happened when you can see the old buried facades beneath today's storefronts,” Goins said.

What had been street-level storefronts in the early decades of the city are now little-used and seldom-seen basements beneath the businesses along First Street East, said Historical Society President Leanne Harrison.

The original storefronts were buried when the street was raised about 6 feet in 1864 to counteract frequent flooding of the nearby Wapsipinicon River, Harrison said.

Early downtown merchants "had built according to their fancies and the inclines and declivities" of the unimproved main street, according to Harry and Katharyn Chappell, authors of a 1914 "History of Buchanan County."

Harrison said the grading and elevation of the street in 1864 began the burial of the initial business district. After fires in 1873 and 1874 destroyed the aboveground structures, merchants rebuilt on the same limestone foundations, which are now the hidden basements, she said.

The historical society will again lead tours of the underground business district on July 21 and Aug. 18, according to Goins.

Tour proceeds will help pay for a badly needed new roof on the Wapsipinicon Mill, the community's foremost historic treasure.

Harrison said the new roof and other mill repairs will be done this year if the historical society can raise the project's $480,000 estimated cost. The society continues to raise money while awaiting the outcome of its application for a key state Community Attractions and Tourism grant, she said.