DAR fountain bubbling anew at History Center in Cedar Rapids

CEDAR RAPIDS — Look, but don’t drink.

A 113-year-old water fountain is out of storage and sitting as a water feature outside The History Center, 800 Second Ave. SE in Cedar Rapids. That means even though it sports two water streams that provided free, cool slurps for nearly 30 years beginning in 1911, the water today is just for show.

The do-not-drink sign hadn’t arrived in time for the fountain’s dedication ceremony June 8, but is expected any day. The sign has been paid for, but the supplies were on back order, said Tara Templeman, The History Center’s curator and collection manager.

Then as now, the local Ashley Chapter of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution raised the funds to bring the stone structure to the public. In 1911, the cost was $600. More than a century later, the chapter raised about $10,000 through donations to bring it back into view.

It’s been equipped with new water works and placed on a new foundation, both designed and made by Prairie Creek Nursery in Cedar Rapids. The overall look of the new location, including the paving, was designed by The History Center’s board president, Chris Wand of Primus Companies in Cedar Rapids.

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History

In announcing the fountain’s new home, a news release from The History Center noted that “in 1906, Mrs. Laura Weare Walker, daughter of Cedar Rapids pioneer John Weare, conceived the idea for the fountain intended for use by the community. Ashley Chapter Regent Mrs. Adeline Wood Preston was the force behind the initial fundraising effort, but she died in 1907. Plans stalled for a time, but eventually the necessary funds were raised.”

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The granite fountain was presented to the city Sept. 29, 1911, and placed on the corner of downtown’s Second Avenue SE, in front of the post office. Virgil W. Fuller of Boston designed the fountain using gray-white granite from the quarries in Quincy, Mass. It was placed on a granite base and featured two heavy nickel-plated hygienic drinking bubblers. The city added an ice vault to cool the water.

The outlets were capped in 1939 so the fountain was no longer used for drinking, Templeman noted, and in 1948, the structure was removed to make way for a street-widening project. Separated from its base, plaque and history, the fountain went into storage at Ellis Park.

It might have remained hidden, if not for the efforts of Nova Daniels, a DAR member and History Center volunteer, in the late 1980s.

“She started looking for it, and couldn’t find a record of what happened to it after it was removed from the street,” said Linda Van Niewaal of Cedar Rapids, honorary state regent of Iowa for the National Society of the DAR. “ … The records were not clear.”

Then-City Forester Eric Faaborg found it in storage at Ellis Park, and had been looking for the owner for about 12 years, Templeman noted. Publicity surrounding the search connected the dots, and the fountain was presented to the Linn County Historical Society on May 22, 1988, where it became part of The History Center’s collection. It was displayed in the lobby of the museum’s former site along First Avenue SE.

When The History Center moved in 2018 to its current location, the fountain was placed on the west side of the lawn, with plans to add benches under the trees so visitors could sit in quiet contemplation.

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“After the derecho, the tree issue became more problematic,” Van Niewaal said. “So at that time, they started talking about moving it and setting it someplace” else.

When the Ashley Chapter began raising funds to have it relocated, the price tag was estimated at $5,000, “which seemed doable,” Van Niewaal said. “But over the years, it’s crept up, and we’ve just tried to keep up with it.”

The chapter launched an appeal to its own members and other Iowa DAR chapters, but was turned down for a grant from the national society.

“They weren’t really sure that we met their standards for historic preservation however the grant was written,” Van Niewaal said. “And rather than rewriting the grant, we just went ahead and did our thing.”

She said The History Center’s board of directors took care of all of the physical logistics for the fountain’s move and placement, "and sent us the bill.”

Today

The fountain’s new site is in front of 5 Turner Alley, the studio where Grant Wood painted “Daughters of Revolution” in 1932. Often cited as satirical, the painting depicts three ladies standing in front of a painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware River in 1776, during the Revolutionary War. “Daughters of Revolution” now is owned by the Cincinnati Art Museum.

Internet searches turn up several sources of the painting’s satire.

“The version of the story I know is that Wood created this less-than-flattering image of three Daughters of the American Revolution in retaliation for the DAR’s refusal to dedicate the Veterans Memorial Stained Glass Window (in Cedar Rapids) due to its fabrication in Germany,“ said Sean Ulmer, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art’s executive director.

”He placed the three women in front of a reproductive print of Emanuel Leutze’s ‘Washington Crossing the Delaware.’ Leutze was a German American artist who created the original painting in Germany with (perhaps) American tourists as models and the Rhine as the Delaware. Here a quintessential American image was actually created by the hands of a German-born artist working in Germany.

“I think the reality is somewhat more complicated,” Ulmer added, “because I also read that Wood used old DAR yearbooks for models for the three women, which might indicate that he was trying to be faithful in his representation. And I read that the DAR Ashley Chapter was initially proud of the painting because the women represented the kind of strong stock on which this country was founded and sustained.

“I believe it was a regional or national chapter that objected,” he said, “so it’s a bit muddy. Certainly, the retaliation story is the most colorful.”

Van Niewaal said today’s DAR members don’t really give any thought to the painting’s connotations, negative or positive, but they are thrilled to have the fountain placed where visitors again can enjoy it.

“Everybody was quite happy to see it done,” she said, “and see it in a lovely setting.”

Comments: (319) 368-8508; diana.nollen@thegazette.com