March 28, 2024

Effort underway to put historic First Avenue homes on National Register

Sixty houses featured in project

Members of the Newton Historic Preservation Commission have been tirelessly volunteering their time to potentially put at least 60 historic homes on the National Register of Historic Places.

The project, Houses on First Avenue, began in December 2015. The project advisor Rita Reinheimer, commissioner chair Larry Hurto, and commissioners Mary Jo Niskin and Tanya Michener have been digging into the history of the homes and what makes them unique. Volunteer Sue Smith has also been contributing to the project.

A historic place must either have had a significant event take place there, a significant person or persons lived there, or the house has architectural character. These are just a few qualifications.

The HPC completed a similar project in the downtown district of Newton, as they sent all of Newton’s historic businesses to the National Register of Historic Places for review in 2014. The residential project has been a different experience for the commissioners.

“So many of these houses are connected with pioneers of industry,” Hurto said. “A lot of these people who were living on First Avenue were first generation migrants.”

The Newton Reality Co. formed in 1919 with officers such as Harry Allfree, R.S. Redman, D.L. Clark, F.L. Maytag, W.C. Bergman, A.H. Bergman, A.E. Hindorff, J.W. Sayre, F.E. Hill, V.H. Morgan and F.L. Drake, all of which who have been featured in the project.

Reinheimer said those living on First Avenue centuries ago seemed to all know each other and gravitate to one another.

“They’re in business a lot of times together and they are living in the same general area,” Reinheimer said. “There is definitely that tie in these residential districts.”

Those districts include neighborhoods on the west and east side, including West Fourth Street South to West Eighth Street and East Fourth Street to East Seventh Street.

“It should be noted that western expansion was a big thing then, and praise be to these people from Germany who understood that it was a great opportunity for them — they couldn’t fail, and they had every opportunity in the world to succeed,” Niskin said.

While digging into the family’s background Hurto said it’s important to also pay attention to the wife’s name in the household.

“That wife could definitely have had an influence on what would be done to the property and how it would look,” Hurto said.

Reinheimer said since the City of Newton is working on improving the appearance of the First Avenue, the HPC began this project, which grew out of the city’s existing project.

Reinheimer said the project not only provides the current property owners with some financial incentives to maintain and fix up their properties, there are monies available to help them in large projects. Most importantly, it also conjures bragging rights for people.

“There are a lot of people who like to see historical districts and learn about them, so the more historic districts we have it helps increase tourism, which of course brings in more business,” Reinhemier said. “So, it’s mostly to showcase what we have and also gives the homeowners a sense of pride as well as educating the community of what we got.”

The HPC hopes to submit the completed project to the state at the end of June. Reinheimer said following that, there will hopefully be a second grant that the city will apply for and receive will allow the final nomination papers to be made.

“Then it goes through state review and a panel review and goes to the federal government for final review,” Reinheimer said. “It would be a few years before these two districts would be on the register.”

Paula Mohr of the State Historic Preservation office and Jason O’Brien, an architectural historian and principal investigator of Wapsi Valley Archaeology, are consultants for the project.

Contact Kayla Langmaid at 641-792-3121 ext. 6513 or klangmaid@newtondailynews.com