Wikipedia: "The area of what is now Postville was first settled in 1843 by pioneer settler and mill worker Joel Post, hence the name of the city." Yes, I imagine so. "Stephanie Simon of the Los Angeles Times wrote that, until circa the 1990s, 'Postville was basically all white and all Christian.' It's now 43% Hispanic / Latino.

City motto: "Hometown to the World."

A standard-issue commercial block:

The name block tells us who was behind the enterprise

This helps with newspapers, where we have an ad from the day when the local press was all German . . .

Grok notes:

• "Stickereien" = embroidery/embroidered goods.
• "KLEIDERSTOFFE" = dress materials / fabrics for clothing.

		Eventually, the paper search turns up news of a change. Gone now, of course.

You know there’s an old stone building with a solid turret behind the siding.

Wonder if anyone at the time thought this was a bad idea.

From the Wishing Well . . .

To the Wailing Wall.

Guys. Don’t do this.

A 30s Moderne building done on the cheap, brick instead of stone. The corner windows were the new modern innovation.

The roof was added later. It's not a great look, but let's just say . . . it could be worse.

Here's an example of how it can be, and is, worse.

T'was

T'aint

Yoking disparate structures together never works. It severs the second floor from the ground band makes them look as they’re held prisoner.

Maybe we could figure out the circumstances that led to this thin sliver. Maybe not.

Poor guy's squeezed like a Caspar Milquetoast on the rush-hour subway.

Something’s amiss with this block. The facade of the long building was the result of stripping out the old facade, but they left the bay window’s gewgaws intact.

It was the bank.

The ad looks like a funeral notice.

A faded mural commemorating a bit of local history.

Circus history site:

Circus history was made back in 1912 at Monona. The Gollmar brothers, cousins of the famed Ringling brothers, had one of the biggest crowds in their history when they sold over 3,000 tickets to a matinee performance - in a town of 875 people.

However, circus history was soon to be pushed to new heights, unheard of before 1915, or since. It happened when the Ringling Brothers' circus performed in Postville.

They may have passed this sign.

But we'll never know.

Oh, the Iris theater we were going to find? Closed long ago, and while the building supposedly still stands, it's in a block the Google camera declined to visit.