As you enjoy a sip of this celebratory liquor, may you consider the history of that city which we honor on its 125th birthday, our own town, Melvin, Iowa. This quasquicentennial event is worthy of a toast to those who pioneered and who gave life to a town that thrived and grew on the wealth of corn that ultimately produced the golden spirit held within.

As with any historical account, we must first acknowledge that Melvin didn’t used to be here. For tens of thousands of years since the last glacier the locale at 43.286659N, -95.607462W was devoid of all but tall grass, mudholes and an occasional wooly mammoth or bison. Early human inhabitants tended to live in areas along meandering streams where fuel, fish and game were available and where rivers made transportation easier than walking across the poorly drained open prairie.

When Iowa became the 29th state on December 28, 1846, initial development occurred along the Mississippi River, with Osceola County being one of the last areas to be surveyed and sub-divided during the 1870s. The rich farmland was granted to Civil War veterans, homesteaders, and pioneers who could endure the harsh conditions and limited comforts of the time. A good sip of corn whiskey, while reading an account of a small town’s history, online, existed only well over a century in the future.

One of these families, whose family surname was ‘Melvin’, settled just over a mile to the north of the present town, and a small settlement there began to serve their needs. However, the Gowey branch of the Rock Island Railroad was installed nearby and the settlement moved to its present location a mile to the south in 1900. The rails followed the watershed of a geological feature known as Buffalo Ridge, taking advantage of the natural drainage, to the Floyd River to the west and to the Little Sioux River to the east, to support the load. The new Melvin depot became the station with the highest elevation in the state of Iowa.

The formalities of incorporation were filed in the District Court of Osceola County on April 22, 1901, and an election was held on May 14, 1901, to elect town officers. George Kraft was elected as the town’s first mayor.

The first residents were railroad employees and those arriving on foot, on horseback or by rail. When the first shipments of lumber came in on the train, they ushered in a decade of building new homes and businesses during the first decade of Melvin’s growth.

Churches, early schools, and the main street establishments were built, and farmers hauled in fill dirt to improve the muddy main street. A bowling alley was among the first businesses, and I dare say, a sip of whiskey became available in local saloons to toast the progress. A lumberyard, bank and newspaper named The Melvin Argus kept progress moving forward and kept the community informed of the news in those first days of Melvin. The population of Melvin in 1910 was found to be about 200 residents.

Soon the necessity of draining swampy areas from the prairie became a challenge, and local farmers organized cooperative drainage districts to create mutually beneficial ditches and tiles to improve their fields, to make better roads possible to serve the farms and to bring the growing corn harvests to the new market. Rivers were straightened to eliminate the need for multiple bridges over the broad meandering streams, and gradually the area could be crossed without detouring around on high ground.

In the second decade, a World War diverted attention from the building of a town, and many young men boarded the train for Camp Dodge in Des Moines to become soldiers to join in the fray. Some of the Doughboys fell in action but many more took down and died of the Spanish Influenza epidemic that ravaged soldiers from rural areas who were gathered near others for the first time. Among those arriving home by rail for the last time was 22-year-old Farrand Reed Guthrie, who was killed in action in France on October 5, 1918, and whose name is memorialized by the Melvin Legion Pos No.470 to this day.

In 1919 the Melvin Community built a new schoolhouse to replace several earlier wooden structures that taught students only through the lower grades. The new brick building brought all 12 grades together, offering improved education to students from the town and from the surrounding country schools. The country schools were planned to serve four square miles each. Large families were common to the many farms that relied on manual labor for the caring for crops and livestock, and small family farm units were much more numerous than they are today with each section being home to several families.

That new school served the community well for almost seven decades and it was augmented by a new elementary school that was built in the late 1950s. Together these facilities served the Melvin Community School District until reorganization became necessary due to falling enrollment in the mid-1980s.

Also in 1919, the Nation enacted a prohibition of alcohol that lasted until 1933. Melvin, being one of the last areas of the State to dry up, became a popular place to enjoy a drink or two, and it was a place to stock up on the ingredients to make one’s own home brew. The local livery stable did a box-office business by accommodating the many dray wagons and teams and by providing a place for the soon-to-be sober pilgrims to sleep off their final binge before the “Noble Experiment” of Prohibition kicked in.

During this time of sobriety, an even more sobering event took place in 1929 with the advent of the Great Depression. Hard times lasted throughout the 1930s until World War II brought the economy back to life in the 1940s. Many families and businesses lost their livelihood during the depression, and many farmers were displaced by the failure of their agricultural markets and the effects of their crushing debt. People survived by hard work and self sufficiency as opportunities for gainful employment dried up. Some local farmers survived by importing wild horses via rail from out west to break for work horses to be used on the farms, as powered equipment was still new to the scene in the 1930s.

The specter of World War II brought new opportunities for community members in Melvin, and other area towns, when a federal building project was contracted with local construction companies to build roads and bridges for the proposed Al-Can Highway. Threats of invasion by the enemy in the Aleutian Islands required a strategic transportation route through Canada to Alaska, and many men signed on with the Graves Brothers Construction Company of Melvin to build the necessary bridges over the rivers of the wilderness in the great Northwest Territories. Many others signed up for the armed services and fought in the various theatres of war that ravaged the globe in those tumultuous years. Nearly every able-bodied man and many women from Melvin were involved in the defense of freedom in WWII, and they brought home with them the spirit of unity and victory that set the stage for decades of prosperity and growth to come.

In 1949 this newly reinvigorated community came together to build what became known as the “Community Building” that would become the venue for school events, athletic games, business fairs and community meetings. It remains in use today under the management of the Melvin Legion Club and is available for use for private and public events as intended by the builders in 1949.

Post-war prosperity also brought a baby boom in which children born in the early 1950s swelled the class sizes of the Melvin Community School. The graduating classes of the early 1970s were the largest in the community’s history, numbering more than 30 students in 1970-1972. The population of Melvin reached a peak in the census of 1960 of 365 residents. During that time the businesses of Melvin were prosperous, and the farm community supported their local merchants well. Saturday evening was a time for doing business on Main Street and the street was lined with cars and people who would visit together and stock up for the week ahead. Grocery stores, clothing, farm implements, hardware stores and custom meat processing establishments were open for business. Patrons would enter a Saturday night drawing for a chance at winning a prize, they could enjoy a bag of popcorn and maybe take in a movie on a plank bench in a makeshift outdoor theatre. The three churches of Melvin expanded and were very active throughout the year with circle organizations, youth groups and holiday events. Youth little league programs, town ball teams, basketball games at the cement slab and youth scouting programs flourished. Summertime drive-in food, Memorial Day services, 4th of July fireworks, and a visit from Santa Claus at Christmas time punctuated the seasons. An Appreciation Day celebration each September, sponsored by the Melvin Commercial Club to thank their loyal customers, drew hundreds of folks from around the area for a roast beef picnic in the park. Young people driving up and down Main Street on Saturday Night, beeping their horns at each other, was a standard weekend activity!

A 75th Anniversary celebration was held in 1976, and a document was produced with many details about the history of Melvin, which is hereby recommended to those who wish to remember the many individual friends and family members and specific events that are too numerous to read about during this sip of celebratory corn whiskey. A copy of this book, and others with area history are available at local libraries and museums around the county.

Melvin High School produced many fine athletic teams over the years and both girls’ and boys’ teams were fiercely competitive among the neighboring towns. Some traditional rivalries developed sparking high spirits among the fans! In those days the girls 6-on-6 basketball teams, and girls’ softball teams were an Iowa classic feature, and Melvin teams were statewide competitors. The record of their accomplishments makes a lengthy history, the reading of which would take far beyond the time required to polish off this bottle of Melvin Corn Whiskey!

Alas, throughout the following years, with the consolidation of farms and the rise of corporate retail outlets, the local economies of small towns like Melvin gradually began to shrink. As cars, roads, and farming methods advanced, the number of smaller family farms declined, and smaller schools merged with neighboring towns, reflecting the changing times. While agricultural service businesses such as banks, repair shops, fertilizer and farm chemical suppliers, millwrights and energy suppliers remained viable, other businesses were displaced by the economies of scale that larger stores offered in neighboring communities within driving distance from Melvin. The local grain marketing establishment continued to grow and improve with the growing yields, but with the loss of the Rock Island railroad, the community now was solely dependent on truck transport for marketing and supply. Many businesses have disappeared. The 2020 census reported that Melvin had a population of about 200 people, equal to the population of 1910. Grocery stores, implement dealers, lumber yards and other small businesses are now some miles away. While a sip of whiskey and a good meal are still available in Melvin, the joy of ‘scooping the loop’ around Main Street on Saturday Night just isn’t the same.

But the story doesn’t end here. Organizations still work to keep life in the Community; The Legion Club and Legion Auxiliary, The Melvin 313 Club, The Melvin Fire Department and First Responders, the Melvin Library, the Baker Roadrunners 4H Club, the Melvin Area Economic Development Corporation, and the Mayor and City Council all work together in the spirit of the tradition of Melvin to keep things up to date and to make Melvin a great place to live well into the 21st Century.

So, now I’ll propose a toast to the town that we all love and to all the memories held within! Here’s to all of those who made it happen in Melvin, Iowa during the last 125 years! May there be many more ahead to celebrate in the future. And may the corn continue to flourish. Bottoms up!

By: Fred B. (Fritz) Year

The corn used to make this corn whiskey was provided by the Mayer family.

The Mayer family has been farming in Osceola County for 3 generations. The love of the land and the art of farming passed from the use of horses and picking corn by hand to using the latest technologies and equipment made by John Deere to bring a premium grain product into production.

From this land grew military veterans, farmers, ranchers and deep family roots. Some of us have moved from the farm, but all of us have memories of growing up, working, playing, and now, quality whiskey that will always tie us to the land.

Farming practices have changed over time and so has our farm. We currently are using farming practices to create a limited carbon footprint that will keep the soil healthy for the next generation of Mayer farmers to feed the world.

On behalf of the Mayers’ – Enjoy!

Corn to Whiskey