Finding History in Flood Damaged Home

By Claire Kellett, News Anchor/Reporter

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By Aaron Hepker

Story Created: Jun 28, 2009 at 5:27 PM CST

Story Updated: Jun 28, 2009 at 5:29 PM CST

CEDAR RAPIDS - The floods washed away homes and lives, but that's not all it destroyed. When the Cedar River overflowed its banks, it damaged many historic buildings in Cedar Rapids. But sometimes that history wasn't obvious until volunteers got inside to muck out the mess.

A small house on Third Street Southeast in Cedar Rapids blends in with the neighboring buildings. Eleven feet of flood water inundated the home last June. It has sat virtually untouched for more than a year.

"It was really bad, nasty stuff in here. There was raw sewage in the back room," volunteer Liz Stark tells TV9. A youth group from St. Mark's Lutheran Church in Marion and members of Americorp Vista volunteered to muck out the mess. After a few days of cleaning, the group discovered this not so noticeable house is full of history.

Rod Scott, president of the Iowa Historic Preservation Alliance told the group the home might be one of the oldest in Cedar Rapids. Scott says the home's timber-frame construction and the brick fill between wall studs are building techniques immigrants brought to the area. "They were probably European immigrants before the Bohemians, think the 1860s."

Which would make the house almost 150 years old.

Scott and his historic preservation group are helping restore historic flood-damaged homes and buildings in Cedar Rapids, especially here in the Bohemian Commercial Historic District. And at the same time teaching people how much history Cedar Rapids has.

From now on, these workers won't overlook the small house on Third Street Southeast.

The New Bohemia neighborhood is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Iowa Historic Preservation Alliance says it is crucial to restore as many historic buildings there or the area could lose that title. That would mean the buildings would not receive crucial financial incentives.

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