Bloomfield, Iowa

Sorry if it seems like I'm skipping back and forth... just can't write it all in one setting

So here we go back to Bloomfield IA. They have a large Amish population and there were lots of buggies on the roads. They seemed to be all on west side of town, and the sides of the roadways were specially groomed and wide enough for the buggies to pull off when traffic came up behind them. They must have really good mirrors cause the were very quick to pull off way before I got close behind. I also noticed that there are different classes of buggies like Cadillacs, Chevys and Yugos. It was pouring down raining and the Yugos only had an umbrella across in front of them (not over them, but in front) as they went along. Chevy's had an adequate cover, and the Caddy's were almost patent leather with gold of chrome lights etc. This pic below is an Amish parking lot. There is a hitching rail that goes from the tree/horse to right to the left out of the pic.

I was thoroughly intrigued by their courthouse. Met some really wonderful gals who were really helpful. To my friends in the Harney County Courthouse... check this post out:

Here is the town square, the first pic is the road in front of the courthouse. Look close, they park in the middle of the streets, and in that middle parking area they pull in from both directions. The tall fancy building is their courthouse.

The building is preserved without creaky wooden floors, and all, no modern amenities. With the exception of the door for the handicap entrance. The basement was their jail and they preserved it with all the iron work in place as it was and work in it. Here's a pic of the Assessor and their office. If it looks like fake lattice, it's not it's half inch steel that has been painted. And there are zero windows anywhere in their basement.

So to you Harney County Basement dwellers... at least you have a few windows and you aren't really in a dungeon. ;o)

Their tax lot stuff is digitized (yay! )and they have a pretty neat website. So after spending a couple of hours in the recorders office, looking through deed index books from 1845 to 1925 (which were on shelves 7 feet high) then, looking up the deeds and coping them, I was able to determine the legal descriptions for the properties, and then have the maps printed. Again thanks to my friends at the HC Courthouse over the years that have helped me to learn and speak the language well enough to know how to do all this deed and property ownership research in a another county.

More later my friends... gotta hit the road.