FERN [Iowa]. A village in Sec 32, Beaver Twp. Formerly Andersonville. Post office from March 20, 1892 to December 31, 1907. First postmaster, Emil L Pieper.
Fern had a creamery. People used to go to college to be creamery operators.
It’s easy to believe they were anxious to change the name of the town. Andersonville wasn’t a very well liked name back then.
If New York is on one end of a continuum, then Fern is about as far on the other end as you can get. I grew up near Fern. There doesn’t seem to be even a trace of it any more.
A small town near Fern (in Tama county) that still exists was called Berlin until World War II. Now it’s called Lincoln.
My mom grew up on a farm south of Fern, east of Holland, north of Grundy Center. They sent their cream to the Fern Creamery. She says they used to go shopping there (in the 20’s & 30’s) and Fern at that time had one grocery store, hardware store, shoe repair shop, and the creamery. The creamery was still talked about when I was a kid in the 60’s; was it already closed then? We used to make fun of Fern because there was nothing there! They also shopped at Holland, another tiny place fast disappearing from the map. Thanks for the picture!
Bec,
I’m glad you found my Fern post. I had fun digging up more information about this little place.
Yes, I think it was already closed in the last half of the 60’s when we moved to Grundy Center. I remember always laughing when we came to the Fern sign on highway 14. The creamery building was about all that was there. Certainly not anything that resembled a town. The creamery building was also gone by the time I graduated high school in 1974.