Council Bluffs Public Library

The Chieftain Hotel is a historic former hotel building at 38 Pearl Street in Council Bluffs, Iowa, United States. It opened in 1927, the result of a partnership between the Eppley Hotel Company and local patrons, and was built on the site of the Grand Hotel, which had opened in 1891 and was destroyed by a fire in 1925. The hotel was eight stories tall, and featured 153 guest rooms. Eppley owned and operated the hotel until 1956, when the chain was sold to Sheraton, which sold it off, along with several other Eppley hotels. After several management and ownership changes, it went into receivership to the First National Bank of Council Bluffs in 1966 and closed in 1970. It originally had two restaurants: The Terrace Cafe and the Java Room, and a cocktail lounge named The Ruby Room. All were located on the lobby level, and both the Java Room and Ruby Room were accessible from the street as well as from the hotel. The Terrace Cafe featured a Loggia which looked out on Bayliss Park across the street, and was decorated in the Adam style . During the Depression, The Terrace Cafe was converted to a banquet room. It remained a banquet room for the remainder of the time the hotel operated. The bobby was situated along the south side of the building and was a two-story space open to the mezzanine above. The second level consisted of four private dining rooms (Corn Room, State Suite, Pioneer Room, and The Beaux Arts Room) on the Pearl Street side of the building, and the Trianon Ballroom. In addition, a u-shaped mezzanine area adjacent to the Ballroom looked down onto the lobby below. The Corn Room and the Pioneer Room, were decorated with Murals painted by Iowa Artist Grant Wood. The Trianon Ballroom is named after a palace near Versailles, France, and could seat upwards of 500 guests. It was one of the original performance spaces for Council Bluffs' Chanticleer Community Theatre. After the hotel closed, the lobby and Terrace Cafe space were partitioned off and served as the Council Bluffs Elk's Club for many years, and the Java Room became a Godfather's Pizza. The former Ruby Room cocktail lounge has been used for many purposes, including congressional offices. The private dining rooms were converted to apartments, but the Ballroom remains intact. The facility is now known as Bluffs Towers, a low-income apartment house, primarily for senior citizens and people with disabilities. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.

The Haymarket Commercial Historic District is a nationally recognized historic district located in Council Bluffs, Iowa, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. At the time of its nomination the district consisted of 28 resources, including 19 contributing buildings, and nine non-contributing buildings. "Haymarket" is the forked-junction of Main and Pearl Streets where the city's scales were located in the 1890s. It is on the south side of the central business district. Council Bluffs was founded in the late 1840s as Kanesville by Mormons. When Brigham Young called all people of the faith outside of Utah to Salt Lake City in 1852, the community ceased to be majority Mormon. It was renamed Council Bluffs in 1853. The buildings here are among the earliest extant commercial buildings in the city.The district developed between 1865 and 1930. The buildings were built in three periods:1865-1880, 1880–1900, and 1900–1930. They are two-story, brick, vernacular commercial structures. The first floors are commercial spaces with cast-iron storefronts, and the buildings are capped with metal cornices. The more elaborate decorative details are found on the buildings that were built in the 1880s and the 1890s. The simplest buildings are the oldest. The buildings north of the Main Street/Pearl Street intersection have primary facades on both streets.

Reverend Little's Young Ladies Seminary is a historic seminary building at 541 6th Avenue in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The Italianate style building was constructed in 1867 as a school for women, which was founded by a Presbyterian minister, George Little. Unfortunately, "[a]lthough the Rev. Little’s school received very favorable publicity, he encountered great difficulty in collecting the money pledged to construct his building. On Jan. 1, 1870, his board of trustees informed him that no more payments would be forthcoming. The Rev. Little closed the school, filed suit against the trustees for the money due him and eventually was awarded title to the property. He sold the building and moved to Nebraska where he became a missionary." Several prominent businessmen later owned the building, and in the early 1900s it was converted to apartments. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. It currently houses a law office.

The Thomas Jefferis House is a historic building located in Council Bluffs, Iowa, United States. Jefferis was a Delaware native who was a homeopathic physician. He made and lost fortunes through his involvement in speculative ventures, including real estate and a silver mine in Utah. The two-story frame Italianate structure was completed in 1869. It features bracketed eaves, cornice, full length front porch, and siding that is scored to resemble ashlar. It was originally capped with a belvedere, which has been lost. The house is composed of three blocks. It was converted into a funeral home in the 1940s, and it housed other businesses since. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

The Jean and Inez Bregant House, also known as The Little Peoples' House, is a historic building located in Council Bluffs, Iowa, United States. The Bregants were little people who worked as Vaudeville performers. This 1½-story Craftsman was one of the few houses built in the United States for little people. The rectangular frame structure sits at the back of its lot. The house was built by Inez's parents, whose house was immediately to the south, after Jean and Inez retired from performing. It features a polygonal bay on the north side, and rectangular bay on the south, and a full size bungloid porch across the front. The interior has four rooms and a bath. Because the Bregants loved to entertain, the rooms, doorways and furnishings accommodated full-size people. However, it also had a miniature clawfoot bathtub, stove, a low fireplace mantel, built-in benches that sat low-to-the-ground, as well as other scaled-down details. After Inez died in 1969, the house was home to average sized people who undid some of its original details. It is now owned by Preserve Council Bluffs who is restoring it to its original condition. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.

State Savings Bank, also known as the Old Savings Bank, is a historic building located in Council Bluffs, Iowa, United States. the bank was established in 1889, and was originally located across the street. Planning for this building began in 1941 with the organization of the State Investment Company, which would build and own the building. It was designed by W.G. Knoebel and built by St. Louis-based Bank Building and Equipment Corporation of America. It is a late example of Art Deco, and it's the only building in Council Bluffs that exhibits this style. Two-thirds of the building is a single-story banking facility, and the rest is divided into two-stories of office space. It has one of the first drive-through teller windows in Iowa. The rectangular building's exterior is finished in gray limestone on two elevations, and a wrap-around continuation on a third. Its primary decorative feature is an inscribed harvest motif on the east and west elevations that are mirror images of each other, oriented to the north. The motif features a male nude holding a wagon wheel and a scythe, with sheaves of wheat and a dog. The bank changed its name to State Bank & Trust in 1967, and continued to operated from here until 1978. The building sat empty for five years when it was renovated for use by State Investment Company and other offices. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. The building now houses a branch office of Great Western Bank.

The Wickham–De Vol House is an historic building located in Council Bluffs, Iowa, United States. The house was occupied by two prominent families. O.P. Wickham was a prominent contractor and brick manufacturer who built the house in 1878, and the De Vols, who altered its appearance in 1913, operated a retail hardware business. The two-story brick house was constructed using the Italianate style with Eastlake detailing. After its renovation it took on more of a clean, modern, and horizontal appearance after its roof line and porches were altered. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. In 2005 it was included as a contributing property in the Willow-Bluff-3rd Street Historic District.

The YMCA Building is a historic building located in Council Bluffs, Iowa, United States. Construction of the building was partially funded by railroad magnet Grenville M. Dodge. The front section, designed by local architect Frederic E. Cox, was completed in 1909. The pool/gymnasium addition in the rear of the building was designed by J. Chris Jensen, another local architect, and completed in 1931. The front section is four stories tall and exhibits elements of the Colonial Revival and Federal styles. The fourth floor was renovated in 1931 and the shed dormers may have been added at that time. The rear addition is architecturally sympathetic to the original section of the building. The Union Pacific Railroad bought the building in 1929 so the facilities would be available for the men who worked on the railroad during the Great Depression. The local YMCA took over ownership again in 1955. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

The Bennett Building, also known as the Ervin Building is an historic building located in downtown Council Bluffs, Iowa, United States. The previous building to occupy this property was a Woolworth's that was destroyed in a fire in 1922. The Bennett Building Corporation was formed in 1923 to build an office building that was designed to attract medical professionals. The seven-story, brick, Early Commercial structure was designed by local architectural firm Jensen and Larson, and the Omaha firm of McDonald and McDonald served as the supervising architects. E. A. Wickham and Company of Council Bluffs was the contractor. The building rises 86 feet (26 m) above the ground, and it has historically been the tallest building in downtown Council Bluffs. It follows a rectangular plan in the basement and first floor, and from the second to the seventh floor it follows an "L" shaped plan. The exterior features a tripartite division. The first floor is a limestone base that houses storefronts and the entrance lobby for the offices above. Floors two through six are composed of brick with large, regularly spaced windows. They contained professional offices, with many of them occupied by physicians and dentists. Many of Council Bluffs' women doctors had their practices here. The top floor is a modest brick and limestone crown that also housed offices. The Bennett Building has been converted into an apartment building. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.

The John J. and Agnes Shea House is a historic building located in Council Bluffs, Iowa, United States. This is the only brick Queen Anne house in the city with a corner tower topped by a witch's cap. The 2½-story structure features an asymmetrical plan, complex roofline, corbelled chimneys, gables, bays, and porches. It also contains beveled, rounded and stained glass windows. The house was built by local contractor George Monroe, with brick work done by the Wickham Brothers and carpentry work by J.H. Murphy. It was built for John Joseph Shea, a local attorney, his wife Agnes Mary Fenlon Shea, and their six children. They moved to Indian Territory, and after it became the state of Oklahoma, Shea became a judge. Local banker Timothy G. Turner acquired the house in 1900 before the Sheas left for Indian Territory. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.

The Willow–Bluff–3rd Street Historic District is a nationally recognized historic district located in Council Bluffs, Iowa, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. At the time of its nomination the district consisted of 260 resources, including 162 contributing buildings, 56 contributing structures, 36 non-contributing buildings, and six non-contributing structures. The district is primarily a residential area that is adjacent to the central business district to the west. Part of the district is in Jackson's Addition, which is the first addition to the original town of Council Bluffs. It also sits along the base of the loess bluffs to the east. The neighborhood generally developed between 1855 and 1930. The houses that populate the district were built in the revival styles and architectural movements that were popular during this time period. In addition to residential architecture there are two churches and a former high gymnasium that are contributing properties: the Seventh Day Adventist Church (c. 1920), Our Savior Lutheran Church (1926), and the Lincoln High School Gymnasium (1926). Three buildings that were individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places are also contributing properties in the district. They include: the Grenville M. Dodge House (1869), the Wickham-De Vol House (1878), and the August Beresheim House (1899). The streets and retaining walls make up the contributing and non-contributing structures. The non-contributing buildings are largely garages.

The Shepard and Emma Farnsworth House is a historic building located in Council Bluffs, Iowa, United States. Built by Vincent Battin in 1886, the two-story frame structure is an example of an asymmetrical Queen Anne style residence. It was designed by local architect Stiles Maxon, who was also responsible for numerous other houses in the city and three county courthouses in the state of Iowa. The house features multiple gables, the original wrought iron ornamentation on the crest of the roof, cast metal egg-and-dart trim under the eaves, three chimneys, and four porches with spindles and sawn wood cutouts. It also has stained glass, leaded glass, and etched glass windows and doors. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.Shepard Farnsworth was a native of Muscatine, Iowa who began his banking career in Washington, Iowa before serving in the American Civil War, where he was under the command of his future father-in-law. After establishing a private bank in McGregor, Iowa with his brother, Farnsworth settled in Council Bluffs in 1869. He purchased a half interest in the stock of the First National Bank and worked there as the cashier until he retired in 1892. He married Emma Crabbe in Washington, and they raised five children. Farnsworth died in 1902, and Emma continued to reside in the house until 1920 when she sold the house to Judge John P. Tinley.