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John J. and Agnes Shea House

Houses completed in 1888Houses in Council Bluffs, IowaHouses on the National Register of Historic Places in IowaIowa building and structure stubsNational Register of Historic Places in Pottawattamie County, Iowa
Queen Anne architecture in IowaSouth Iowa Registered Historic Place stubs
Shea 309 C Bluffs IA
Shea 309 C Bluffs IA

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.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article John J. and Agnes Shea House (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

John J. and Agnes Shea House
Willow Avenue, Council Bluffs

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N 41.258055555556 ° E -95.855638888889 °
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Bloomer School

Willow Avenue
51501 Council Bluffs
Iowa, United States
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Shea 309 C Bluffs IA
Shea 309 C Bluffs IA
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Chieftain Hotel
Chieftain Hotel

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.

State Savings Bank (Council Bluffs, Iowa)
State Savings Bank (Council Bluffs, Iowa)

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.