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Creating the Black Utopia of Buxton, Iowa


- Description
While LOST BUXTON uses rare photographs and quotes from former residents and newspaper articles to tell the story of Buxton, CREATING THE BLACK UTOPIA OF BUXTON, IOWA delves into the details behind the town–the founders, superintendents, and companies involved–as well as the residents and facets of the town that made Buxton so unique and amazing.
Here’s the copy from the back cover:
Some have called Buxton a Black Utopia. In the town of five thousand residents, established in 1900, African Americans and Caucasians lived, worked and attended school together. It was a thriving one-of-a-kind coal mining town created by the Consolidation Coal Company. This inclusive approach provided opportunity for its residents. Dr. E.A. Carter was the first African American to get a medical degree from the University of Iowa in 1907. He returned to Buxton and was hired by the coal company, where he treated both black and white patients. Attorney George Woodson ran for file clerk in the Iowa Senate for the Republican Party in 1898, losing to a white man by one vote. Author Rachelle Chase details the amazing events that created this unique community and what made it disappear.