Information about Buxton, Iowa by Rachelle Chase
“Hi! This is United States Senator Cory Booker with one of the great authors I know in my life, Ms. Chase, because she’s writing books about my family’s history. Not my particular family, but about Buxton, a town here in Iowa that greeted my family from poverty from Alabama that gave us promise and possibility.” […]
Buxton, Iowa—a 1900s coal mining town of 5,000 in which blacks and whites lived and worked side by side and blacks received equal pay and thrived—is an amazing story of inclusion and equality. I’m doing my part to make sure it is not forgotten. A HUGE “thank you” to everyone I have — and have […]
John Jacobs, an avid collector of Iowa history memorabilia, shared an article from an unidentified newspaper that lists the twelve things that no other town in Iowa – and in some instances, “the world” – had. While I have not been able to verify that these items existed only in Buxton, here’s what I know: […]
My first glimpse of what remained of Buxton, Iowa came in 2008. Standing in the middle of farmland, gazing at the crumbling ruins of a stone warehouse, I closed my eyes and tried to picture the amazing town that once was – a thriving coal mining town established in 1900 that was integrated, its 5,000 […]
In 1900, Consolidation Coal Company established one of the most unique towns in Iowa: Buxton. Spanning 8,600 acres in Monroe County and 1,600 acres in Mahaska County, along with a population that grew to 5,000, Buxton became the largest unincorporated town in Iowa.