36 March 2016 Farm Collectorthe ranch each week. Ranch cook Jake Ohden baked all of
the bread, pies and cakes. At one time he baked 32-40 loaves
of bread, 18 pies and two cakes daily. Bill Dreesen, Odebolt, remembers as a boy eating with the men in the mess hall.
Bill says he especially enjoyed the freshly baked pie.
A self-contained operation
Adams set aside approximately 80 acres for the home-
stead and farm buildings and built about 50 miles of roads through the ranch that he lined with cottonwood trees.
Once the trees were mature, they formed tunnels over the roads. Thelma Schroeder, Odebolt, remembers counting 74
trees in a 2-mile stretch. The trees also provided shade for
the mules when the drivers rested them.The fields were fenced with 60 miles of woven wire fenc-
ing held in place with concrete posts made by Charles Wet-
stein in a small factory in Early, Iowa. The fences and posts are gone now, but Mary Schroeder, Odebolt, has one in her
backyard and has topped it with a birdhouse.
with families (single male ranch workers lived in a bunk-Adams built housing for his family and for married men
house). The ranch was also home to a kitchen, mess hall, commissary and icehouse. Other buildings included the
mule barn, blacksmith shop, harness shop, water tower
and grain elevator. Furnaces that burned corncobs heated the buildings. Adams also owned an elevator and a bank
in Odebolt. The farm generated its own electricity and had
seven wells. After devastating fires in 1905 and 1919, Adams built his own fire station. The 1919 fire caused $100,000 in
damages and destroyed the mule barn, grain elevator and
other buildings.
To the manner born
lavish lifestyle. The house Adams built for his family was a At the turn of the last century, the Adams family lived a
mansion with a swimming pool and manicured lawn, bush-es and flowerbeds tended by uniformed gardeners. He also
employed maids, butlers and two chauffeurs. He took great
pride in his farm and had a chauffeur drive him around the farm in a Pierce Arrow to “observe the land.”
At one point, Adams offered to pave the streets of Odebolt
if the town’s name was changed to Adamsville. When the offer was declined, he had his men dump manure on the
streets, claiming it would keep his mules from slipping on
icy streets when hauling grain to town.W.P. and Nettie traveled widely in Europe and elsewhere
and owned a home in Miami Beach, Florida, where they spent winters. Before he died, Adams had sealed (in terminology
of the day, grain was warehoused on the farm “under seal”)more than 300,000 bushels of corn under the Agricultural
Adjustment Act, receiving a total loan of $135,594. This
was believed to be the largest corn-sealing loan ever made. Adams never had a mortgage and was never in debt. No one
seems to know why he chose to farm with mules.
He left the “residue of his wealth” to Nettie in trust for five Adams died at age 74 on March 25, 1937, in Miami Beach.
years. Sole ownership of the ranch went to his son, Robert
B. “Bob” Adams. W.P.’s older son, John Quincy, lived in Winnetka, Illinois, and had never been involved in the
ranch operation. John was in the real estate business in Chicago and received “all valuable properties in Chicago.”
Ownership twists and turns
After his father’s death, Bob (who had been managing the
ranch) took over full control. While Bob managed the ranch
much like his father had, he also bred and showed American Saddlebred horses and built a stable and track on the ranch
for them. Bob was a director of the American Horse Breeders
Assn. and one of the founders of the Iowa Horse Breeders Futurity. He was Iowa Director of the Office of Price Admin-
istration during World War II. Bob began the conversion to Farmall M tractors on the
ranch in the 1940s. By 1951, the ranch had 20 Model M
tractors and 50 mules. He added commercial cattle in 1940. Bob died of a heart attack at an Omaha hospital on June
27, 1956, at age 69. William “Bill” Phipps Adams II, Bob’s
son, inherited the ranch from his father. Bill added regis-tered Hereford cattle in 1946. Bill served as president of the
Iowa Hereford Assn., the American Hereford Assn. and the
International Livestock Exposition. Bill managed the ranch for seven years after his father’s
death, selling it to Charles E. Lakin, Emerson, Iowa, in 1963
for $2.5 million. Lakin sold the ranch in 1967. Since then, the ranch has been subdivided and has had several differ-
ent owners. Douglas Stenoien bought the remaining tract of three sections and the buildings from the Federal Land
Bank in 1986.
Most of the remaining buildings are in various stages of dis-Today Stenoien owns the buildings and a half section.
repair with birds and wild animals as the only inhabitants.
It is a sad end to the saga of a farm unique in the history of Iowa agriculture. FCIowa, grew up on a farm in Darrel Wrider, Cedar Rapids,
northwest Iowa. Contact him at [email protected].“The mule barn measured Hauling hay to the Adams Ranch barn.
90 feet wide and 220
feet long, with enough
space for at least 200
mules. The barn also had
storage space for hay and
machinery on the second
floor, reached by a ramp at
the back of the building.”
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OdeboltIowa