ARTICLE: Written by LOWELL CARLSON for the Maquoketa Sentinel-Press
“Wyoming native donates military firearms collection” –
“To collectors like Ross Stickley who donated military muskets and rifles to the Wyoming Historical Museum in the old Hotel Williams, the firearms are the equivalent of a library of books on metallurgy, ballistics, tactics, battlefields, courage, and tradition.
From the 1810 French Liege flintlock to the No. 3 Burnside carbine used at the Battle of Bull Run in the American Civil War, visitors to the newly opened gun room at the museum will be able to learn about the evolution of battle rifles.
Ross Stickley’s recent gift of the weapons collection to the city’s museum marks an important moment, say volunteers. The weapons represent his long interest in the history of firearms and his decision to give back to the community that was his boyhood home growing up as the son of a tenant farmer.
To accommodate the collection the museum installed added security and surveillance measures. In the weapons cases visitors will be able to learn about the rifles’ unique features and the evolution of military weaponry.
The much lauded Springfield rifle, the shoulder arm of the Civil War and even later the Indian Wars, is on display in the various modifications it went through as technology advanced.
The Wyoming Historical Museum is located at 117 West Main Street. You can’t miss it on the south side of the street in downtown Wyoming, and you shouldn’t miss it for the extent of the collection in this historic old hotel.” Phone 563-488-3804 for more details.
ADDED NOTE:
Since this article was written, the collection of firearms has grown to nearly thirty pieces with a complete history on each firearm.
Article by Kittie Felker – August 20, 1967 – Cedar Rapids Gazette
SHOW PLACE NO MORE, BUT WILLIAMS’ BRICKS STILL USED
R.S. Williams is a familiar name to anyone who has looked into the history of Jones County and Wyoming.
In 1872 he was the owner of a block and a half of land, just north of Main on Webster Street. It is now owned by the Zion American Lutheran Church and is the site of the new Zion parsonage. He also owned property east of the bridge on Webster Street and west of the present Roy Holsinger home.
Williams, who was reported to be ingenious, interested in progress, and in improving his own financial condition, started to manufacture brick, some of which were used in many of the buildings on Main Street
Sand and dirt were dug from his property, a baking pit established east of the foot bridge across Little Bear Creek and the finished brick hauled across by a white team and piled where the Lutherans now have a parking lot. Peat was hauled from the creek bottom of what is now the Henry Otten farm.
From the bricks, Williams built a stately mansion which had 17 rooms, a beautiful open stairway and a high observation tower. This was a complicated building. It started out as a smaller dwelling. This was determined when the structure was razed. It could be seen that several rooms were completely finished for outside and then surrounded by additions later on.
Dr. J.H. Guthrie was owner of the house for some years and established a sanatorium for the treatment of cancer patients.
For years this was a showplace. In 1918, Mr. and Mrs. A.D. Schoff purchased the property from the Guthrie estate and moved here from Dakota to make their home.
They were both lovers of beauty and erected fancy fences of concrete, bits of rock, and fancy shells to make their gardens and lawns a place of beauty. A cement fish pool, a light house, a miniature church, and running brook with a rustic bridge were only a portion of the outdoor scenery along with blooming flowers and shrubbery.
In the early years, the Schoffs did much lavish entertaining and did extensive decorating a t Christmas time. Following the death of Mrs. Schoff in 1962, the Lutherans bought the property and in April, 1967, the last of the former R.S. Williams residence was leveled as the old gave way to the new. On July 12, 1967, excavation for a $30,000 home for the Lutheran pastor was begun on the site.
All that remains of the lovely flowers and gardens is a beautiful tall blue spruce tree, just north and west of the new home.
Brick from the 1872 brick kiln still remain in the James A. Bronson building, occupied by Harrison Morse, The Masonic Hall, Odd Fellow Hall, the old opera house, the building owned by Mrs. Fred Buchholtz, the old Williams Hotel now owned by Howard Peck, the duplex apartment in east Wyoming now owned by William Hurst, and the Mary Hunter, Walter Coppes, Paul Reitz, Louis Dusanek, Ed Lietz, and Fred Fritz residences.