Residences of Black ISC Students

208 1/2 Main Street

Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, 2018 ("Ames Main Street Historic District")

This 2-story brick building, constructed in 1898, is a one of many examples of commercial architecture in the Ames central business district that was “given a facelift” in the late-1930s to keep up with changing consumer tastes.

Black Iowa State College students would have resided on the building's second floor, in space originally occupied by offices and apartments for local shopkeepers.

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Davis, Walter Milan  (Winter 1933);  Perry, Benjamin Luther, Jr.  (Fall 1940);  Tutt, Harold Lindsay  (Winter 1922-Winter 1924)

2522 Chamberlain Street (Demolished)

The residence at 2522 Chamberlain Street was a sizable house built between 1911 and 1924. A noteworthy feature was its porch, which stretched across the entire first-story façade. One of the earliest homes built at the intersection of Hayward Avenue and Chamberlain Street, the house appears second to left in this historic photo from the Farwell T. Brown Photographic Archive.

With ISC's growth in enrollment, demand for student housing spilled into the immediate Campustown neighborhood, accelerating the change of population within. Both white students and Black found reasonably priced accommodations within single-family homes converted to rental use. The house at 2522 Chamberlain was one of those homes. The primary residents of the house were Arthur Marshall and his mother-in-law Louisa Winn, grandmother of lodger  Harold Tutt.  Marshall and Winn also housed several of Tutt's ISC classmates.

Since the 1980s, following the demolition of this house, the address has been the site of a series of bars and dance clubs.

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Crutcher, Benjamin H.  (1924/1925);  Smith, Holloway  (1925); Tutt, Harold Lindsay (Fall 1924-Winter 1925);  Whibby, Thomas Wiggins  (1925)

905 Douglas Avenue

Tilden House / Sigma Nu Fraternity / Cosmopolitan Club

Listed as a City of Ames Local Landmark District, 1989 ("Old Town Historic District"); listed in the National Register of Historic Places, 2004 ("Old Town Historic District")

This well-maintained, single-family home, according to the Farwell T. Brown Photographic Archive,

 _{The Cosmopolitan Club, a foreign student center, in 1915 occupied the Tilden house (originally built for George G. and Lydia Tilden) at 905 Douglas Avenue. The house had been the home of Sigma Nu fraternity from 1904 through 1914. Extensively remodeled by Galen (a son of George and Lydia) and Ina Tilden in 1918, the house went from the pictured Italianate style [first photo, ca. 1904] to one of Prairie style design.}  

The Cosmopolitan Club was a campus organization that allowed interaction between international students and other ISC students. It provided room and board in its off-campus house and became a popular club for Black students, like  Walter G. Madison  (ISC 1914). Several lived at this address in the 1910s.

The northern boundaries of both the local and National Register districts were extended to include this and other historically significant properties.

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Cain, William Milton  (Fall 1913);  Madison, Walter Garfield  (Spring 1914)

218 Lincoln Way

Archie & Nancy Martin House

Listed as a City of Ames Local Landmark, 2007; included in National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form, 2021 ("Twentieth Century African American Civil Rights-related Resources in Iowa")

Easily the most historically significant property tied to the Black community of Ames, the Archie and Nancy Martin House on Lincoln Way was listed as a local landmark in 2007. The Martin family built the house around 1919. A well-preserved example of a Craftsman-style bungalow, its significance is less in its architectural design than in its history as a hub for Black students and local residents during the 1920s through 1950s.

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Bowman, James Everett  (1940/1941);  Calloway, Nathaniel O.  (1929/1930, 1930/1931, 1931/1932);  Crouch, Geneva P.  (Winter 1931);  Crouch, Hubert B.  (Winter 1930);  Crutcher, Benjamin H.  (1930/1931);  Daniels, Walter Thomas  (1939/1940, 1940/1941);  Hopkins, Glee J. Willoughby  (1934/1935);  Mark, Jesse Jarue  (1934/1935);  Martin, Robert Leander  (Fall 1938, Winter 1939);  Otis, Jesse R.  (1923/1924);  Romm, Harry J.  (1924 Winter; 1929/1930);  Small, John Baggett  (1926/1927, 1927/1928);  Sullivan, Grace Mae  (1931/1932);  Woods, Clara Williams  (dates unknown)

Corner of Burnett Avenue & 5th Street

Historical Marker

A brick kiosk at the northeast corner of this intersection includes two commemorative panels. One shows Nancy and Archie Martin, the other their home on Lincoln Way. This kiosk one of several in the downtown that celebrate people and events significant to the history of Ames.

1008 Burnett Avenue

Prominent Ames Attorney Chaucer Gory (C.G.) Lee and his wife Emma McCarthy Lee housed a number of ISC students over their years living at 1008 Burnett, including Lynce Bowling and William Cain.

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Bowling, Lynce Crawford  (Fall 1916);  Cain, William Milton  (Spring 1914, 1914/1915, 1915/1916, 1916/1917)

118 Sherman Avenue (Demolished)

John & Nellie Ship House

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Crouch, Hubert Branch  (Winter 1931)

226 1/2 Main Street

Elliot Building/ The Interstate Club

Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, 2018 ("Ames Main Street Historic District")

This two-story, brick commercial building was built ca. 1894. Updated after World War II in an attempt to keep the traditional retail landscape along Main Street viable, a gabled entrance of wood--intended to look vaguely Swiss Chalet-like--was added to the first-floor storefront in the 1960s, uniting 226 and 228 Main Street. This has since been removed.

The Interstate Club would have occupied the second floor, in space originally used for office or residential uses. As noted in the historical marker affixed to the front façade, two Black Iowa State College students, James Herman Banning and Frederick Patterson, lived upstairs in the early-1920s. Many other students of color lived here or spent their free time socializing at the Interstate Club during the 1910s and 1920s.

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence/Use

 Aldridge, Aubrey Cooper  (Winter 1920, 1920/1921, 1921/1922, Fall 1922);  Atwood, Rufus Ballard  (1920/1921, 1921/1922, 1922/1923);  Banning, James Herman  (Winter 1921);  Bibb, Cornelius Connant  (1920/1921, Fall 1921);  Chapman, Compton V.  (dates unknown);  Fraser, James W.  (1921/1922, 1922/1923);  Lockett, John Leon  (1921/1922, 1922/1923);  Otis, Jesse R.  (Winter 1922, 1922/1923);  Patterson, Frederick D.  (Fall 1919, Winter 1920, 1920/1921, 1921/1922, 1922/1923);  Potts, Lawrence Alexander  (1921/1922);  Smith, Clarence S.  (Winter 1920, 1920/1921, 1921/1922);  Stubblefield, Malcolm J.  (1922/1923);  Sweatt, John. R.  (1920/1921)

226 1/2 Main Street

Historical Marker

A plaque affixed to the front façade of the Elliott Building (1895) at 226 Main Street sheds light on two of the building's prominent early occupants:

"Elliot Building. Built for J. B. Elliott Furniture and Undertaking, it became Adams Furniture and Undertaking in 1900. In 1921, James Herman Banning and Frederick Patterson lived upstairs. Banning was the first African American to receive a U. S. pilot's license and, in 1932, to fly across the United States. Patterson founded a Black Army Air Corp, the Tuskegee Airmen, and became president of Tuskegee Institute. The building features red, dark red, and tawny yellow bricks. The parapet has a basket-weave brick work plaque with solider-laid brick above the upper windows."

228 1/2 Main Street

Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, 2018 ("Ames Main Street Historic District")

The 228 Main Street building, now joined to its neighbor 226 Main Street through a common entrance, is a two-story, brick, commercial and residential building erected around 1894. The original storefront and the windows were altered during the mid-20th century campaign to modernize the downtown. Apartments on the building's second floor housed several Black families in 1925.

236 1/2 Main Street

Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, 2018 ("Ames Main Street Historic District")

236 Main Street was built in 1896-1897. Aubrey Cooper Aldridge, a Black student at ISC, lived here in the winter of 1923 through 1925. Earlier he rented a second-story flat at 226 Main Street.

The building is a two-story, brick structure that features a loosely Italianate commercial-style design. The first floor retail area has been occupied by Gilger Design (a jewelry store) since 1911. The original storefront has been altered, like most along Main Street, in accordance with changes in style and consumer taste.

This simple brick building has two front entrances. One leads into the store, the other provides access to the upper floor and its apartments. It is here that Aldridge would have spent his time while studying at ISC in the early 1920s.

128 Lynn Avenue (Demolished)

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Aldridge, Aubrey Cooper  (Fall 1919);  Smith, Clarence S.  (Winter 1919)

322 11th Street (Demolished)

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Bibb, Cornelius Connant  (Winter 1925)

410 10th Street (Demolished)

Curiously, there is no house at this address on the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps of 1920 or 1926. The structure on the site is a 1.5 story garage located on an alley. That garage is no longer standing. Perhaps the upper floor provided a small apartment for Cornelius Bibb in the fall of 1924.

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Bibb, Cornelius Connant  (Fall 1924)

622 Douglas Avenue (aka 620 1/2 Douglas)

This large single-family house, Queen Anne in style, was built in 1921. It is located immediately outside the southern boundary of the Old Town Historic District (City of Ames landmark, 1989; National Register of Historic Places, 2004).

Black ISC student Cornelius Connant Bibb likely rented a room in this house for several semesters in the early-1920s.

In a playful gesture, a recent owner has mounted an electric guitar atop the corner turret in a place traditionally reserved for an abstract finial or weather vane.

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Bibb, Cornelius Connant  (Fall 1922, Winter 1922, 1923/1924)

129 Ash Avenue (Demolished)

Pi Beta Phi Sorority House

Little is known of this Greek house, which may have been designed as a single-family residence and later converted for use as a sorority.

ISC student Lynce Crawford Bowling is associated with both this address and another nearby sorority at 302 Ash Avenue.

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Bowling, Lynce Crawford  (Fall 1917)

302 Ash Avenue

Delta Delta Delta Sorority House

This Georgian Revival sorority house, rambling and L-shaped in plan, is a distinguished addition to the 300-block of Ash Avenue. It is side-gabled with chimneys on either end and its 2-1/2 stories are primarily brick. Its main entrance has a decorated crown with flanking pilasters, which is typical of this style.

The circumstances in which two Black Iowa State College students found themselves living in what was, at the time, an all-white sorority, remain unclear. As the case of Nancy Martin would suggest, many fraternities and sororities hired local cooks and caretakers. It is possible that in the 1910s and 1920s, Black students assumed these roles at Delta Delta Delta.

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Bowling, Lynce Crawford  (Spring 1917, Spring 1918, 1919/1920);  Evans, Edward B.  (Fall 1916, Fall 1917)

2510 Lincoln Way (Demolished)

Much of the 2500-block of Lincoln Way was demolished in the late-2010s and early-2020s. Among the commercial uses that occupied this space in the first quarter of the 20th century--including several restaurants, a confectionery, garage, cobbler, popcorn-maker, stationery and sporting goods store, bakery, grocery, and barber--a handful of apartments could also be found.

Several of these were occupied by Black students. While providing convenient access across Lincoln Way to the heart of the ISC campus, the second-story and rear apartments were likely lacking in amenities and comfort.

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Sweatt, John R.  (1921/1922)

117 Welch Avenue (Demolished)

The north-south Welch Avenue artery attracted retail after Lincoln Way had been fully built out. The presence of former single-family homes, rooming houses, and fraternities mid-block, to the rear of present-day Campustown's commercial buildings, is a reminder of the sporadic and uneven development that occurs in many transitional neighborhoods.

117 Welch was likely a fraternity, or possibly a restaurant, when Black ISC students roomed here in the 1940s.

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Bowman, James Everett  (Fall 1942);  Martin, Robert Leander  (1940/41; 1941/42)

200 1/2 Main Street

Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, 2018 ("Ames Main Street Historic District")

This simple brick building was erected in ca. 1898 and updated a century later, around 1960. Like other buildings along Main Street, doors on the building's front façade provide access to the store and to the apartment suite above. In the 1920s, multiple Black Iowa State College students resided here.

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Brantley, Charles L.  (1924/1925);  Crutcher, Benjamin H.  (1925/1926);  Otis, Jesse R.  (Winter 1925);  Smith, Holloway  (Winter 1925, 1926/1927)  Romm, Harry Joseph  (Fall 1923, 1924/1925, 1925/1926);  Wells, William T.  (1923/1924, 1924/1925)

2184 Lincoln Way (Demolished)

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Crutcher, Benjamin H.  (1920/1921)

157 Campus Avenue (Demolished)

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Evans, Edward Bertram  (Spring 1917);  Richardson, Samuel A.  (Spring 1917, Fall 1917)

519 Welch Avenue

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Evans, Edward B.  (Spring 1916)

2508 Lincoln Way

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Evans, Edward B.  (Spring 1915)

325 Ash Avenue

Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity House

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Ewing, Willa Juanita  (1930)

2928 Wood Street (aka 2928 Woodman Street)

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Calloway, Nathaniel Oglesby  (1932/1933);  Ewing, Willa Juanita  (1924/1925, 1925/1926, 1934/1935)  Hardy, John Garrick  (1932/1933);  Munday, Reuben A.  (1934-1935)  Romm, Harry Josef  (1933/1934)

2122 Lincoln Way (Demolished)

Gamma Upsilon Fraternity House

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Ewing, Willa Juanita  (1923/1924)

124 South Hyland Avenue (Demolished)

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Hutchison, Claron C.  (Spring 1913)

Martin Hall

Iowa State University Residence Hall

Iowa State University erected this residence hall in the early-2000s and named the building in honor of Nancy and Archie Martin. The Martins provided Black students with room and board in their Lincoln Way home south of Ames' downtown.

2650 Lincoln Way (Demolished)

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Ewing, Willa Juanita  (1922/1923)

2650 Lincoln Way

Historical Marker

A stone marker with attached plaque sits near the front facade of the commercial use at this site. The plaque, erected by the Daughters of the American Revolution, reads:

"Site of the first house built in west Ames, circa 1856-1858. Home of Washington J. Graham, recipient of a U. S. Government land patent in 1855. He was influential in acquiring land for the Iowa Agricultural College & Model Farm, now Iowa State University. The restored house was removed from this site in 1951 to 216 Hayward Avenue. Sundial Chapter NSDAR - Ames, Iowa - July 4, 1976."

Depicted on the plaque is a drawing of the Graham House. The modest structure would have been familiar to the Black students known to have lived at this address.

Celebrated in the 1960s and 1970s as a rare survivor from an earlier time, the restored and relocated Graham House was razed in 1996 to make way for student apartments. Its demolition marked one of the earliest defeats for preservationists in Ames.

118 Hyland Avenue (Demolished)

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Jackson, Rufus  (Spring 1915)

154 Hyland Avenue (Demolished)

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Hutchinson, Claron  (Fall 1911)

2864 Woodman Street (aka 2864 Wood Street)

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Madison, Walter G., Sr.  (Fall 1911)

206 Main Street (Demolished)

The mixed-use building that formerly occupied this spot along Main Street survived until the last decades of the 20th century.

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Jackson, Rufus  (Spring 1916); Moore, E. (Fall 1915)

510 Stanton Avenue

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Owens, Anna Elnora  (Winter 1932);  Stewart, Katherine Glass  (Winter 1932)

208 Center Avenue (Demolished)

The home at 208 Center Street was a rental property, occupied by the Clifford Smith family. Smith and his wife Rena, an African-American couple, who eventually purchased the home, both worked for Iowa State College, he as a houseman and driver for the college president and she as a maid, according to the 1940 Federal Census. Their home, likely pictured at the far right in the first photo above, usually had a couple of Black roomers, some of whom were Iowa State College students, like Robert Martin and Benjamin Perry. This house and all the other houses on the four blocks making up the intersection of Center Street and Hannover Street were purchased by the City of Ames in 1966 and demolished to provide a site for Ames Electric Services' coal storage.

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Martin, Robert Leander  (Fall 1939);  Perry, Benjamin Luther, Jr.  (Winter 1941)

2840 West Street (Demolished)

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Richardson, Samuel A.  (Fall 1916)

1206 Orchard Drive

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Renfrow Terrell, Evanel E.  (1926/1927, 1928/1929)

420 Ash Avenue

This large, single-family house was built in 1908. The first and second floors are a single-family home and the basement was split into three apartments. The carriage house behind the home was also an apartment. The house itself was built in a vaguely Colonial style, which lost integrity as the exterior was changed to suit different trends over time. It appears to have many additions at the rear; the left side of the house may also be an addition, as evidenced by different windows and a change in massing. It features a French-style roof over the entry portico and grey asbestos siding. Besides obvious changes to the exterior, the home is still well-kept today.

Black students from Iowa State College would likely have been taken on as boarders, occupying some of the aforementioned basement apartments.

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Stewart, Katherine Glass  (1947/1948, Fall 1948)

2426 Lincoln Way (Demolished)

Demolished in the 2010s along with most of the 2400 block of Lincoln Way, the erstwhile retail building at 2426 was home to a grocer and warehouse during the 1920s.

Apartments on the upper floor of this 2-story brick building were occupied by Black students at Iowa State College, located immediately across Lincoln Way.

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Smith, Holloway  (Fall 1927)

1207 2nd Street

This modest single-family house is a mix of styles. Perhaps most prominent is the arched portico above the front door.

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Stewart, Katherine Glass  (1932/1933, 1933/1934)

2512 1/2 Lincoln Way (Demolished)

Much of the 2500 block of Lincoln Way was demolished in the late-2010s and early-2020s. Among the commercial uses that occupied this space in the first quarter of the 20th century--several restaurants, a confectionery, garage, cobbler, popcorn-maker, stationery and sporting goods store, bakery, grocery, and barber--several residential units could be found.

Several of these were occupied by Black students. While providing convenient access across Lincoln Way to the heart of the Iowa State College campus, the second-story and rear apartments were likely lacking in comfort.

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Bowman, James Everett  (1941/1942)

413 Douglas Avenue

Masonic Temple

Individually listed in the National Register of Historic Places, 2016

Black Students and Their Dates of Residence

 Trice, John G.  (1922/1923, Fall 1923);  Trice Green, Cora Starland  (1923)

127 Main Street

Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, 2018 ("Ames Main Street Historic District")