North Bend Community Center & Historic Site

North Bend Community Center & Historic Site

Since 2001, the North Bend Community Center & Historic Site group have published a number of books on local history, started an archive of current & historic local photographs (Approximately 5,000 photos at present) collecting all the history of the North Bend area where ever and in what ever form it may be found.  This is an ongoing project.  All of the books have been accepted by the State Historical Society at Des Moines, and at their request, a duplicate set were given to the State Historical Society at Iowa City.  Some of the

books were also accepted into the Daughters of the American Revolution (D.A.R.) National Library in Washington, D.C. We have also given much assistance to and been featured in, the documentary, "One Room School, One Room -One Nation" which was premiered at the State Historical Society at Des Moines on Nov. 19, 2010.  We were the recipients of the Loren Horton Community History Award, from State Historical Society at Des Moines in 2009. 

The original purpose of the North Bend Community Center organization was to save, renovate and restore the old North Bend Schoolhouse. Which has been done, however, it also saved, renovated and restored something else much more valuable, which had also been largely abandoned; The North Bend Community itself.  During the 1980's & 1990's due to the decline in farming, many farmers in the area quit farming and either left the area, or took jobs in area towns and cities. This lead to the residents of the North Bend neighborhood to become disconnected from each other. Neighbors just didn't stop by to shoot the breeze anymore. No one worked together to accomplish a common goal, or just help out if it was needed. Neighbors were becoming strangers.  This project changed all that.  It has rejuvenated the neighborhood and brought people together in the same way it did when it was a church and school.  The "neighboring" is back in a big way.  People are excited and enthusiastic about finding and sharing not only the local history, but their personal and family histories as well.  And this community is not only local, our membership at present includes several hundred people and extends across the United States and into foreign countries.  

Over the decades the North Bend schoolhouse has mattered to literally hundreds of people.  It still matters to hundreds of people, in the form of the North Bend Community Center & Historic Site, in various ways. One of those ways is sentimental; many of the former pupils are very happy and gratified that so many people care about something which they thought no one cared about.  In a way, this validates them and their own history, and keeps it relevant.

This Place Matters, and will continue to do so in the future as well, as a place for community to gather and as a living link to our collective past.

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