Mount Vernon Honors U.S. History Students hosted their annual Mount Vernon History Night, where they presented projects that had local connections they researched and made a presentation out of.

Projects this year included interviews with local veterans, history of different homes in the Mount Vernon community, as well as some favorite returning topics, like Zadar the Cow From Hell!

Ella Messer and Trulie Breidinger did their project on the Palisades Keplar State Park, the second oldest state park in the State of Iowa.

Breidinger’s great-grandpa was one of the members of the local Civilian Conservation Corps who worked on constructing elements at the state park, including the lodge.

“For me, I just love going to Palisades, so it was fun learning more about the park,” Messer said.

“One of the things I learned about was that there used to be a hotel out at the park,” Breidinger said.

The duo said their primary source was the Iowa Department of Natural Resources website on the park itself.

Jacob Stewart and Ben Brinkmann researched the history of 213 First Avenue South.

Brinkmann said he wanted to learn more about the house, as it’s where he now lives.

“It was cool to learn that this house was one of the first homes in the area to have running water,” Brinkmann said. “They did that by capturing rain water and recycling it.”

Another fun fact was the barn in the back yard has a second floor where dances were held.

“I just think the architecture was really cool,” Stewart said.

And while they learned a lot from the Linn County Assessor’s Office, Brinkmann said one of their sources was one of his neighbors who helped provide other details about the house for the project as well.

Alice Whelan and Charlie Stewart interviewed local veteran Dave Rotschaler about his experiences in the Vietnam War.

One of the things they learned was that his family was surprised about his decision to enlist and serve in the war.

“We also discovered from him how people treated him when he returned home wasn’t the best, because it was an unpopular war,” Whelan said.

“That really stuck with you about the negative treatment he endured,” Stewart said.

Both wanted to do the project to learn more about the war and talk with a veteran willing to share his story to get that perspective in coverage.

Jo Barnes and her partner Willa Olinger researched the historic floods of the Cedar River.

The presentation focused on floods from 1945 through 1965.

“What I learned is a lot of the floods really hit the Cedar Rapids area a lot more,” Barnes said.

Their primary sources were local newspapers recounting the floods. Barnes noted some of those recounts don’t give the exact dates the flood stretched between, so that took more research to find.

One thing that stuck out to Barnes in the research is that even with how devastating the floods could be, people were still out on the river waters.

“That ability to have fun as you’re going through something devastating and terrible like a flood is something it was fun to see,” Barnes said.

Kinley Nissen and Torie Johnson researched 505 First Street Northeast, the Lester Buresh home.

“We wanted to learn more about Lester Buresh, since there is the Lester Buresh Family Community Wellness Center,” Nissen said.

The duo interviewed two of Buresh’s daughters to learn more about the unique features of the home he had in Mount Vernon.

“They helped to paint a lot more details than we could find on the assessor’s site, like why cabinets in the house were set at lower height,” Johnson said.

Illiana Abel and Aubrey Dix researched the home at 340 Country Club Drive.

Learning about the different styles of architecture and what defining characteristics there are for the home was one of their favorite parts of the project.

Connor Teague and Bryce Pyatt did research on a letter that was sent to Mount Vernon after the end of World War I, thanking the community for their support following the war.

“It was just cool to see that our small town had an impact for someone in France following the war,” Teague said.

One of the challenges was a photo that was sent with the letter and being able to identify who it was now for the duo. The project also had them working with a letter written in a foreign language and then the translated version of the letter.

Cooper Anderson and Max Ciha did their project on 722 Willow Creek Road, a home southwest of Mount Vernon built in the 1950s.

One of the things they learned in the project was how the population of Mount Vernon reflected consistent growth from the 1960s to the 1970s.

At the time, the economy was also seeing some increasing inflation.

“Even though there were some economic issues, the city of Mount Vernon was seeing consistent growth of people wanting to be here and building close to the community,” Ciha said.

They researched more about the home because they liked the view of it from the exterior.

Their primary source on information on the home was from the Linn County Assessor’s website, especially for floor plans.

Ireland Anderson and Brielle Hufendick’s project was a veteran interview with Eli Hotchkin, who served during the Iraq War.

“It was interesting to learn about that particular war and his service,” Anderson said.

“We learned that a lot of his time in the service was really doing more community service type work helping Iraqi citizens,” Hufendick said.