SW Rides VII

Starting down county gravel (260th Street) evokes many memories. It’s gravel so you hear the roar of the road under the car and hear an occasional piece of gravel kick up and hit the under belly of the car. A cloud of dusk chases us down the road.

It’s not long before we go down a hill. There are woods on both sides of the road here. I have been in them many times while hunting. The old right of way for the K-line passes right through the middle, crosses the road and heads south towards Denova. Dad talks about the K-line as we pass. He misses the days of the old railroad and the steam driven locomotives.

About a mile down the road we come to Gibson Park. It is named after Isaac Gibson who lived there. He was an early Quaker reformer in the 1870s who was involved in starting the Bureau of Indian Affairs, orphan homes and White’s Institute.

This park area has been a special place for our family. I am not sure why but we seem to be drawn to this area. It is the place where bugs walk on water. My mother and father took our girls here several times when they were young and the girls were fascinated with the bugs that could walk on the surface of the water. That was in a small stream on the south side of the park.

The streambed is full of fossils from the Mississippian bedrock that is exposed at the surface here. It is the only place in Southeast Iowa that this is the case and one of the few places in Iowa. It is listed in the Iowa Geological Survey. My father was, no doubt hunting fossils there when they took our daughters there. I took my student fossil hunting there, too. On the north side of the road in the park there is a shelter and a large mowed area up to the oxbow lake.

This is where we had our annua fourth grade outdoor day while I was a teacher. Both Mom and Dad were often part of the program that led small groups on adventures. Dad shared his arrowheads and Mom her apple dolls or she took the kids on bird walks in the woods. The kids would pack a lunch and spend the entire day out here.

I also took summer science students fishing here because there was easy and safe access to the water. The county re-channeled Big Cedar here, moving the main channel west of here and leaving a small lake where Big Creek used to be.

Leaving the mowed area of the park we can go back the way we came on 260th Street, go south on the road (Clayton Avenue) that crosses the creek where bugs walk on water, or we can head west. A few hundred yards down the road west is the new bridge over the newer channel of Big Creek. I think this work was done in the 1950s. I am not sure why, but I suspect it was because the area often flooded and was impassible in high water.