Camp Pope
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The House America Was Waiting For

Camp Pope, also, The House America Was Waiting For. Twenty-Eighth Iowa Infantry. , Camp Pope , Camp Pope was a Civil War training camp - one of two in Iowa City - located in this area. Between August and December of 1862, three infantry regiments spent a month each on this 28-acre site. The barracks were likely near the present alley between Sheridan and Seymour Avenues. Several street names in the neighborhood commemorate the Civil War. Sheridan and Grant were Union generals, of course, while E.T. Seymour's contribution to the war effort was providing an ox to be barbecued at a celebration for all regiments returning to Iowa City., Within weeks after the Iowa 28th left on December 12, 1862, the camp buildings were reportedly torn down or claimed by neighboring farmers and moved. However, local lore holds that some still stand today, perhaps the one directly in front of you. County plat maps show that the original structure was here before 1870, on land owned by Henry Strohm. A building of similar shape appears here on the 1864 Birds-Eye Map of Iowa City. By 1862, most houses were made with millsawn lumber, as this one was. Limestone was used for foundations, even after 1856, when Nicholas Oakes began making bricks north of present-day Longfellow School. This building could very well have been here since the Civil War., The House America Was Waiting For , It was the end of World War II, and 12 million servicemen and women were coming home. Despite a booming economy, affordable housing was scarce. Carl Strandlund, an innovative Chicago engineer, had a bold solution. He designed one of the first prefabricated factory-built houses: the Lustron home, promoted as "The House America's Been Waiting For.", From 1947 to 1950, the Lustron Corporation produced about 2,500 porcelain-enameled steel homes in a decommissioned airplane factory near Columbus, Ohio. Specially designed trucks delivered the houses, ready to assemble. They were small - under 1,000 square feet - but economical. A Lustron owner paid $7,000 to $11,000 for a new insulated home that was touted as modern, elegant, sanitary, rodent-free, fire-proof, and requiring little or no maintenance., President Harry Truman urged allocation of a $12.5 million Federal Reconstruction Finance Corporation loan to build more of the houses Americans were waiting for. At a time when one Lustron was springing up every four days, political insiders corrupted the process and the entire project collapsed. , , Not all Lustrons lived up to their promise: the factory-supplied heaters were badly designed, windows often leaked, and poor venting made some homes susceptible to mildew. However, the Lustrons in Iowa City are among about 2,000 in the country that have survived in their original, largely unmodified condition without any major repairs.