It ’ s a hot August afternoon . Temperatures are in the 90s and the sun is shining brightly as John Jacobs , of Mahaska County , steps into the Oskaloosa Public Library ’ s research room . Most library patrons pass their whole lives without even scratching the surface of the histories and records that are archived inside , just as devotedly as the children ’ s picturebooks or adult fiction volumes are in other , more popular parts of the library .
But Jacobs is not most library patrons .
He knows exactly what he ’ s looking for and heads straight for the microfilm machine in the corner of the room , asking a librarian for access to the archived Oskaloosa Herald editions that are stored on little rolls of film on his way .
Jacobs selects the roll of film he wants , threads it into the machine , and opens a tiny , desktop computer-sized window into a Mahaska County barely recognizable today — the one that existed a hundred years ago .
“ I ’ ve always been interested in history ,” Jacobs said . “ See , I was born in 1947 , and what it was , was in 1955 Walt Disney had Davy Crockett on , and that got me interested .”
If the rather romantic , swash-buckling adventures of the “ King of the Wild Frontier ” are what first piqued Jacobs ’ interest in history , his first access to a library is what cemented it .
“ I went to a little country school , and I can remember when we got a library ,” Jacobs said . “ We had a place to put books … We had a library , and we had books to read , and I remember I got a [ history ] book and I read that book in a day .”
“ We were the frontier ,” Jacobs said . “ We were the wild west in 1843 . It was a little bit wild … not what I would call totally civilized . You had your incidents even here , in Oskaloosa . Reading the old papers , 1880s and whatnot , people are getting beat up and shot at .”
What Jacobs is describing is an entirely different town than the one Oskaloosans know and love today . Those early copies of the Herald , now kept in microfilm format at the library , have the power to take Jacobs back through Oskaloosa ’ s history as a wild , developing frontier town — as well as Mahaska County ’ s legacy as the home of soldiers and heroes who fought and died in the Civil War , along with Iowa ’ s identity as the geographic heart of a rapidly evolving nation .
Every time Jacobs returns to the old copies of the Herald for one more read , he discovers something new .
“[ The name ] Henry M . Newton , it doesn ’ t mean anything to you . George Woodson , that doesn ’ t mean anything to you . Well , you find out down the road who those people were , so then you start watching out for them ,” he said .
By his own admission , Jacobs says that even when he ’ s only looking for a specific item in the old newspapers , it ’ s easy to get sidetracked reading fascinating side stories now that he knows so much about local history and can recognize important names and places in Mahaska County ’ s timeline . After years of doing research , Jacobs credits a large part of his knowledge of Mahaska County history to the Herald ’ s coverage , beginning at its roots in 1850 .
From those humble beginnings at South Honey Grove in Keokuk County , Iowa , where Jacobs attended a school with only five children in his class , a lifelong passion was born . Jacobs ’ interest in history grew over the years . In the 1970s he began going to the Oskaloosa Public Library to go through old copies of the Oskaloosa Herald , writing down interesting facts and stories as he went , taking his notes home to transcribe .
“ I was a shy and bashful kid ,” Jacobs said wryly . “ Mom would bring me to town — We lived at Rose Hill — and we ’ d go to Montgomery Ward ’ s . I would go to Woolworth ’ s . They had model cars . I think the library I was in one time when I was a little kid . I never went in there again until the 70s ,” he said , which was when Jacobs discovered old copies of the Herald .
“ I don ’ t know that they had this stuff on microfilm yet , so you had to go through the original papers . I don ’ t know how I found out about them having the papers , but I did , and I ’ d go down there and read … I don ’ t know how many times I ’ ve been through the newspapers ,” Jacobs said .
Mahaska County was formed in 1843 , and the Oskaloosa Herald started as a newspaper in 1850 . During his time spent poring over old editions of the paper , Jacobs has learned about and grown an appreciation for Iowa as a former part of America ’ s frontier .
The research shelves at the Oskaloosa Public Library . Jacobs fondly refers to the library as his “ second home .”
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