![]() A New Name īy 1937, only two trains stopped daily the sagging business climate needed a boost. By the late 1920s, workers of Valley Junction were suffering from the Depression because the railroads were abandoning track there (completed in 1936), and the Keystone Coal Factory closed due to flooding in the tunnels. The Des Moines Golf and Country Club left Des Moines in 1923 and moved to White Pole Road auto trail. Valley Junction officially become a dry town in 1915. Two men shot themselves in desperation before the strike ended. It was a time which pitted neighbor against neighbor, tearing at the fabric of the community. The resulting hardships suffered by the idled workers led the most desperate to choose between breaking the strike or letting their family starve. The area was dubbed "Hyde Park" by the strikers. For their own protection, they lived in boxcars and tiny houses in an area south of Railroad Avenue and west of the main rail yards. The replacements were mostly Mexican and African-American laborers brought up from Oklahoma by R. The railroad company reacted by bringing replacement workers into town to break the strike. The foundations of the city were shaken by a 22-month-machinist strike at the Rock Island shops. The new school was the only bright spot in the otherwise uncertain dreary years of 19. A new junior high school was proposed, approved, and completed by the fall of 1923. By 1919, the rooms of the new high school were filled. As a part of the school board policy, only first-class college-educated teachers were hired. Building commenced and by September of the following year, the doors of the new Valley High School were opened at 8th and Hillside. The similar new grade school issue was defeated soundly. The bond issue to build a new high school for $50,000 was approved by a 2 to 1 vote. The serious dilemma of school overcrowding was partially addressed in 1916. The wood was salvaged and then used to construct buildings in Valley Junction. This baptism by blood left a bad taste in the mouth of the locals, and the track was closed two years later. Smiling Ralph Mulford won the race with DePalma a close 2nd. Later while rounding a curb, a wheel of Billy Chandler's Duesenberg failed, cartwheeling the car into the infield and fatally injuring his mechanic, Maurice Keeler. Cooper was killed and his mechanic was injured. Before a crowd of 7,000 people, a tire blew, lunging Joe Cooper's car over the rail. De monies iowa drivers#Ralph DePalma, winner of the Indianapolis 500 that year, was one of at least a dozen drivers vying for the $10,000 purse. On August 7, 1915, the eyes of the auto world were on Valley Junction in anticipation of the fastest 300-mile (480 km) auto race in history. It was one of 24 such tracks nationwide with seating for over 10,000 people. The wooden track was made of 980,000 feet (300,000 m) of 2x4's laid on edge. But in 1915 an Englishman named Jack Prince built a one-mile (1.6 km) oval race track, designed to let race cars break that speed limit ten times over. The speed limit of ten miles (16 km) an hour had existed in Valley Junction since 1911 for all automobiles. The Rock Island's facilities moved out of Valley Junction and back into Des Moines in 1936.Ĭar raced at Valley Junction's board track In its early days, Valley Junction was home to the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad's switching facilities and repair shops due to its location at the junction of several railroad lines. West Des Moines incorporated as the city of Valley Junction on October 9, 1893. In West Des Moines' early years, the town was a trading and shipping junction. The Jordan House was a stop on the Underground Railroad, and abolitionist John Brown stayed on Jordan property multiple times, at least once while escorting a group of freedom-seeking slaves to Canada. His residence, the Jordan House, has been restored and is now home to the West Des Moines Historical Society. Near the stroke of midnight on October 11, 1845, a gunshot was fired by a cattle farmer, James Cunningham Jordan (1813–1893) to declare that the area was open for Anglo-European settlement. The West Des Moines area used to be home to the Sac and Fox tribes. ( March 2018) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) There might be a discussion about this on the talk page. This section may be confusing or unclear to readers. ![]()
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