Pleasant View Log Post Office

This home/post office was once 13 miles southwest of Winterset, near the western edge of Madison County. Frederick Walker arrived at that spot in 1855 and built this log cabin to shelter his family, which consisted of his wife, a 5-year-old, a 3-year-old, and a newborn.

In the late 1800s, a better method of collecting and distributing mail was needed rather than making the long wagon trip to and from Winterset. Homes across Madison County began serving as post offices. The Pleasant View Post Office was in use from 1870 to 1876, Mail was picked up and delivered to the Walker home by “post riders” along a Des Moines/Creston route.  

The farm and log cabin remained in the Walker family until 1919, so likely this family made the first improvements such as additional rooms, plaster walls, wallpaper, and siding.  In 1960, the Winterset Postmistress Marguerite Gallery was made aware of its existence.  In a chance meeting with the owner 20 years later, he gave her permission to take any or all of the old house she cared to have.

The frame siding and kitchen that had been added over the years were removed. Gallery donated the log cabin to the Madison County Historical Complex site as a memorial to her husband Dan, a local attorney, in 1982.