American Legion Mural Being Restored

The Cambridge American Legion had a mural created on their building in 2005.  This mural created by John Neal and Ken Tynan was listed as number 49 in The 50 Most Stunning Wall Murals From Around The World! 

Restoration of this mural is now underway by Shawn Palek of Slater.  You can see his pictures of some of the restoration on his Facebook fine art page.  The picture above shows the mural as of November 8, 2013.  The Tri-County Times November 7, 2013 (subscription required to read online) has an interview with him about the project.  Funds from the Cambridge American Legion and a grant from the Story County Community Foundation  have made the restoration possible.

Come and see this Cambridge landmark on Water Street!

The Old Cambridge Theatre is listed in Hollywood in the Heartland

Hollywood in the Heartland is a research project of Preservation Iowa and the Iowa State Historic Preservation Office that seeks to document Iowa's movie legacy.  Part of this has been identification of motion picture theaters and other buildings that have served as theaters.  Their online database of these buildings allows searching by name, city, county, and architect or builder.

Among the 16 buildings found by searching for Story (as a county), is the Cambridge Theatre shown above in its current incarnation as the Cambridge Library and the American Legion Post 233.  The Cambridge Theatre link describes its history and architecture.

The project is continuing to look for information about the theaters it has identified and any that it has missed.  You can help them by adding to their survey as described in Get Involved on this page.

Also, be sure to check out the section labeled Extras.  This includes Iowans in Hollywood and Hollywood in Iowa.

Cambridge Water Towers

The old Cambridge water tower was recently taken out of service and will eventually be removed.
Our "Cambridge, Iowa The First 150 Years" book shows it on page 36 shortly after it was built in 1920. Page 32 has a more recent view of it behind the City Hall, similar to the top picture.
Below it the new water tower west of town is shown as you drive toward Cambridge.