Illustrated Review of Ottumwa, Iowa 1890 - Softcover

1890 – Ottumwa, Iowa: The nation's only Coal Palace has just finished its first season, with another exhibition scheduled for 1891. Finishing touches are being put on the Opera House at the corner of Main and Jefferson. The new post office has just gone into service. Churches, schools, businesses and hotels are busy; houses from simple to grand march up the hills on the north side of the Des Moines River and spread across the plain on the south bank. Originally published in 1890, Illustrated Ottumwa is a time capsule of the city’s progress and history just decades after its founding. More than 100 years later, few copies of the book exist to show the high hopes, big dreams, and excitement to be found in Ottumwa, Iowa. This edition contains all the text and photographs to be found in the original, along with added illustrations from the 1890s. Text has all been reset for added clarity, and photographs are reproduced in a larger size than in the original.

Leigh Michaels is the award-winning author of more than eighty romance novels, which have been translated and published in 120 countries, and in more than twenty-five languages. She was born and raised in rural Iowa and was only a teenager when she wrote her first romance novel (which she subsequently burned, along with the next five books she would write). Since then, six of her novels have been finalists for RITA awards, and she received two Reviewer's Choice awards from Romantic Times. She is also the 2003 recipient of the Johnson Brigham Award. In addition to her prolific writing career, Leigh also teaches romance writing, and is the author of On Writing Romance, which has been called the definitive guide to writing romance novels. Leigh currently resides in Ottumwa, Iowa, where she and her photographer husband enjoy watching white-tailed deer and wild turkeys that visit their property.