Manilla,IA

Comment

Comment by Pamela Jo James King on September 18, 2009 at 7:55am

Frank James, my grandad and Bud's brother, moved into this house in town. Then when we moved off the farm, mom and dad and three of us kids lived upstairs while my grandad's new house was being built on the other end of this property. The outside of this house was stucco and had tiny pieces of, I guess, shell. So Bill and I would pop the shell off the house!! The house is still there, a block off mainstreet.

Comment by Pamela Jo James King on September 18, 2009 at 7:45am

Astor was hopefully going to be on the RR shortcut to Sioux City but the RR bought the Paup's farm 2 miles east of Astor, sold the lots and brought the shortcut through that town, now Manilla. Businessmen in Astor went to the new town. In 1885 Astor had a 4th of July celebration and had a tug-of-war contest. They decided to name the new town with the contest. Some thought it should be named Paupville after the farm. There was a new self-binder for the grain that the hardware store was advertising with fliers. Grain had been hand-bound up til then. Anyway the new twine was called Manila Binder Twine. So the other end of the tug-of-war was for the name Manila. You know who won and the second L happened when they recorded the name incorrectly!!

Comment by Robert Patrick James on September 17, 2009 at 10:36pm

So I was reading up on a little Manilla history and found out The name came from Manila twine company. They added an extra L.
When I mentioned this to my dad he said they used a lot of twine for baleing hay and what-not on the farm .

Comment by Robert Patrick James on September 17, 2009 at 10:22pm

So Pamela was this a family house thats still there in Manilla?