Author Rachelle Chase will present a multimedia program, “Buxton, Iowa: The Town that Vermonter Ben Buxton Built,” at the Middletown Springs Historical Society on Saturday, August 5, at 3 pm.
In 1900, at a time when Jim Crow laws, segregation, and the Ku Klux Klan kept blacks and whites separated, Vermonter Ben C. Buxton, a superintendent for the Consolidation Coal Company, established Buxton, Iowa. Buxton was a thriving coal mining town where African Americans and Caucasians lived, worked, and went to school side by side. African Americans—miners, teachers, business owners, doctors, lawyers, and more—made up more than half of the population for the first 10 years and remained the largest ethnic group until 1914. By 1922, Buxton was a ghost town.
Using rare photographs and audio clips from former residents, “Buxton, Iowa: The Town that Vermonter Ben Buxton Built,” highlights Ben Buxton and shows how Buxton differed from other mining towns and how it became the largest unincorporated town in Iowa.
Rachelle Chase is a senior business analyst for Fortune 500 companies, model, and published romance and nonfiction author, who has hosted successful talk shows and appeared on local and national television and radio. Her latest book, LOST BUXTON, was released January 9, 2017 by Arcadia Publishing. For more information: http:// rachellechase.com.

Refreshments will be served and museum exhibits on Middletown Springs history will be on view during the afternoon from 2 pm. Admission is free and the building is handicap accessible. For more information about the call David Wright at 235-2376.

Dec 22, 2024, 9 to 9 AM

Dec 22, 2024, 2 to 4 PM

Dec 24, 2024, 6 to 7 PM