Historic General Dodge House

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Perched high above Council Bluffs overlooking the Missouri River Valley, sits the Historic General Dodge House --

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-- the former home of General Grenville Dodge and his family.

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[Michelle Hrdlicka] General Dodge was a Civil War General. He also organized a military spy system. He was the youngest general up until World War II in the U.S. Army as well as the civil engineer for the Transcontinental Railroad.

[Narrator] In 1859, Dodge, then a railroad engineer, met with former Illinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln, who was passing through Council Bluffs to survey land ahead of western railroad expansion. The following year, Lincoln would be elected President and soon after, the nation plummeted into Civil War. In 1863, President Lincoln would call on Dodge, now a General in the Union Army, to advise on a starting point for the Union Pacific Railroad.

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[Narrator] The two men settled on Council Bluffs where they had met years earlier.

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[Narrator] After the war, General Dodge became the chief engineer for the Transcontinental Railroad. He and his family rooted themselves in Council Bluffs and in 1869 built this magnificent brick Victorian home.

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[Michelle Hrdlicka] General Dodge was married to Ruth Anne Browne. They had three daughters. The oldest daughter Lettie, the middle daughter Ella and the youngest was Anne Dodge. Anne was the last Dodge to live in this home. When General Dodge built his home here, one of the reasons he built it up on the bluff is it overlooked the city, or actually the frontier at that time, but he could also see the railroad yard. And so, with his passion being the railroad, he enjoyed being able to oversee the yard.

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[Michelle Hrdlicka] The architect was William Boyington. He also was the architect for Terrace Hill in Des Moines.

[Narrator] Terrace Hill and the Dodge House share many similarities including the shutters.

[Michelle Hrdlicka] All of the shutters fold into the wall and you would never know that they were a shutter. They look like woodwork.

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[Narrator] Boyington topped both structures with a mansard roof, a multi-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterized by two slopes on each of its sides, often punctured by a dormer window.

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[Michelle Hrdlicka] The porch of the home is not the original porch. The original porch was replaced with the grand porch that you see now and that was done by the daughters. They wanted something a little more grand and elegant for entertaining. The grand porch itself is beautiful. We do a lot of events at the Dodge House and the porch is utilized for a lot of events.

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[Narrator] Located just behind the Dodge House sits the Carriage House.

[Michelle Hrdlicka] The Carriage House was built in 1880 and it is where the chauffeurs would live in the upper portion of the carriage house. And the sleighs and buggies would be in the lower portion.

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[Narrator] Original items owned by the Dodge family still remain inside the two-foot-thick brick walls of the historic Dodge House.

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[Michelle Hrdlicka] The main floor of the Dodge House was pretty much the living area for the Dodges. You have General Dodge's private library. Off of the library you enter into the dining room. And then behind me you have the formal parlor as well as the private parlor. General Dodge's private library is the most authentic room in the home. It has the most original Dodge items. So, one item that you do see in the library and the book case is an 1866 Winchester. It was a gift to General Dodge from the Union Pacific Railroad and that is one of our I would say most prized possessions in the Dodge House. Other items that are in the library are the General's original swords. So, above his portrait hangs his ceremonial sword and above the entrance to the library is his battle sword. We also have in the library the Dodge's Bible that is open to the marriages of the Dodge family in there. When you enter the dining room, you'll see the table is set for a 16-course meal. On the table is the Dodge's original gold Limoges China as well as golden goblets that sit on the table and they are known by three different names, the golden goblets, the Pusey goblets, also the Lincoln goblets. And the reason that they are called the Lincoln goblets is when Abraham Lincoln came to Council Bluffs, he drank out of one of those goblets. In the front parlor, you will see a pier mirror and in the back parlor there is another pier mirror. We also call those infinity mirrors or eternity mirrors. And no matter which parlor you're looking into, if you look into the mirror, you will see that the lights go on for an eternity. That's why we call them eternity mirrors as well. Those are original to the home. In the back parlor, you will see the portraits of General Dodge and Mrs. Dodge. We believe they were around 40 years old when those portraits were done and those are actually, as far as we know, the first portraits of the Dodge's.

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[Narrator] At the top of the stairs on the second floor, you will find living quarters including the General's Den, multiple bedrooms and the Gold Room.

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[Michelle Hrdlicka] The two older daughters, Ella and Lettie, they shared a room. We call that the Gold Room. One of the unique things that you find in there, the chandelier in that room is called Vaseline glass and it has Uranium in it. So, if a UV light is shined on that it actually glows green. And that is one of our favorite things to show some of our visitors that are really interested in the fine details of the home is the uranium glass that you find here. At some point, Mrs. Dodge did take one of the guest bedrooms and turned it into her own bedroom. And then when you climb up the next flight of steps you will be in the ballroom where the Dodge's did a lot of entertaining. They held many parties up there. That is also where the servants and the head housekeeper slept, their bedrooms would have been up there, as well as the male servant's bedroom would have been up there. A third floor of a home, most homes, would be an attic and the roofs on a standard home come to a peak. So, the side walls on a third floor are much lower whereas on the mansard, the third floor is opened up and the roof goes on the outside of the walls instead of going into a peak.

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[Michelle Hrdlicka] One of my favorite areas of the Dodge House would actually be the servant's stairway. When you look at the staircase you can see all of the marks on the faces of the steps and those are the servant's toe kicks. To go up the steps, the servants would be in long dresses and carrying things so they couldn't see where their feet were. So, to find their way up the steps they would kick the face of each step. To me, that represents the hard work of the servants to keep the Dodge family running.

[Narrator] The Dodge House's basement has been repurposed to pay homage to the man whose life's work put Council Bluffs on the map and cemented this western Iowa town's position as the Gateway to the West.

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[Michelle Hrdlicka] The dry and cold storage room now is one room and serves as our display room. It showcases items from the Civil War, presidential ties, Transcontinental Railroad and also the funeral of General Dodge. We have pictures on the back wall that shows that it was the largest funeral ever in Council Bluffs, over 2,000 people attended. And it shows the funeral procession as well as the burial. Council Bluffs, as well as Omaha, probably wouldn't be what it is today without General Dodge seeing the railroad through. It developed Council Bluffs as a city, establishing, in my opinion, the city of Council Bluffs, is what he did.

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