Church, School and Societies

A Methodist church organization was established in Lafayette in 1839. A weekly prayer meeting was established and semi-monthly preaching held in the residence of James R. Short. Finally a log meeting house was erected and served its purpose for until 1845. That year a brick structure used for Mormon services in the hollow, was purchased by the Methodists as their new sanctuary. It was relocated up to a side hill, west of Main street in the Potosi.

The first school of which there is any record of commenced in 1838 in a log cabin in Lafayette, when Cornelius Kennedy, a revolutionary soldier and a martinet educator, began classes.

The first regular meeting of the Masons, "Warren Lodge of Ancient York Mason," was held in a room over Coons and Wooley's store in Lafayette on May 2, 1844. They later moved their meetings to Potosi.

Leisure Activities

Besides being a place for commerce and travel, Lafayette and the 'Port of Potosi' brought in traveling entertainment groups, as early magistrate Judge Wilmott illustrates in this excerpt from his newspaper column, With the Potosi Pioneers.

In 1857 Potosi was plastered with large flaming posters announcing that Spaulding and Rogers minstrel troupe would be at the Potosi landing July 12th. The boat was a large and beautiful craft and had a seating capacity of one thousand people, and the minstrel troupe was than one of the best traveling. The handsome appearance of the Floating Palace and its rich furnishing were beautiful to look at. The show was a first class one, and drew an immense crowd from the village and interior towns. Every seat being taken. The writer, then a young lad, under the guidance of an elder brother attended the show. The boat made a landing at every important point on the Mississippi and large tributaries between New Orleans and St. Paul.

Athletics and dancing abounded in these Mississippi bottoms too. A Baseball Club was organized in Potosi in 1921. Nine athletic young men made up the first team. For many years baseball was played on a diamond on the other side of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy tracks. The boys kept it mowed and clean for the games which were played mostly on Sunday afternoons.

The Park was also the scene of the Bowery Dances in the late 20's and early 30's. Big Bands of the day played there on Saturday nights. Tom Owens was one of them. Puffer (Leo) Stoll owned the dance floor which was built in sections so it could be moved after each dance. Those were the days of the Flappers with the short dresses, the Ford cars nicknamed Flivvers and the Shingle hair styles which made the women look like men from the back.

Both the dances and the ball games were discontinued because the park was subject to flooding, especially after the locks were built at Dubuque and Guttenburg.