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The Historical Society of Pottawattamie County.

Council Bluffs Under Glass

Great soil, plenty of sunshine, and access to large markets via the city’s vast railroad network made Council Bluffs a natural spot for greenhouses— and that industry played a significant part in the city’s economic growth. The city’s four largest greenhouses alone covered in excess of a million square feet under glass. 


The first greenhouse was built just north of what’s now Kanesville Boulevard between Benton and Frank Streets on a ten acre plot set aside by the Mormons for a public garden. Commercially what became a multimillion dollar industry began rather simply when Mary Casper, a farm wife east of Council Bluffs, began selling canned goods out of her garden. It proved profitable. Seeing opportunity her husband built a greenhouse to extend the season for the produce his wife was canning. It eventually became the largest greenhouse west of the Mississippi. 

Council Bluffs’ first commercial greenhouse became the largest such operation west of the Mississippi with over 700,000 square feet under glass.

The Wilcox home was one of only two houses on East Pierce when built in 1903, predating Jennie Edmundson Hospital. The house had been vacant for a few years and the family was considering turning it into apartments when the highway commission acquired it.

Wilcox greenhouses extended from East Pierce Street to the top of the hill where Kirn Junior high sits today. 

The Casper greenhouse, Council Bluffs’ first commercial greenhouse, eventually became the largest such operation west of the Mississippi with over 700,000 square feet under glass.

John F. Wilcox worked as a laborer at the Casper greenhouse. He married the Caspers' niece in 1885 and bought the business, expanding it by adding 19 acres of greenhouses between Oak Street and North Avenue. In 1903 Wilcox established his home at the south border of his property, a grand eighteen room house with a third floor ballroom that hosted Theodore Roosevelt on his campaign swing through Iowa. More Wilcox greenhouses were added near Lake Manawa. The latter were probably Council Bluffs' biggest property loss of the Easter Sunday 1913 tornado, but were rebuilt and continued in operation as part of the company until 1959. The Wilcox greenhouse specialties were poinsettias, roses, Easter lilies, mums, daffodils, and geraniums.


J.F. Wilcox died in 1912 at the age of 49 but left his wife and five sons to run the business. In 1967 the greenhouses along Pierce Street and the mansion were razed to make way for rerouting of U.S. Highway Six and Iowa 64. Two brothers opened a new, more automated greenhouse on the eastern outskirts of Council Bluffs and two relocated to Omaha. The last presence of the Wilcox floral empire appears to have been Bloomin’ John’s, a store in the downtown Midlands Mall that closed in 1990.

Fred Lainson began with a single greenhouse off of Canning Street adding more buildings as his business expanded.

The Neilsen Nursery and Greenhouse was on South Avenue then later moved to the South Omaha Bridge Road.

Fred Lainson began with a single greenhouse off of Canning Street adding more buildings as his business expanded.

The Neilsen Nursery and Greenhouse was on South Avenue then later moved to the South Omaha Bridge Road.

Just east of the Wilcox operation Fred Lainson began raising tomatoes and cucumbers in a greenhouse adjacent to an apple orchard on Canning Street. Additional greenhouses were added. By 1920 Lainson discontinued vegetables, concentrating instead on flowers, particularly roses and orchids, though one of the greenhouses boasted a large banana tree. Fred Lainson died in 1940 when a section of a retaining wall fell on him. Though commenting that “managing a greenhouse is not a woman’s job" Lainson’s wife Anna, a nurse, continued the business until it was demolished in the highway relocation project of 1967.

Inside the retail shop of Hinman Greenhouse in the mid 1970s.

In the early part of the 20th Century the Herman Brothers greenhouse at the intersection of Twenty-ninth Street and Ninth Avenue ranked second to the Wilcox operation in size. Roses, carnations, and chrysanthemums were the principal products, but many other flowers were grown in smaller quantities under the company’s 200,000 square feet of glass. Deliveries were made locally and flowers were shipped to other states. Active about the same time, the Fred Meyers greenhouse on Benton Street specialized in plants made for window boxes as well as vegetables.


By 1913 L.H. Reams had established a greenhouse for the wholesale and retail growing of vegetables and flowers at 26th and Avenue E. The operation grew to seventeen greenhouses and was purchased in 1934 by John T. Walton, who had learned the horticultural business during his time as bookkeeper and office manager for J.F. Wilcox and Sons. Walton Greenhouse remained in operation until 1954.


In 1927 Claude Hinman founded C.E. Hinman and Sons wholesale greenhouse just east of town on U.S. Highway Six. Another of the city’s largest greenhouses, It remained family operated until 1987 at which time emphasis was shifted from greenhouse operations to retail sales under the name Flowers by Hinman.


Clarence Hardiman started his greenhouse on North 15th Street as a hobby. A grocer, he built a fifteen by fifty foot greenhouse with glass tops from cigar boxes to raise vegetables for his own use. Grocery store customers wanted to buy the vegetables and what started for fun became a business, eventually replacing the grocery store in 1975.


Seventy-five years ago an observer commented when one gazed at Council Bluffs from atop a bluff on a bight day they had to squint owing to the shimmer of sunlight glistening from so many thousands of acres of glass roofs all over town. Why is this no longer the case? Council Bluffs still has a nursery business, but with smaller operations. The giant greenhouses of the past were expensive to heat and very labor intensive; newer technologies provide innovative ways of getting plants nutrients, water and light in much less space and with less manpower. Overnight shipping also makes it possible to grow plants in places with the optimum environment for each species at a lower cost.


(Story by Richard Warner. Dr. Warner is editor of the Historical Society of Pottawattamie County’s “Member Journal.")

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