Youngville Cafe
About this property
Youngville Cafe, also known as Youngville Station, is a historic building located northwest of Watkins, Iowa, United States. It was a one-stop roadside business that included a café, a Skelly gas station, and three cabins for travelers to stay in. The cabins have subsequently been removed. The building calls attention to increasing business opportunities for women. The Tudor Revival building was built in 1931 by Joe Young on his pasture land for his widowed daughter Lizzie Wheeler to support her and her children. The main building also contained residential space where the family lived. It is located on U.S. Route 30, which at this point had been the Lincoln Highway. The café/station also served as a bus depot for the Greyhound and Jefferson bus lines. When Wheeler retired to Cedar Rapids, she rented out the business to others to run. She returned to the café/station in 1967 after the lease ended, but it closed that year because it didn't have enough parking and vehicles could no longer park along the highway. The building was used as a residence into the 1980s, when it was abandoned. The Benton County Sesquicentennial Commission acquired it as a restoration project to celebrate Iowa's 150th anniversary of statehood in 1996. It is now owned by the Youngville Highway History Association and open as a café on a limited basis. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. Highway construction and the COVID-19 pandemic led the establishment not to open in 2020. Youngville Cafe was also impacted by the August 2020 Midwest derecho, which topped off two pine trees and collapsed the garage onto the information kiosk. The damage prevented reopening until 2022.
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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Questions about this property
When was Youngville Cafe listed on the National Register?
Youngville Cafe was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 1, 2007.
What type of historic resource is Youngville Cafe?
Youngville Cafe is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for Youngville Cafe?
The period of significance for Youngville Cafe is recorded as the industrial era.
Can I research the history near Youngville Cafe?
Yes. Aubrey Research reports search National Register listings, battlefield records, land patents, and other primary historical sources within any radius of a US address. A report for an address near Youngville Cafe will include this listing and all other historical records in the area.
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