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North Ames Holiday Display
Unpublished Tribune photo from December of 1948

In the 1940s, Ames residents could go “north of town” to admire one of the area’s earliest outdoor lighted Christmas holiday displays, found at the Edward and Neva Morris farmstead.  Today, this house is within the city limits, located five houses north of Twenty-fourth Street on the west side of Hoover.  The outdoor decorating tradition began about 1939 or 1940 when artistic daughter, Betty Lee, cut out a sleigh and reindeer from an old refrigerator carton and mounted it on the housetop.  The following year and thereafter a more permanent plywood display graced the peak.  Hundreds of people drove along Hoover Avenue to view the novelty.  Learn more about the Morris home.

This portion of a Franklin Township plat map shows the Morris farm.  Because the map is from 1908, the farm is labeled as being owned by Walter Morris, Edward's father.  Today the southern boundary of the farm would be Twenty-fourth Street; the northern boundary would be Bloomington & Top-O-Hollow; to the east would be Hoover.  The small plat labeled as school number 8 would later be the site of a water tower.

Jolly Ol' St. Nick greets passers-by from the lawn of the E.P. Swanson home, 2601 Hunt.  Santa is just about to board his sleigh full of toys for the annual Dec. 24 trip.  At night three flood lights illuminate the scene and blinking Christmas tree lights on the shrubs complete the Christmas decorations.

This damaged Tribune negative from 1955 shows holiday season decorations in the yard of the Swanson's home on the corner of Hayward and Hunt.  In addition to the special holiday decorations, the home has been noted for being one of the 2680 Lustron homes produced following WWII.   Learn more about Lustron homes.