Herb Owens Print, Old Hotel

This painting shows the block of East Iowa street just east of Greenfield’s square that is flanked by the E.E. Warren Opera House, the Adair County Free Press and the town’s original hotel.  The three-story E.E. Warren Opera House was built in 1896 as a dry goods store with apartments and an opera house on the upper floors.  The Adair County Free Press was started in 1889 as the Adair County Democrat by E.J. Sidey and has been run by the Sidey family continuously for 120 years. The Old Hotel was built in 1920 with 15 local business men investing $3,000 each to finance the hotel.  During World War II soldiers and men registering for selective service would be picked up at the Old Hotel and bussed to Des Moines.

Herb Owens was a reporter for the Des Moines Tribune, a companion afternoon paper to the Des Moines Register.  He wrote the “Along the Way” column that featured stories about Iowa people in small towns.  After he retired in the early 1960’s, Owens took up painting.  Greenfield native Hugh Sidey, a Time magazine journalist who covered the White House for decades, commissioned Owens to paint a number of favorite local scenes.  The Greenfield Chamber selected six of these paintings to reprint on watercolor paper.  Each print measures 11x14 inches and is unframed.