GRAND MOUND, Iowa — In Downtown Grand Mound, a new addition is helping turn back time.
"It’s just an absolute dream come true," said Don Kent.
Kent is a 97-year-old from Grand Mound.
Kent's family was used to life on the railroad. His father was a railroad station agent in Monmouth, Iowa, before the family moved to Grand Mound.
"My dad, he didn’t like to have kids sitting around doing nothing, so he taught me the code, so I learned how to telegraph," Kent said.
But over the years, Kent gathered parts of train depots from around the area.
"And finally my wife said you’ve gotta find, build yourself a depot to get rid of this stuff and get it out of my house," Kent said as he laughed.
So one of Kent's friends helped build the depot, then moved it to it's new home on the corner of Clinton and Smith streets in Grand Mound.
"That’s as close as you’re gonna get to a 1900 small town depot," Kent said.
Brad Mosier is one of the volunteers that helped put the depot together.
"He really wanted to create something that would be a long lasting legacy that would basically keep going his story about railroads," Mosier said.
And that is exactly what Kent wanted to show in the museum.
"Everything’s got a story," Kent said.
It is the artifacts like the railroad tie markers that helped Kent tell the historical story.
Other displays include a telegraph operator and ticket punching systems. Each display includes a description about the importance of each artifact.
"This is how it used to be. It was another day," Kent said.
Another day, as Don Kent gets set to welcome the community to his depot.
The museum officially opens to the public with a grand opening ceremony on May 1, 2021 at 10 a.m. The museum will also be open throughout the summer on Saturdays from about 10 a.m. until noon.