-Farm News photo by Darcy Dougherty Maulsby
Measuring 14 feet in diameter, this ceramic tile mosaic features roughly 50,000 pieces of tile, forming the centerpiece of the rotunda floor in the Greene County Courthouse in Jefferson.

JEFFERSON –There’s a mystery in the Greene County Courthouse — and it’s hiding in plain sight on the rotunda floor in this grand, 100-plus-year-old building.

Who created the “Greene County, Iowa: The Land of Plenty,” ceramic tile mosaic featuring a large cornucopia of corn?

“We did our research, and the closest we ever found was a mention that the mosaic was installed by a local craftsman,” said Don Van Gilder, a retired assistant Greene County engineer and unofficial courthouse historian.

Measuring 14 feet in diameter, the artwork features roughly 50,000 pieces of tile.

“The tiles vary in size from three-fourths inch square to very tiny, irregular shaped pieces,” Van Gilder said. “This artwork displays a great deal of skill and ingenuity.”

-Farm News photo by Darcy Dougherty Maulsby
On the Panama-Pacific International Exposition grounds, the Iowa Commission had a massive cornucopia display built — about 30 feet tall and 40 feet wide. Huge signs with “Iowa” on them flanked both sides of the horn of plenty, which was emblazoned with the words, “The Land of Plenty.” Spilling out from this cornucopia were 400 bushels of Zeller seed corn.

The question about who created the mosaic emerged around 2010, when famed Iowa columnist Chuck Offenburger was standing in the courthouse rotunda, gazing at the mosaic. When Van Gilder walked out of his office, the pair admired the size, color, intricacy and artistry of the corn mosaic.

To find more answers, Van Gilder and other county officials reviewed the original blueprints for the courthouse, the architects’ notes, board of supervisors’ meeting minutes, and stacks of 100-year-old articles from the Jefferson Bee and the Jefferson Herald.

They came across many names of people involved in the design, construction and finishing work on the courthouse. They learned that the current building was built at a cost of nearly $180,000. They noted that groundbreaking for this remarkable courthouse started in 1915, and the building was dedicated on Oct. 27, 1917 — an event that attracted 10,000 people.

They discovered the names of the artists who completed the murals on the sidewalls at the top of the rotunda. But they struck out on finding the identity of the mosaic’s artist (or artists).

“It’s still a mystery,” said Van Gilder, a member of the “Courthouse 100” committee, who planned the courthouse’s centennial celebration in 2017.

That’s where the tall corn grows

This historic courthouse is the third center of government dedicated to serving the people of Greene County. The first (a one-story wooden structure that doubled as a schoolhouse) was built in 1856 on the town square in Jefferson. (Prior to this, a local judge held court in a log cabin southeast of Jefferson, after Greene County was organized in 1854.)

A new courthouse (a two-story building referred to as the Red Brick courthouse) was built in the town square in 1870 to replace the original courthouse. By the late 19th century and early 20th century, however, it was clear the Red Brick courthouse was inadequate.

“Greene County was growing fast back then, especially with the railroad coming to the area,” Van Gilder said. “The second courthouse was condemned because of fire hazards, and the new one was built to be as fireproof as possible.”

This third courthouse was a work of art. Designed in the Beaux Arts style, the elegant building incorporated prominent features that were much more common in state capitols and federal buildings than rural county courthouses.

“It’s a real gem on the prairie,” Van Gilder said.

Greene County’s agricultural heritage — combined with a major national event in 1915– inspired the corn theme that accents the rotunda.

Back then, the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (similar to a world’s fair) was held in San Francisco, California, between February and December 1915. Among the many exhibitions and contests held at this extravaganza, which attracted more than 18 million people, was a competition for best seed corn.

In west-central Iowa, plenty of people already knew that Willard Zeller of Franklin Township in southern Greene County was developing the best seed corn around. He had refined and improved the trusty Reid’s Yellow Dent Corn, which he’d originally purchased in Illinois.

“All this started a few years before 1915, when Willard entered what he thought was really good corn in a contest in Omaha,” said Van Gilder, referring to the 10 ears of corn that Zeller exhibited in the National Corn Show. “When he got 13th place, he vowed he’d never be 13th in anything again.”

Zeller got serious about breeding top-quality corn after the “unlucky 13 fiasco.” He took two of his highest-yielding ears of corn from the group he exhibited in Omaha, including one that produced 118 bushels per acre, and another that produced 105 bushels. His corn breeding efforts paid off, as he won top honors at corn shows around the Midwest and beyond.

By 1915, he formed Zeller Seed Company. He and his son Earle Zeller took their best 80 ears of 1914 corn to San Francisco, where their entry won the world championship. Back home, the state’s “Iowa Commission for the San Francisco Exposition” saw an opportunity to launch a new promotion, featuring Iowa as “The Corn State.”

They sent representatives to Zeller’s farm and bought all the ears of corn available — 400 bushels of it. Each ear was carefully wrapped individually in newspapers, placed in barrels and shipped in a boxcar destined for San Francisco.

On the Panama-Pacific International Exposition grounds, the Iowa Commission had a massive cornucopia display built — about 30 feet tall and 40 feet wide. Huge signs with “Iowa” on them flanked both sides of the horn of plenty, which was emblazoned with the words, “The Land of Plenty.” Spilling out from this cornucopia were 400 bushels of those splendid ears of Zeller seed corn.

“This gave Iowa national recognition as a major corn-growing state and put us on the map,” said Van Gilder, who grew up on a farm in Greene County.

Inspiring awe

Around this time, county officials back in Jefferson were studying the proposed designs for the new courthouse. Greene County Auditor B.S. McCully suggested to the board of supervisors that the cornucopia display in San Francisco be designed right into the floor of the rotunda — and it was.

“(That design) especially ‘belongs’ to Greene County, for the reason that Mr. Willard Zeller furnished all the corn, which made up the big pile flowing from the mouth of the horn,” reported the March 14, 1917, edition of the Jefferson Bee.

Following this massive achievement, the Zeller family’s seed business thrived in Jefferson for the next few years. The company went bankrupt by 1922, however, devastated by a farm recession that swept the heartland before the big stock-market crash of 1929.

While Willard Zeller and his family left Jefferson around 1927 and moved to California, the legacy of their award-winning corn endures in the Greene County courthouse mosaic, which also features sheaves of golden grain in the outer circle of the design. There’s a debate about what those bundles of grain represent. Some say they’re oats, which would have been a major crop in 1917, while others suspect they’re wheat, which dominated Iowa crop production into the 1880s.

In any case, the striking, corn-themed cornucopia mosaic never fails to capture people’s imagination when they visit the courthouse, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

“I worked in this building for nearly 45 years, and I’d often see people stop and gaze at the cornucopia,” Van Gilder said.

Natural light filtering through the stunning, stained-glass dome 60 feet above the main-floor rotunda illuminates the impressive mountain of corn depicted in “The Land of Plenty.” “It gives you a feeling of awe,” Van Gilder said.