The Jordan House: Iowa's Underground Railroad

James Jordan arrived in Iowa from Virginia carrying a past he was not proud of. He had worked as a slave catcher, and the experience transformed him into a fierce abolitionist. By the eighteen fifties he had become what neighbors called the Chief Conductor for Polk County on the Underground Railroad, sheltering freedom seekers moving north through Iowa.

His Victorian home in what is now West Des Moines became one of the documented Underground Railroad sites in the state. Radical abolitionist John Brown stayed here at least twice. On his final visit in eighteen fifty-nine, Brown was leading twelve people he and his men had recently liberated from enslavement in Missouri, moving them toward Canada. Jordan harbored the group and helped them along. The house has been on the National Register of Historic Places since nineteen seventy-three and now operates as a museum run by the West Des Moines Historical Society, one of the clearest surviving windows in Iowa into the secret geography of freedom.