Diagonal Printing Museum

View actual workable press and Linotype. The museum includes a genealogical center and other local historical items.At the south end of Broadway Street in Diagonal there is a white-sided building filled with newspaper equipment and genealogy of early and currently residents. This is the only printing museum in Iowa with the linotype and paper printer set in place. In 1922 Tom Waffle pruchased the Dr. A.E. Jessup building as a permanent home for the hometown newspaper, The Diagonal Reporter. Harold Turnbull was hired as an apprentice to learn the newspaper business that same year. In 1937 Harold and his wife Mildred purchased the building. The second-story apartment was home to the Turnbulls during his tenure as publisher and owner. Fifty years later when Helen Terry of Mount Ayr became the owner, Harold wrote his last published issue (April 1972) in the Reporter: So now we have written much and left volumes unrecorded. For Mildren and myself, it is time to write... It seems fitting that the same building that once housed this business would become the town's museum. In 1983 a group of community members began the process of refurbishing the facility to house a wealth of history. Today visitors can find artifacts suited to early farming, a 1930's kitchen and laundry area, a doctor's room , and a school room.  A clothing room is adorned with attire typical of an earlier time. Knowlton, now a ghost town, is featured in diorama. Because early residents of Diagonal came from Bohemia, there are many items unique to that country. Downstairs visitors can find the genealogy library plus volumes of Bohemian books, texts written by local writers, and historically significant scrapbooks. The musuem is a great way to spend a Saturday or Sunday afternoon from 2 to 4 p.m. between Memorial Day and Labor Day