Crawfordsville, Iowa -
Birthplace of Republican Party?

History talks of the first meeting forming the Republican Party held in this small Iowa rural village. It was a point on the Underground Railroad, and had the first consolidated school west of the Mississippi (on the Old Military Road but the Hwy. 218 has recently moved out of town to the East edge). Most of Crawfordsville's retail stores have disappeared, but it's a friendly residential community. I lived there for 35 years. Stop and talk. [Richard Holmes, 07/02/2005]

[RA: Crawfordsville argues the start of the GOP occurred at an abolitionist meeting on Feb. 23, 1854 in Crawfordsville's Seceder Church (long gone). But wait! The town of Ripon, Wisconsin makes the same paternity claim -- the deed done on Feb. 18, 1854 in Ripon's Little White Schoolhouse on Blackburn St. (there's a historical marker out front). The Republican Party officially recognizes Ripon as where the first "informal" meeting occurred, but also that the first "official" Republican meeting was held on July 6, 1854 in Jackson, Michigan! And what about the claim by Exeter, New Hampshire that their meeting, on October 12, 1853, was where it all started? Sure, the GOP may have been medically "born" at Jackson's official meeting, but didn't life actually begin when the seed of a new party idea first found purchase in Exeter? From a pro-life perspective, anyway....]