When the new Kirn Middle School was constructed in 1979 at 100 North Avenue, students and administrators discovered a peculiar issue with the new Kirn Athletic Field, it was full of glass. That is because the area used to be the site of the J. F. Wilcox & Sons greenhouses.
In 1867, a farm wife named Mary Casper started a small garden on her property that was between present day North Broadway and North Avenue and north of East Pierce Street. She soon realized that selling flowers and vegetables was turning a profit and her husband joined her in growing the business, as reported in the Daily Nonpareil August 23, 1970 issue. John Franklin Wilcox joined the company as a laborer in 1885 and soon married into the Casper family. He bought the company around 1900 and began building the greenhouses on Pierce Street, and later, near Lake Manawa.
The company mainly focused on flowers and roses became their staple, with distribution reaching all the way to Canada and the Pacific Northwest. An April 23, 1981 Daily Nonpareil article reported that the greenhouses eventually covered 750,000 square feet of the hillside where Kirn Middle School now stands. “[Wilcox] built the greenhouses on the hill running east to west and facing south to take best advantage of the sun’s winter light.” The business was so prosperous that it was considered a local landmark and was likened to the hanging gardens of Babylon.
Owing to his success, J. F. Wilcox built a luxurious mansion right in front of his 17 acre field of glass. The residence was located at 1132 Pierce Street (later East Pierce Street). The residence featured a ballroom on the third floor and was used to entertain several notable guests, including Theodore Roosevelt, who was in the area campaigning for political office in the early 1900s. J. F. Wilcox passed away in 1912 and the company was turned over to his widow Emma Wilcox. They had five sons that all worked in the greenhouses and the business was passed onto them when Emma passed away in 1960.
In 1967, the Wilcox mansion was torn down to make way for Highway 6 (Kanesville Boulevard). John Wilcox, J. F. Wilcox’s grandson was interviewed for the August 23, 1970 issue of the Daily Nonpareil and he explained that a “combination of the highway, economics and different interests in the family led to the end of the greenhouses,” although the company continued operating on a smaller scale in Omaha. The land where the Wilcox greenhouses stood was sold to the Midlands Financial Corporation in August 1970 and the buildings were torn down.
On January 19, 1977, the Daily Nonpareil reported that the former Wilcox greenhouse land was chosen as the site for the new Kirn Middle School. The former Kirn Junior High building at 5th Avenue and Bluff Street was irreparably damaged by a fire set by arsonists in October of 1976. Results for the $4.9 million bond to replace Kirn were announced on February 23, 1977 by the Daily Nonpareil wherein the public approved the project by 62 percent. From late 1976 until the fall of 1979, Kirn students did not have a school of their own. The solution school administrators came up with was to have Kirn students share classroom space with Wilson Junior High School students until their new school was built. A split shift schedule was put in place where Wilson students were in class at 6:40 a.m. and left school at 11:40 a.m. while Kirn students arrived at 12:15 p.m. and finished their school day at 5:15 p.m.
The new Kirn Middle School was completed and dedicated on September 16, 1979. Later an April 22, 1981 Daily Nonpareil article reported that glass was surfacing on the Kirn Athletic Field. Contractors were consulted about how to fix this problem and they suggested adding an additional six inches of soil to the field. However, “with frost and frequent use, the district could expect the glass to resurface within five years.” Instead, school administrators wanted the current fill of dirt removed from the field and then have another six to fourteen inches added to the field. Assistant superintendent for administration Joseph Scalzo commented in the article that the cost to repair the field was considerable. The field was deemed "unusable and dangerous” until the School Board and the contractors reached an agreement in May 1981 to have the glass removed and have the field ready to use by the fall of 1981.
Sources
Daily Nonpareil articles
Fire Insurance Maps Online
John Ingraham Photograph Collection - Council Bluffs Public Library Special Collections