The Time capsule: Lake Darling, Viking Lake and the Hultman Trail
The “Hultman Trail” sign, apparently a victim of old age and weather, has been gone for months. This hardly seems worth mentioning – not many noticed and even fewer have any idea of the sign’s significance. Bernie Wickstrom did, and if he still ran a newspaper he’d throw a shoe.
While the place we know as Viking Lake was being completed in 1957, the editor of Stanton’s newspaper asked the Conservation Commission if he could hold a naming contest. The commission agreed to an arrangement that had local judges select the top five entries. From those the commission would make a final decision.
Rules were announced, and entries poured in. One suggestion was made repeatedly, so often that if the contest was an election there’d have been a landslide. The people’s choice was to name the park for Oscar Hultman.
For this there was good reason. When Hultman, a World War I veteran and owner of a local lumber yard, was elected to the Iowa House of Representatives in 1932, he began advocating for a state park in this area. Depression economics and politicians representing more populous districts stymied his efforts, then came a war. Hultman, re-elected time after time, made the lake a crusade. Wickstrom, writing a string of editorials lauding the benefits, became part of a core group of active supporters.
Various sites were considered and evaluated. The one selected, for reasons related to suitability and watershed, was considered ideal. By the late 1940s, Hultman had twisted enough arms to get the lake measure through the House, was assured that Senate votes were solid. He believed his work was done and, weary of Des Moines and politics, did not seek re-election.
When a last-minute deal caused his provision to be amended out of an appropriations bill Hultman, feeling betrayed and bitterly disappointed, simmered on the sidelines. In the spring of 1954, he gave Wickstrom a front page story; he was again going to be a candidate – this time taking on the incumbent, Sen. Elmer Bass of Red Oak. Bass, when it came down to a choice between Hultman’s lake and improvements at Manawa, had voted for the latter.
Oscar Hultman campaigned on a single basic theme – he promised there’d be Hell to pay, and he’d get that damned lake. He won by a large margin, went back to the statehouse, and closed the deal.
For more than two decades he’d made the calls, written the letters, given talks to clubs and church groups, gathered support, and spent a good deal of his own money. People who knew even a part of what he’d done during those twenty-five years felt he deserved to have the place named for him. Wickstrom was among those who were chagrined when the Conservation Commission said no. The reason? They would not name a state park for a person, at least that’s what was conveyed for public consumption.
One might wonder about Lake Darling State Park in southeast Iowa, opened in 1950 and named for J.N. Darling. Darling, a person, was on hand for the dedication.
The fact is that Hultman was a Republican. Herschel Loveless was elected governor the year before the park was named. Loveless was a Democrat. Democrats were casting themselves as the party of labor unions and environmentalists – Republicans as unsympathetic obstructionists. A park that stood as an example of what could be done with cavernous gullies and eroded hillsides was not likely to be named for a Republican during a Democrat’s administration.
Although Hultman understood how things worked and said the lake was important, not the name, an irate Bernie Wickstrom used his Stanton Viking to protest. The Commission’s decision was final, but they made a concession – a hiking trail that started behind the outhouse in the picnic area would be named for Hultman.
Oscar Hultman died in 1969. The sign, which told nothing of who he was or what he’d done, remained until recently. Park Superintendent Todd Carrick, an excellent custodian, assures me the sign will be replaced and there’s no doubt he’ll see that it is.
The slight, though, remains. At about the time the “Hultman Trail” marker vanished, an impressive monument, topped with a bronze bust of J.N. Darling, was dedicated at Lake Darling. It was funded by a group of private citizens known as “Friends of Lake Darling.”
I expect Wickstrom would contemplate the Darling edifice and have something to say on behalf of his old friend. He might even write an editorial asking the “Friends of Viking Lake” to consider the matter.
Roy Marshall is a local historian and columnist for the Red Oak Express. He can be contacted at news@redoakexpress.com.