128.705C.1-2

Gaessler Lodge at Camp Canwita, probably shortly after its name was changed from Canwita Lodge, in 1981, to honor William and Myrtle Gaessler. The lodge was built in 1926. It was remodelled in 1956 and 1971. In 1925, when Myrtle Gaessler was the executive director of the Ames Camp Fire organization, she chaired a committee that arranged with Ames businessman/farmer Walter Grove to set up a campsite for the girls in one of Grove's timbered pastures north of Ames. The following year, a new campsite was selected on Grove's farm closer to the Skunk River. Funds were raised, with a major contribution from Myrtle and her husband Bill, a professor of chemistry at Iowa State College, and the construction of the lodge was accomplished. The lodge still [2007] stands and is in continuous use. It is located just off of Duff Avenue in the northwest corner of Inis Grove Park. For more information about the origin of the Ames Camp Fire organization, see chapter 44 in "Ames in Word and Picture; Book Two: Further Tales and Personal Memories," by Farwell T. Brown, 1999.