203.1149.4

Gaessler Lodge at Camp Canwita in 1998. The lodge, originally known as Canwita Lodge, was built in 1926. It was remodelled in 1956 and in 1971. In 1925, when Myrtle Gaessler was the executive director of the Ames Camp Fire organization, she chaired a committe that arranged with Walter Grove to set up a campsite for the girls in one of Grove's timbered pastures north of town. 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. Because of all the work and support of the Gaesslers, the lodge became known as "Gaessler Lodge." 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).