Iowa was the seventh state to officially recognize Juneteenth 30 years ago, a holiday celebrating the end of slavery that dates back to 1865.

Iowa was one of the non slave-owning states that helped African Americans seek freedom through the Underground Railroad, which had stops in Guthrie County. Local historian Rod Stanley says the Underground Railroad is one of the most significant historical moments for Guthrie County, and many of the abolitionists lived along the Middle River in what’s now the City of Casey, “There were a lot of Quakers that settled in that basic area and they were very much against slavery and they were very outspoken about it. And they were willing to risk their own safety and lives to harbor these people, to get them through Iowa to get them to basically Chicago where they crossed the Lake Michigan into Windsor and then into Canada.”

Notable Guthrie County residents who had meeting points for slaves included John Pearson who owned a mill north of Stuart, and Wells McCool who owned a blacksmith shop in what’s now the ghost town of Morrisburg. Juneteenth commemorates June 19th, 1865, when the Union Soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas with the news that the Civil War was over and the enslaved were free. This was two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, as the Union forces weren’t strong enough to enforce the order in Texas until the surrender of General Robert E. Lee.