The ground where George A. Mullin's store is located, 120×140 feet, was sold by Mary A. Ely in 1853, to D. M. McIntosh, for $350. H. G. Angle bought it in 1854 for $600. It was afterwards taken by creditors, and was held by them until 1875, when it was sold to J. T. Waterhouse for $13,000.
These are cases illustrative of the wonderful growth in the value of Cedar Rapids real estate. It will of course some day find its level, and will very probably go above it, but it is quite safe to say that just now it is worth all that is paid for it.
Every time a real estate transfer is made it is amusing to get an "old citizen" started, and have him bemoan his failure to invest a few dollars in a block or so twenty years ago, and hold on to it until the present time. If he had done so he would have been rich—but the trouble is he didn't do it.
Thomas McGregor, who was working for a Mr. Robinson in the fifties, was offered lots where the Quaker Oats plant is now located at $10 a lot, but needed the money to keep his family on as he got only 75 cents per day.
On arrival of the first steamer in Cedar Rapids lots were offered free to passengers and crew in case they wanted to locate. Many lots were given away by real estate boomers in those days to increase the population of the city. Many of these lots were later lost because the owners thought so little of their value that they let them go to tax sales.
Property on Second avenue between Second and Fourth streets was then only residence property, sand hills, and the like. Now all of this has become valuable business property and is held at not less than $1,000 a front foot, and still going higher. These lots were sold less than fifty years ago at $25 a lot.
Property on Third avenue was even less valuable than property on Second avenue. With the location of the station here with the hotels, bank buildings, etc., lots are now selling at fabulous prices. With the advance of prices rents have also advanced. I. C. Emery some twenty years ago had the same location which he has recently gone into, and paid at that time about one-third of the rent he pays today. Rents on the ground floor in the Kimball building, the Ely block, the Dows block, and in others of the old buildings have gradually advanced in accordance with the advance in prices of the real estate holdings, and pretty much in the same ratio.
Large office buildings have been erected from time to time, and it has been said that the city would never demand such quarters. It has only been a little time till there has been a demand for more office and store buildings on a larger scale and these have been filled without any trouble.
The property where is located the Denecke building was once used for a livery stable, and the property on which is located the Magnus block was occupied as a dwelling house. These properties were traded back and forth for a song. The O'Haras finally snapped them up and began improvement and were thought at the time to be crazy. Mr. Denecke then began purchasing and the same was said of him. When Mr. Magnus made his purchase of the block in 1894, during the depression, they said he would never get his money out of it. Today he has been offered more than twice what he paid and refuses to consider the offer. The corner where the Security bank is now located had been sold and re-sold, and no one thought it worth anything, and when G. F. Van Vechten purchased a few feet for a bank location many years ago the people of the town still thought it impossible that this corner would be worth so much. The bank later had to pay a handsome price in order to get ground enough to make the improvements desired, and would have made money by having bought much earlier. The Taft building was purchased by the late Judge Hubbard some ten years ago at $55,000, and is now worth twice that sum.
However old settlers say that for years real estate in Cedar Rapids did not move and it was a drug on the market, and the rents were not in ratio with the values. For years town lots were peddled about the town and traded for stocks of goods, for old horses, and other personal property, and it was always thought that the person who obtained the real estate got the poor end of the bargain.