Local History and Library Archives

The library has had numerous materials donated over the years relating to Pleasantville’s history. We’ve started the long, slow process of digitizing and organizing those materials, researching as we go who the individuals were and where the places in the photos are. Without a local historical society (the nearest is the Marion County Historical Society), we feel the obligation to make sure the memories of our little town are not lost to time. Marion County News has started archiving their past newspaper issues online.

We house our physical collection at the library in the research room behind the front desk. The digital version of that collection, which is always growing, is housed at WikiTree.com, where the research we put into putting names and places to faces can be easily added to by other researchers, including you! These are some helpful links for finding your family or interest on that site, which includes many of the photos and articles we have in our library archival collection:

To find your ancestor, this category at WikiTree has people who are connected to Pleasantville and have research available: Pleasantville, Iowa

For Pleasantville History, including a growing timeline of important events, check out this page: Pleasantville, Iowa History

Our library is named for Webb Shadle, from the Shadle Family of Pleasantville. Check out Webb Shadle’s family history.

We’d love a hand in identifying some of the people in our image collection. This is the collection of unidentified photos.

Some of our images are here in slide shows; click the link to go to that slideshow: