During a trip to Eldon, Iowa, in 1930, Grant Wood was being driven around town by local artist, John Sharp when he spotted the house with the church window that would someday be part of “American Gothic.” He got out of the car, pulled out an envelope and began sketching the house. Wood said he wanted to paint the people he imagined lived in a house with such a window.

Wood used the sketch from the house as the background for the painting and later painted his sister Nan and his dentist, Dr. B. H. McKeeby, as the stand-ins for the home’s owners.

It is unknown why the gothic window, a fixture most appropriate for a church, was put in the house. Some speculate that the family saw the window as a small luxury to add to their decor.

As a longtime Eldon resident, Donna Jeffrey grew up near the American Gothic House, which had no formal marking until the Center was built. She assisted with fundraising projects and grant writing. Jeffrey volunteers at the Center on a regular basis.

“When I was a kid, my grandmother lived down the lane behind the house, and we would walk from our home to my grandma’s, and my mom and dad would always say, ‘that house is in the background of a famous painting’,” Jeffrey said. “People here in Eldon just grew up knowing that.”

The house is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Dibble House, named after the first owners who built it in 1881. Carl Smith later owned the home when it was placed on the Register in 1974.

Smith rented the house to different tenants until he donated it to the State Historical Society of Iowa in 1991 with the requirement that the home still be rented. Since then, the home has been occupied off and on to local residents such as postmasters and a school teacher. The home is currently empty.

Former tenant Bruce Thiher shared the hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with Wood and chose to live in the house when his job as a postmaster sent him to Eldon. Thiher attended McKinley Middle School, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where Wood taught art until he died in 1942. Many of Wood’s pieces remained throughout the school when Thiher attended junior high in the late 1950s. Those pieces now reside in the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art.

Thiher lived in the American Gothic House from 1996 to 2003. He enjoyed taking photos for visitors and would often welcome them inside to show off some of his personal Grant Wood memorabilia. Thiher said many Japanese immigrants in the area stopped by the House when he lived there.

“The most curious thing is that a lot of times they’d want to get me in the picture with their wives,” Thiher said. “So we’d just be snapping pictures away and I’d play the part of Dr. McKeeby.”

The tourist photo-taking has greatly increased from the time Thiher lived in the house to today. With the American Gothic House Center, visitors are able to don provided costumes to create their own “American Gothic” parody.

Through collecting, selling and recycling, the small-town of Eldon, Iowa, population 1,000 raised $900,000. The money paid for the American Gothic House Center, a museum celebrating Grant Wood’s American Gothic painting on the property of the featured home. The American Gothic House Center opened on the same property as the House in June 2007.

“[The center] is so exciting for me, because I hope that it will help the town revitalize,” local resident Donna Jeffrey said. “Eldon is an old, old town ... It has [already] helped the restaurant, and it has helped the quick shops. So if more tourists come, it will help the town.”

To fund the construction of the American Gothic House Center, a committee consisting of a handful of local Eldon residents wrote grants and conducted fundraisers like filling film canisters with quarters, selling themed gift baskets and recycling phones and ink cartridges.

The American Gothic House Center features an informative exhibit about the house and its owners, in addition to information about Grant Wood. There is also information about “American Gothic,” the painting that made the house famous, which now hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago. There is a display of various parodies of the second-most parodied painting in the world, “American Gothic,” found on items such magazines or food containers. The Center also serves as the trailhead for the in-progress bicycle trail.

The American Gothic House Center has been open for three years and averages 10,000 visitors per year. It is open year-round with the help of volunteers for weekend operations and continued fundraising efforts for various projects at the Center.

Jessica Strom, American Gothic House Center administrator, researches, writes and designs exhibits for the Center that change annually.

“We have this little treasure, just six miles off the four-lane highway, here,” Strom said. “You have the chance to come visit it and put yourself in those shoes and it’s one of the most amusing experiences I think people have.”