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• Because of the intense energy that Charles and Mary Helms invested it is only proper to put these acres into a farm conservancy project.
• To memorialize their efforts through providing a lasting source of historical and educational experience.
• To educate and benefit the many children and adults who have little knowledge of farming before the internal combustion engine became the motive power in soil preparation, planting, tending, harvesting and marketing.

​Why has the physical footprint of this farmstead changed so little over the past 100yrs? Obviously there have been some building removals and replacements, but seven structures that remain effectively outline the original concept. The house, chicken house, two equipment storage sheds and barn still form the perimeter of the internal farmstead working zone. Originally, there was additional space further to the east. This included several hog shelters, orchard, hay stacks and straw stacks as well as storage for weather-resistant farm equipment.
Among new structures are the corncrib and the cattle shed, built by the Tweedt brothers of Madrid in the 1940s plus the hog farrowing house, built soon thereafter. The existing tall crib was a technological step forward in the sense that it replaced back-breaking manual crop handling work with labor-saving electrically-powered conveyor chains and buckets for moving corn and other grain to the top of the tall cribs which then utilized gravity to direct the grain to storage chambers below. But such cribs, with all their work saving merits were short-lived. By the 1960s agricultural technology provided new, usually round steel storage bins outfitted with dryers that filtered drying air through the storage unit became the mode. Almost immediately the old slotted earcorn storage crib with its open-air ventilation became an out-of-use or limited use fixture. Screw conveyors were employed to elevate small grain into storage bins and blowers forced drying air through the bin lowering moisture content to an acceptable range within days as opposed to months, in the natural slatted crib drying process. The farmer had customarily moved small-grain with a hand-powered scoop shovel. Typically this occurred several times in the course of planting, harvesting and storage. Then came more handling in the process of grinding, mixing and feeding unless of course he loaded it for direct hauling to a commercial elevator for sale purposes. In the case of feeding the grain to livestock, he had yet to load out the manure and return it to the land for fertilizer. Each of these operations required heavy muscular labor.
The existing idle Helms crib now stands in testimony to ever-changing technology and mechanization. With the advent of combines (of ever-increasing size) the use of ventilated cribs had little further functional value on most farms. In older times corn was delivered to the crib on the ear from which it had grown. The combine shells (separates) corn kernels from their cob which is then left in the field. Earlier the corn was shelled from the cob at the crib site, after it became dry in storage.
In most farm communities neighbors traded help with each other on jobs which involved crew-type efforts. Threshing was one activity that demanded that several men cooperate on hauling oats, wheat or barley bundles from the field to the threshing machine after each horse-drawn bundle rack had been loaded by a team of pitchers in the field. Other men were at work hauling grain from the thresher and scooping it into storage bins, or taking it to market or stacking the straw. Putting up hay or silo filling were equally crew oriented jobs. On the Helms farm a silo of 40 foot height had been built to supplement the grain and hay diet of cattle with silage. The red-tile wall silo of this farm was built during the original construction program.
In the 1950s the silo was struck by lightning, destroying a partial ring of peripheral tiles in the circular walls, just above the ground surface, also just below the conical concrete cap. A masonry crew later was reluctant to attempt repairs to the silo since they had found that circumferential reinforcing hoops embedded in the circular walls of the silo were badly corroded, making repairs impractical. Later after living with the silo's failing condition, it was finally decided to have it safely knocked down (felled) away from the barn. Then it was learned, in the course of demolition, that despite its deeply corroded steel, the masonry tile structure was still extremely sturdy. After breaking the tile base well more than half way around its circumference, we found it necessary to give several sharp blows to the silo with the bucket of a large backhoe applied at 15 or 20 ft. above ground surface. This caused it to tip southward into the 18ft. deep pit already prepared for its burial.
The hog farrowing house now stands where a barn had once housed equipment, straw and livestock. The north ¼ of the barn had been given slotted siding to provide space for corn on the ear. The new tall and mechanized crib was meant to replace storage once provided by the barn. Then in two decades the new crib became obsolete. Two concrete tanks held water necessary for livestock usage. Both were fed from one well, located not far east of the house. Water was pumped via underground piping by the reciprocating action of a 35ft. tall windmill topped by an aermotor rotary wheel and gear system. The pump kept the tanks near to full to meet needs of the animals. During hot dry weather the stored water supply sometimes ran low and water availability was at the mercy of the windmill which was the only source of energy for pumping purposes. The water supply system here never failed. Eventually, the reciprocating (up and down) windmill pump rod was replaced by an electrically-powered pump jack which removed threat of water shortage for a water-sensitive livestock operation.
This farm is now owned by the Madrid Historical Society for display of equipment and methods which have made possible, the advancement of agriculture to its present highly-mechanized level. Russell and Patricia Helms continue to occupy the farm as provided in life estate terms of their conveyance of the land to the Society. Russell Helms left the farm in 1942 to join the Navy. After World War II ended he earned two engineering degrees at Iowa State. Thereafter he worked as a civil/highway engineer in several mid-western states returning to Iowa and the Helms farm in 1985.

​When Charles and Mary Helms undertook the building of their farm operation, there were no farm tractors working routinely in the fields of Iowa and essentially no automobiles, except perhaps in scattered towns and cities where a few particularly adventurous citizens chose to challenge the horse and buggy mode of travel. The First building erected on the new farmstead was a 40 foot x 16 foot chicken house which boasted plastered walls and temporary ceiling. This simple building served as shelter for the young family during construction of other facilities. Essentially all other structures were in service (two barns, hog house, two machinery sheds and red tile silo) when the family was able to move into the near-completed permanent home at the end of 1905. By that time an additional child, Ralph Helms was added to the family.
The initial farm was 86 acres in size. 40 more acres were added in the following 5 yrs. By the time Charles Helms lost his life in a 1928 farm tractor accident, Helms farming operations had expanded to include a total of 840 owned acres. However, as is painfully and equally true in todays 2008 housing market one must have cash to meet scheduled mortgage payments or lose/forfeit their investment. Mrs. Helms (Mary Ellen) was able to retain ownership of only a fraction of the total 840 acres. Fifteen years elapsed (mainly depression years) before she was able to retire the mortgage on what had been the original farmstead. The rest of the land had been surrendered to mortgage companies.
Mr. Helms was a highly energetic and enterprising farmer. One of the first activities added to his original farming operation was hog and cattle buying for shipment and sale to buyers at the Chicago stockyards. On the site of the present crib they installed a scale house and Fairbanks-Morse large platform scale for weighing groups of hogs or cattle prior to making shipments. Ernest Johnson, who farmed NE of Madrid joined Helms in buying and shipping operations. They collected livestock into the shipping yards located along the north side of the Chicago-Milwaukee Railroad lines lying to the south and east of the Capitol Hill section of Madrid. Shipments of several rail cars of cattle were often sent on to Chicago. For several years after Mr. Helms death Chicago buyers sent Christmas remembrances to Mrs. Helms.
Charles Helms was vigorous in promoting Madrid as a business community. He was a member and served as chairman of the Madrid Commercial Club in the early 1900s. A lively participant in Free Masonry in Madrid, he also was an active Shriner. He wore the badge of deputy sheriff in the northern Polk County for a time in the prohibition period. Russell and Helen Helms were the only children remaining in the Helms household at the time of Mr. Helms death. The 3 other children had pursued their own lives elsewhere. The two sons then returned to Madrid and alternated working the farm until Mary Ellen’s death in 1974. Wm. Keene Helms, after a few years on the farm moved to take up the livestock trade (buying and selling). Ralph Helms then assumed the farm operation and continued in that role until his death in 1982. During the last five years of Ralph’s life and up to today, the actual physical farming operation was and is done by others who also worked several other farms.

Century farms are in abundance in Iowa. Numerous century farms have been occupied by families that founded them as early as the Civil War era. The Helms farm dates back to the Spanish-American War period. Charles C. Helms hoarded his pay earned as a medical steward of the US Navy during the war with Spain in the late eighteen hundreds. Upon return from Naval service he enrolled in business administration at Des Moines University. At the same time he courted and married Mary Ellen Albright, whose family home was the old Twenty Mile House, a former haven on the Civil War Underground Railroad, located about 5 mi SE of Madrid.In 1900, Charles and Mary Ellen started up as tenant farmers on a farm that borders the current Helms farm, along its east line. That farm later became known as the Adolf Peterson place. During 1900 and 1901 they looked for a future lifetime location and in 1901 they were able to negotiate the purchase of their choice location with the Reinertson family. Savings from Naval service helped to make this transaction possible for the young couple.
When they started construction on their new farmstead in 1902, there were two children to be cared for, William Keene and Gladys Marie Helms. It was on this 86-acre parcel that the Helms farming venture began. Because of the intense energy that Charles and Mary Helms invested it is only proper to put these acres into a farm conservancy project--to memorialize their efforts through providing a lasting source of historical and educational experience. This will educate and benefit the many children and adults who have little knowledge of farming before the internal combustion engine became the motive power in soil preparation, planting, tending, harvesting and marketing.