Chaffee-Hunter House
Des Moines, United States
Exterior only
Visible from the street; the inside is private.
Find out more
Built in 1886, the Chaffee-Hunter House is a 2½-story Queen Anne frame dwelling in Des Moines, Iowa, distinguished by its gable-on-hip roof with intersecting gables, brick foundation, wrap-around porch, and dormer windows. Named for its first residents, Henry L. Chaffee and Edward H. Hunter—who purchased the property from Chaffee in 1891—the house is notable for its association with Hunter's tenure as local postmaster from 1894 to 1898, during which he conceived and implemented the streetcar-mounted mail collection box, an innovation later adopted in cities across the country. Listed individually on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998, it was subsequently included as a contributing property in the Polk County Homestead and Trust Company Addition Historic District in 2016.
Movement
- Built
- Type
- house
- Heritage
- National Register of Historic Places listed place, National Register of Historic Places contributing property
- Place
- Des Moines, United States
This building on
Architecturally similar
Des Moines BuildingDes Moines, United States
F.E. Haley Double HouseIowa, United States
Nellie and Thomas Knotts HouseDes Moines, United States
F. F. Odenweller-James P. and Nettie Morey HouseDes Moines, United States
Hunter HouseLeitchfield, United States
Joseph Chitwood HouseBoise, United States
Mahnke HouseIowa, United States
Thomas Chivers HouseChallis, United States
Location