Lucius and Maria Clinton Lane House

Iowa, United States

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Heritage registerNational Register of Historic Places↗

Located west of Charles City, Iowa, the Lucius and Maria Clinton Lane House is a 1½-story Late Victorian structure built in 1866 from hollow brick, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The west wing may preserve an earlier log cabin that stood on the property before Lucius Lane's acquisition. Its design possibly drew inspiration from contemporary architectural publications, including A. J. Downing's *The Architecture of Country Houses* (1850) and *Woodward's Country Homes* (1865), which features a floor plan nearly identical to the house. The building's historical significance lies primarily in its association with Carrie Chapman Catt, the influential women's suffrage leader, who grew up here and formed the convictions that would shape her activism after witnessing her mother's disenfranchisement during the 1872 Presidential election. Catt was educated at a nearby country school and later graduated from Iowa State College in 1880 as the sole woman in her class. She married her first husband, Leo Chapman, in this house in 1885; after his death from typhoid fever the following year, she eventually remarried George Catt in 1890, the same year her parents left the farm for town.