800 2nd Avenue Southeast
Cedar Rapids, IA, USA

George B. Douglas House

The George B. Douglas House, which later became known as Turner Mortuary East, is owned today by The History Center, Linn County Historical Society. This historic building located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States. The house was built for Douglas who was a partner in a cereal mill that became the Quaker Oats Company. David Turner bought the property in 1924 and converted the house into a funeral home. He was a patron of regionalist artist Grant Wood, and Turner leased the carriage house to him from 1924 to 1933. Wood used it as his residence, along with his mother, and as a studio. It was here at #5 Turner Alley that he painted two of his most famous paintings, American Gothic (1930) and Stone City (1930). Wood also worked as a decorator when he lived here and designed the interior of the main house when it was converted into a funeral home. His work included two stained glass windows that flank the main entrance. Several Wood paintings also hung in the funeral home.

The house is a 2½-story, brick Georgian Revival structure. It features a symmetrical facade and a hipped roof with three gable dormers. The symmetry, however, was undone by the addition built onto the northeast side. It was designed by local architect Bruce McKay and Grant Wood. Wood is thought to have designed the bay window for the first-floor chapel.[3] Other additions were built onto the back of the structure. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

National Register of Historic Places - George B. Douglas House

Statement of Significance:

The George B. Douglas house has important national historical significance in two disparate areas, in two different centuries. George B. Douglas, the original owner, participated in the establishment of industries vital to the continued strength of Cedar Rapids' economy, notably what eventually came to be known as the Quaker Company.

David Turner purchased the house and converted it into a funeral home. Grant Wood, the noted regional artist, helped design and decorate the house and renovated the former carriage house for his use as a studio. With Turner as a patron, Wood lived in and painted at #5 Turner Alley during the formative years of his career and created such classics as "American Gothic" and "Stone City" in the former carriage house.

George B. Douglas owed some of his success to the farsightedness of his Scotch father, George Douglas. Following a financially successful career building stone bridges for the railroads, the elder Douglas settled in Cedar Rapids in 1868. While traveling with the railroad construction, Douglas had acquired considerable farmland cheaply and he was a wealthy man. In 1873 he met Robert Stuart, also of Scotch descent, at the Presbyterian Church. Impressed with Stuart's business acumen, Douglas not only invested in Stuart's proposed oatmeal factory, Douglas & Stuart, but also introduced him to his niece. Thus, the Stuart and Douglas families were united by marriage and by investment. Stuart later broadened the cereal venture to include Chicago and participated in several attempts to corner the oatmeal market. These byzantine efforts culminated in 1891 with the creation of a joint stock corporation, the American Cereal Company. The Stuart contingent, including George B. Douglas, held but 12% of the stock, reportedly worth $500,000 at that time. Following a bitter proxy fight the contingent led by financial wizard Stuart, advertising innovator Henry Crowell and master millers James Andrews and George Cormack, emerged in control. The company then preceded to use exclusively the Quaker Oats trademark that Crowell had conceived of and marketed so cleverly. Though not the leader of these financial dealings, Douglas did play a key role during the proxy fight when in 1899 he bought 600 shares for $25,000 from a source in the enemy Ferdinand Schumacher camp. This sellout irreparably broke the other side' s^ position.

Douglas was a valued stockholder in Quaker Oats Company, but he was also active in other manufacturing. In 1894 he, with others, organized a company to manufacture linseed oil, later selling it to a larger concern. In 1903 he opened a factory, reportedly the largest west of the Mississippi, for the manufacture of corn starch.

Douglas was socially prominent, a trustee in the First Presbyterian Church and of Coe College. By 1911 he had moved to Brucemore and its original owners, the Thomas M. Sinclair family of meatpacking wealth, had bought this house. A golfer, Douglas belonged to country clubs in Cedar Rapids, Chicago, Santa Barbara and near his summer home in Michigan.