Granger's Housing Started as a New Deal Program. Some of It's Still Standing.

In 1934, the federal government funded fifty homestead houses for Granger's out-of-work coal miners — four to six rooms each, sitting on three to five acres, built through 1935. Nobody who took one of those loans ever defaulted. That's an unusually specific piece of history for a town this size, and it's not the only one: a traveling circus wintered just outside town in the early 1900s, closed for good during the Depression, and left behind what may be the only elephant graveyard in Iowa.

Granger today is still a small town, still shaped by that homestead-era housing pattern — older homes on real acreage rather than standard suburban lots — plus whatever's been built since near Jester Park and the rest of the area's newer development.

• Additions and updates to the older homestead-era homes, many of which are smaller structures on generous land that owners are looking to expand rather than replace
• General remodeling for newer homes built since, without that same acreage-and-small-footprint pattern
• Exterior and structural work suited to rural and semi-rural properties around Jester Park and Saylorville Lake

Not every small town has a circus history and a New Deal housing program. Granger has both.