Real Estate Trailblazer
If you live in the Glenwood neighborhood east of Northeast Elementary School, sometimes referred to as the Jens Addition, or on the south end of town along Arnold, Townsend or Ebaugh Street, there’s a pretty good chance Lloyd Banks built your house.
Lloyd was a real estate and homebuilding trailblazer in Glenwood and southwest Iowa in the 1960s and 1970s. He built more than 500 homes in Glenwood and probably more than 2,000 altogether in communities across southwest Iowa, including Shenandoah, Red Oak, Mineola, Silver City and Harlan.
“One year, we built 50 houses. We averaged 25-50 a year,” Lloyd said during an interview from his home in Council Bluffs last month. “We had a lot of houses going. At one time, we had three different crews – it was a lot of fun.”
Lloyd, who will celebrate his 100th birthday on April 25, is a native of Dumont, Iowa, He spent most of his childhood in Creston where at the age of 12 he had already landed a part-time job sorting and stacking bread and bakery items at local grocery stores for Colonial Baking. As a youth, he also had multiple newspaper delivery routes, had a job cleaning chicken cage pans and even became a exhibition roller skater - doing public performances throughout southwest Iowa.
By the time he graduated from Creston High School, Lloyd had started working for the CB&Q Railroad.
“My first job at the railroad, I carried furnace ashes out of the depot and picked up papers,” Lloyd recalled.
Lloyd would go on to work for the CB&Q, which later became the Burlington-Northern Railroad, for nearly 30 years. He spent time on the section gang before becoming a brakeman in 1941 and eventually getting promoted to conductor in 1948 - the same year he and his wife Evelyn moved to Glenwood. They rented an apartment behind the Eaton Grocery Store on North Locust Street before building their own home on the south side of town.
“Mom and Dad bought what was an old barn on 905 Townsend Street,” Jerry Banks (Lloyd and Evelyn’s son) said. “They took an old concrete block animal shed and made it into a house.”
Lloyd started his home building and real estate venture in 1961, in part because of the amount of time off he got with his job as a train conductor.
“I took a job on a train that ran from Creston to Lincoln (Neb.),” he recalled. “I’d drive over to Creston to go to work. We’d run to Lincoln, stay over night and go back the next day. Then I would be off for three days and I was bored.”
The building phase of his career began with a $1,000 land-contract purchase of ground that faced Arnold Street, located behind the Banks home on Townsend. The land was subdivided into 10 lots going up Arnold Street. Lloyd sought the help of Jerry Duggan, a Council Bluffs contractor, who assisted with the construction of the first few houses.
“They built the first house and off of that they sold two or three more,” Jerry said. “That got them started and then the city came in and paved Arnold Street.”
Lloyd sold the first home he built on Arnold Street to Jake and Louise Van Syoc.
“It was 864 square feet, three bedrooms with hardwood floors,” Lloyd said. “It sold for $12,400 – an FHA loan at 5.25 percent.”
The home building business took off from there. After Arnold Street, came new homes, duplexes and four-plexes on Grove and Ebaugh.
The business was originally called Lloyd Banks Development Co. and was later changed in the 1980s to Flat Iron, Inc. At one time, local residents referred to the south part of Glenwood as the Flat Iron.
“That area was known as Flat Iron,” Lloyd said. “Our happiness with the kids and everything developed back there so I wanted a way to remember where we got started.”
By 1970, Lloyd was flourishing as a home builder and he had expanded his business to commercial construction and the sale of existing real estate. In the mid ‘70s, Lloyd bought a Century 21 Real Estate franchise as demand for residential housing in the community climbed. The population of Glenwood grew from 4,421 in 1970 to 5,280 in 1980, an increase of over 19 percent.
On the commercial side, Lloyd Banks Development built Glenwood’s new City Hall on Locust St. (now Glenwood Family Dental), The Opinion-Tribune office on South Walnut Street and the Hillside Village apartments, across from the football field on Sivers Road during the ‘70s.
The housing subdivision, known as the Jens Addition, was one of the most substantial real estate undertakings in the city’s history. Banks said the land was purchased from Bill Jens and his family.
“Their father had the land and I talked to him,” Lloyd said. “I built him a house on Locust Street across from the convenience store. I gave him that house as down payment on the land.”
There was enough land for 258 building lots. Construction in the subdivision started in the late 1960s and the first homes were built on Fairview Drive, east of Linn Street. “
Dad must have built over 50 percent of that subdivision,” Jerry noted.
Lloyd credited the growth and success of his company to “honesty” and the high-quality work of his sub-contractors from the local community. The list of subs included Dale Chambers, Duane Benedict, Glen Bolton, Marv Ruth, Bud Strand, Bob Reafleng, Evon Bomer and Frank Stotts.
During his days as a home builder, Lloyd Banks was a pioneer when it came to looking for ways to make his houses more energy efficient. In many ways, he was ahead of his time, when it came to issues like solar energy. For awhile, he served as a local distributor of solar energy systems when the technology was still in its early stages in the early 1970s.
Many of Lloyd’s homes were built with new types of energy-conserving insulation and energy-efficient water heaters.
When federal interest rates started soaring in the late 1970s and early 1980s and mortgage rates climbed to over 18 percent, Lloyd’s business felt the impact, as did many other real estate and home building companies.
“When interest rates got that high, it started slowing down. Evertually, I had to get out. I couldn’t sell a house,” Lloyd said. “The only way you could sell was on contract and take it and finance it yourself. I couldn’t do that.”
In 1985, Lloyd sold the Century 21 franchise to Gary Johnston and he and Evelyn moved to Council Bluffs, where he continued building some homes and working with Jerry, who is involved with commercial real estate. Lloyd didn’t officially retire until three years ago. Evelyn was involved in the business for as along as Lloyd was - handling bookkeeping and accounting matters. When they lived in Glenwood, she carried out similar duties for Dr. R.S. Troutman’s veterinarian medicine office.
While living in Glenwood, Lloyd was active in the community, serving as president of the Glenwood Area Chamber of Commerce and involved in the Glenwood Ambassadors program and Methodist Church. He remembers coordinating a skate-a-thon in Glenwood that raised money for the Easter Seals and the role he played in bringing special attractions to town for the homecoming parade – specifically a team of 20 horses and Old Home Bread “Keep on Truckin’ Café” television commercial stars “Mavis” and C.W. McCall. In Council Bluffs, Lloyd was on the board of directors for the Community Housing and Investment Corporation (CHIC), an organization that helps arrange financing for low-income families.
Last year, the Banks family donated $100,000 to the Pottawattamie County Communication Foundation Women’s Fund of Southwest Iowa. The fund aims to support women in southwest Iowa through programming designed to improve their quality of life and overall well-being.
Lloyd and Evelyn had two sons – the oldest, Larry, passed away in August 1976 at the age of 28. He owned the Standard Oil business in town that was later sold to the Lincoln family.
Lloyd said he had fond memories of his time living in Glenwood and still stays in touch with some longtime friends in the community, including banker John Dean and retired physician Dr. Robert Fryzek.
Lloyd has had a few health issues over the years, including a stroke about five years ago. He walks daily to get exercise and says he’s feeling well as he nears his 100th birthday. The key to living a long life, he says, is keeping a positive attitude.
“Have a good attitude. Don’t be mad all the time. Don’t hate people – love them,” he said. “Attitude has a helluva lot to do with your make-up and whether you’re going to stay healthy or not.”
Lloyd will celebrate his milestone birthday later this month with a small family gathering. He and Evelyn, who is 93, have three grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. The couple will celebrate their 74th wedding anniversary on June 15.