Edna Griffin Building (Flynn Building)

319 7th Street

ca 1885 (Polk Co. Assessor weighted age)

Constructed for Martin Flynn, who lived at current Living History Farms Flynn Mansion. Flynn was an Irish immigrant rail crew laborer, rising rapidly to become a highly successful contractor preparing railroad beds for track, then owning farmland, Flynn Dairy and Peoples Savings Bank (merged with Bankers Trust)

Proudfoot and Bird officed at 625 Flynn Building prior to moving to Hubbell Building ca 1913.

Renamed in 1998 for Edna M Griffin, American civil rights pioneer and human rights activist. Known as the “Rosa Parks of Iowa” for her 1948 successful watershed civil rights court battle against Katz Drug Store then located in the building.