The story
Preparation was a religious commune in the Loess Hills of western Iowa, founded in 1853 by Charles B. Thompson, a Latter-day Saint who broke from the westbound Mormon migration and styled himself 'Father Ephraim.' He named the town for what his followers were doing there — preparing for the afterlife — and gathered some fifty families who deeded him their land and possessions on his claim that he acted under the direction of a spirit he called Baneemy.
The arrangement held for a few years, and the colony grew to nearly 600 people with farms and Monona County's first newspaper. It fell apart in 1858, when followers demanded an accounting of the property Thompson controlled; his answer failed to satisfy them, and he left in a hurry — by some accounts one step ahead of a hanging — eventually dying in Philadelphia in 1895. In 1867 the Iowa Supreme Court divided the remaining land among the families, but the town never recovered and faded over the following decades.
The site is now Preparation Canyon State Park, a quiet expanse of wooded ridges and hiking trails in the Loess Hills. The town it is named for has entirely vanished.
What remains today
Nothing of the town survives; the site is wooded parkland with a historical marker. Preparation Canyon State Park preserves the ground.
Questions from the field
- Who founded Preparation, Iowa?
- Charles B. Thompson, a Mormon breakaway calling himself 'Father Ephraim,' who in 1853 gathered followers who signed their property over to him under the direction of a spirit he named Baneemy. The colony collapsed when he fled in 1858.
From the field
The most valuable part of this record is the part only visitors can write.
Stamp your passport
Check in at Preparation — GPS-verified visits earn an inked stamp.
File a field report
Road conditions, what's still standing, what's gone — your report joins the record.
Add photographs
Credited, dated, and preserved as part of Preparation's permanent record.
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Primary sources for this record
- — Iowa DNR — Preparation Canyon State Park
- — State Historical Society of Iowa — Monona County
- — IAGenWeb — Monona County: Preparation