DUBUQUE, Iowa (KCRG) - Dubuque’s Millwork District helped grow Iowa’s first city.

Mathias Ham Historic Site Educator Joseph Rapp says in its hay day, as many as 5,000 people worked in Dubuque’s milling industry making countless wood products.

But, by the 1970s, most mills had closed, leaving left dozens of downtown city blocks vacant for decades.

“This looked like a war zone before we started, you know, gravel, broken up brick pavement. The water lines in the street were made out of wood, literally,” says John Gronen, with Gronen Properties.

Gronen says a plan started to form in the mid-2000’s to restore the abandoned, crumbling brick structures. “Who was going to restore a building around this with this being a blighted mess in the middle of everything? It wasn’t going to happen,” say

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