Jordan House — Attraction in West Des Moines

My wife & I joined several other small parties for a Sunday afternoon guided tour of the Jordan House. There's a small-ish loop parking lot off Fuller Road adjacent to the House, with a sidewalk that passes under a trellis to access the south-facing entry door. Lissa was our tour guide, and she did an excellent job of establishing historical perspectives of the property & its generations of occupants before leading us through three floors of the home (cellar, ground floor, 2nd floor). Visitors were encouraged to interact & ask questions throughout, which expanded the scope of the tour by a variety of personal perspectives. I was most intrigued by verbal and displayed descriptions of the Jordan Family background & their involvement in support of the "passengers" seeking refuge via the Underground Railroad; but the tour also thoroughly covered the House's architecture & decorative features & furnishings & domestic lives of the family. After the formal tour ended on the 2nd floor (a little over an hour long), visitors were encouraged to explore a few more rooms & displays while Lissa made herself available for more Q&A and small group discussions.

This was one of the Top 5 historic house tours that my wife & I have taken out of dozens across the U.S., with the history & social perspectives learned being worth far more than the very reasonable tour fee. If you live in or are visiting the Greater Des Moines area, we would definitely recommend booking a tour of The Jordan House for early school-aged children through relatively mobile stair-climbing old...

took this little guy here for his birthday or. should I say big guy haha it was super neat and I loved the rich history of this house would recommend 10/10 super epic! We had a buget for this huge guys birthday and he went ham, when he visited the top floor it began to creek and we were nervous he would distroy the entire jordan home due to the distress of. the weight on. the top floor but we carefully escorted him back to the donut shop to enjoy a birthday suprise again that was now the third time i took him back for a special treat but what can i say. he is chipmunk...

The house is unassuming from the outside but has a wealth of history inside. I took my younger son on a tour with me. He really likes history so he enjoyed it. I don't think it would be of interest to children that don't like history. There are two factors in play with this house. First, it was one of the first houses in the area. Second, it was discovered that the house was on the underground railroad. I would highly recommend this tour for people interested in one or both of those topics. The tour guide was very...