107 Western St

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Overview

06

Owner

Emil and Elinor (Langum) Miller

Address

107 Western St Decorah, IA 52101

Year Built

1951

Architectural Style

Colonial Revival

Tour Type

West Decorah Tour

This Colonial Revival home has a side-gabled roof, with only one front-facing dormer, but with a smaller, one-story side-gabled section to the right. The home was built for Emil and Elinor Miller. Emil joined the Luther physics faculty in 1939 and is credited with building the department from scratch. He was instrumental in the inclusion of a planetarium in the 1961 Valders Science Hall; at the time “it was the only planetarium in any educational institution in Iowa and one of only a few in the Midwest” (Jordahl, Stability and Change). He also did much of the work to find a site for and to build an observatory away from the main Luther campus. He served in WWII from 1942-46, and retired from Luther in 1974. As a member after 1948 of the Committee for Atomic Energy Education in Iowa, Miller wrote and reviewed materials, especially for college and adult education.

Elinor Miller taught piano for sixty years and was for many years the Farmer Bureau Women’s Chorus pianist.

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