Editing Waverly, Iowa (section)

===Settlement===
[[File:FI0006246.jpg|alt=Courthouse, Bremer County|thumb|Bremer County Courthouse in Waverly, 1935]]
[[File:FI0019224.jpg|alt=Main street, Waverly, Iowa 1900|left|thumb|Main Street, 1900]]
Frederick Cretzmeyer is credited with being the first European settler in Waverly. Having purchased {{convert|160|acre|km2|1}} in 1852, he built a log hut on the east side of the Cedar River (or what was once called the Red Cedar River). Soon more homes were constructed as other settlers arrived, with some of their later homes built just over the hill behind the old recycling center.

William Patterson Harmon came to Waverly in the spring of 1853 with the idea of establishing a town and a saw mill. He purchased most of what is now Waverly from the United States Government for $1.25 an acre. The area was incorporated as a town on April 25, 1859, according to the Library of the State of Iowa. (A centennial celebration was held in August 1956.)

Two stories exist on how the town was named. The speaker at the ceremony was said to have been a fan of [[Walter Scott|Sir Walter Scott's]] [[Waverley novels]] and when it came time to name the town (which settlers had wanted to call Harmonville or Harmon) he inadvertently called it Waverly. The myth goes that Jennie Harmon Case later wrote that it was her father who was the speaker and that he made the decision to name the town after the favorite book, instead of the proposed "Harmonville." Coincidentally, Bremer County's name also honors a person eminent in literature. Bremer was named in 1850 by [[Stephen P. Hempstead|Governor Hempstead]], who was an admirer of the Swedish feminist author [[Fredrika Bremer]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.co.bremer.ia.us/bremer-county/history.aspx|title=Bremer County History|publisher=Bremer County, Iowa|access-date=May 6, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180424202648/http://www.co.bremer.ia.us/bremer-county/history.aspx|archive-date=April 24, 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The first school was started by Charles Ensign in a log cabin in 1854. A stone school house was erected by 1855 and additional schools were built in 1861 and 1868. The first graduating class of the Waverly High School was the class of 1875 with two students. Wartburg College moved to Waverly from Clinton, Iowa, in 1856. The public library was established in 1866.

In 2014, the [[Waverly East Bremer Avenue Commercial Historic District]] was listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]]. Among the noted buildings in the listing is the WPA-era post office, which contains a [[United States post office murals|mural]] designed by artist [[Mildred W. Pelzer]] for the [[Section of Painting and Sculpture]], later called the [[Section of Fine Arts]], of the [[United States Department of the Treasury|Treasury Department]]. The painting, called ''A Letter from Home in 1856'', depicted a farm family pausing during plowing to read a letter from their former home.<ref>{{cite web| last1=Full| first1=Jan Olive| title=National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Waverly East Bremer Avenue Commercial Historic District| url=https://www.nps.gov/nr/feature/places/pdfs/14000174.pdf| publisher=National Park Service| access-date=March 15, 2017| location=Washington, D. C.| date=October 2013| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170222004945/https://www.nps.gov/nr/feature/places/pdfs/14000174.pdf| archive-date=February 22, 2017}}</ref>