Numerous friezes along the exterior walls reflected both neoclassicism, still strong in the late nineteenth century, and local industry. Among the designs either carved into coal or fancifully painted along the outer walls were a head of Ajax, a series of lions' heads festooned with produce, a depiction of the Carboniferous period connected to a modern coal mine by a miner and pickaxe, and several medallions celebrating local trades—blacksmithing, lumbering, plumbing, masonry, farming, machining, and carpentering were all visible. The smallest turrets were adorned with silver and black stripes, while two gables above the second floor depicted the goddess Ceres watching over farmers and Vulcan watching over factories. After dusk, arc lamps in the towers and colored, electric lights in the windows lit the structure to make "the scene more splendid than any illuminated castle of the rich barons of the middle ages."Ottumwa Daily Courier, date and author unknown, qtd. in Beitz, p. 44.
