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Tuesday 8:30am - 3:30pm Wednesday 8:30am - 3:30pm Thursday 8:30am - 3:30pm

Dunes Dermatology Onawa, 1015 8th Street, Onawa, IA (2026)

02/20/2026

Front Façade Update — Strengthening the Foundation of the Future

We’ve had several people ask what’s happening at the front of the building — and it’s an important one.

During renovation, we discovered that the original load-bearing beam across the storefront had significant sagging. This beam has been carrying the weight of that beautiful historic brick façade for decades. To protect the integrity of the building (and everyone inside it), replacement wasn’t optional — it was necessary.

The old beam has now been carefully removed and replaced with a new engineered load-bearing beam designed to properly support the structure for generations to come.

You can see in these photos the temporary bracing that held everything safely in place while the transition happened. It’s one of those behind-the-scenes structural updates that most people will never notice when we’re finished… but it’s absolutely critical to preserving this historic building.

At the same time, we’re moving forward with installing new UV-protected glass in the storefront. The updated glazing will:
• Protect interior finishes and furnishings
• Improve energy efficiency
• Allow beautiful natural light in while filtering harmful rays

This phase may not look glamorous — but this is the work that ensures longevity. We’re not just remodeling a storefront. We’re reinforcing a piece of our downtown’s history so it can stand strong well into the future.

Every beam, every brick, every decision is made with care.

More progress soon. 🤍

02/19/2026

Honoring a Legacy: Dr. William “Doc” Samson

As we continue the renovation of this building, we are constantly reminded that we are not the first to care for this community within these walls.

Long before us, Dr. William “Doc” Samson devoted decades of his life to the people of Onawa. Beginning in the 1950s — following in the footsteps of his father — Doc carried forward a family tradition of optometry and service. Together, the Samson family became the longest stewards of this building, shaping not only its purpose, but its place in the heart of our town.

Doc wasn’t simply an optometrist. He was a lifelong resident. A business leader. A past Chamber of Commerce president. A steady presence in local commerce and community life. He believed in Onawa — in building things up, in raising a family here, in investing time and care where it mattered most.

The photos of him in his exam room with his daughters speak volumes. A father, a mentor, a physician who allowed his family to be part of his work. And the image of him standing proudly beside his wife in front of this very storefront — the one we are now restoring — feels like a full circle moment.

As we remodel this space, we do so with deep respect for what came before us. Every wall opened, every floor leveled, every design choice made carries the quiet understanding that we are continuing a story — not starting one.

Doc Samson built more than a practice here.
He built trust.
He built relationships.
He built legacy.

We are honored to carry that forward.

With gratitude for the past, and hope for the future. 🤍

02/15/2026

🎄✨ Christmas on Main Street — 1970s Edition ✨🎄

This one is personal and may be recognizable…

Before LED lights and inflatable Santas…
Before online shopping and Amazon trucks…

There were big red bulbs.

Thick green cords strung carefully along brick storefronts.
Glass ornaments catching the glow of warm yellow C9 lights.
Plastic wreaths wired by hand and hung proudly in windows.

You could walk down Main Street in December and feel it —
The hum of community.
The smell of snow and wool coats.
The sound of a doorbell chiming as neighbors stepped inside.

Our building remembers those years.

It remembers when someone carefully unpacked these oversized bulbs — likely during the years Doc Samson ran his optical clinic here in the 1970s.
When a ladder was leaned against the storefront.
When someone — probably cold and smiling — plugged in the lights and stepped back to admire their work.

These decorations weren’t fancy.
They were sturdy.
Practical.
Made to be used again next year… and the year after that.

Just like small-town businesses.
Just like families.
Just like community.

As we continue restoring this space for Dunes Dermatology, we’re reminded that this building has always been about care — in different ways, in different seasons.

Pharmacy counters.
Soda fountain stools.
Doc Samson’s optical clinic.
Holiday window displays.
Now skincare, healing, and confidence.

But the heart remains the same.

A place where people gather.
A place that glows in winter.
A place that belongs to the community.

Here’s to the 70s Main Street Christmases.
And to carrying that same warmth forward. 🤍✨

02/13/2026

Your skin carries you through every season of life. It deserves care that does the same.

At Dunes Dermatology, we treat skin cancers, autoimmune conditions, acne, rashes, and chronic diseases that impact your health.

And we also love helping you build individualized skincare routines designed specifically for your skin — your age, your goals, your lifestyle.

Together — mother and daughter — we combine experience, precision, and a shared passion for helping you:

Age well.
Look your best.
Feel confident in your own skin.

Healthy skin isn’t about chasing trends.
It’s about prevention, protection, and thoughtful care that evolves with you.

Schedule your consult and let’s build your plan. 🤍

02/13/2026

✨ Another Piece of the Story ✨

The research can take awhile…and there’s more to come!

One of our recent finds may be one of the most telling yet.

This early 1900s bottle — dated approximately 1905–1920 based on its glass manufacturing — still carries remnants of its original paper label. After enhancing the lettering, we can make out what most likely reads:

“Compound Coffee Syrup
Fluid Acid Phosphate”

In the early 20th century, preparations like this were commonly used in pharmacies and soda fountains. Coffee-based syrups were stimulant tonics — often used for fatigue, headaches, digestive complaints, and “nervous exhaustion.”

Acid phosphates were especially popular during the soda fountain era. Pharmacists would mix flavored syrups with acid phosphate and carbonated water to create refreshing drinks that were believed to have medicinal benefits. Before modern pharmaceuticals, this is how many remedies were dispensed — over the counter, mixed by hand, often right in front of the customer.

This bottle’s wide mouth and thick base suggest it likely sat behind a pharmacy counter — used repeatedly for compounding and dispensing rather than sold as a retail bottle.

When we pair this with our other medical and soda fountain finds, it paints an increasingly clear picture:

🧪 This building most likely once housed an early pharmacy.
🥤 And very likely a soda fountain as well.

Medicine wasn’t just practiced here — it was mixed, poured, and served.

There is something incredibly meaningful about uncovering evidence that healing has always lived within these walls. Long before Dunes Dermatology, this space cared for the people of our community.

And now, over a century later… it will again. 🤍

02/11/2026

Beneath the Floorboards: A Taste of Early Medicine

We love this find!

Tucked beneath the original floorboards of this building, we uncovered the base of a glass syrup bottle embossed:

J. Hungerford Smith Co. – Rochester, N.Y.

Founded in the late 1800s, the J. Hungerford Smith Co. became one of America’s leading manufacturers of soda fountain syrups, root beer concentrates, fruit flavorings, and pharmaceutical flavor bases.
From roughly the 1890s through the early 20th century, and especially between 1905–1925, their heavy embossed bottles were shipped nationwide to drugstores and soda fountains.

At the turn of the century, pharmacies were more than dispensaries — they were gathering places. Behind polished counters stood apothecary jars, tonics, extracts, and soda fountain taps. A pharmacist might mix a medicinal tonic in the morning and serve a root beer float in the afternoon. Syrups from companies like J. Hungerford Smith helped flavor remedies, soothe stomachs, and create small joys in everyday life.

This bottle, likely produced between 1910 and 1920, would have sat behind a counter somewhere — perhaps in a local drugstore, perhaps just down the block — part of an era when medicine and community shared the same space.

Now, more than a century later, it rests again within these walls as we build a new medical practice.

Once, this address may have served comfort in a glass.
Today, it serves care in a different form.

The tools have changed.
The heart of service has not.

02/10/2026

And yet again….our building keeps giving. We like this one for giving us more pieces of Onawa’s story.

Hidden beneath our floorboards for over 100 years…

During renovation this week, we uncovered this heavy embossed glass bottle tucked down in the dirt below the original floor joists.

It reads: Sears – Onawa, Iowa – Distilled.

Our research found that in the early 1900s, small towns like Onawa had their own local bottlers and “distillers” — family-run operations that made soda water, mineral tonics, ginger ale, and other everyday drinks. Bottles were thick, sturdy, and reused again and again, often stamped with the town name because they rarely traveled far from home.

This one likely dates to around 1905–1915.

We imagine it may have belonged to a shopkeeper, a worker, or someone helping build this very space… maybe set down between the joists during construction, maybe dropped by accident — and then quietly sealed beneath the floor as the years passed.

And there it stayed.

Through decades.
Through different businesses.
Through generations.

Just waiting.

Waiting for the day we’d open these floors and find it again.

There’s something really special about that — knowing this building has always served the community in one way or another, long before it became Dunes Dermatology.

A small bottle.
A small moment in time.
A beautiful reminder that history lives right beneath our feet. 🤍

02/06/2026

💡 While removing layers of the ceiling, we uncovered what appears to be one of the building’s original light mounts — a small reminder of when this space first transitioned to electricity over 100 years ago. So we are basically seeing a time capsule of the building’s first lighting system. Every renovation reveals another piece of its story.

02/06/2026

✨ Behind the walls at Dunes Dermatology… big progress happening this week ✨

Not every part of a remodel is pretty — but every part is important.

This week we’ve been doing some of the foundational work that will make this old building safer, stronger, and ready to care for patients for decades to come.

🪟 A few of the original windows are being closed in so we can create more private patient rooms and better clinical flow
🪵 The old, uneven floors are coming out so we can install a level, stable foundation
🧱 Brick, joists, and 100+ years of history are being uncovered along the way

It’s amazing to see what’s been hiding beneath the surface all these years.

Every board we lift and every wall we rebuild is part of the same goal:
preserving the character of this historic space while creating a comfortable, safe place to care for our community.

Sometimes progress looks like dust, ladders, and scaffolding… but it’s all leading to something beautiful. 🤍

Thank you for following along and cheering us on — we can’t wait to welcome you inside when it’s ready.

01/23/2026

❄️ When it feels like -25° outside, this little corner of our building feels especially meaningful.

While renovating, we uncovered the original coal chute and coal bin hidden beneath the floors — the place where deliveries were dumped straight through a window and stored to fuel the furnace.

Over a century ago, this room kept the storefront warm one shovel at a time.
Coal was carried, burned, and emptied here daily just to make it through Midwest winters like this one.

Before thermostats… before natural gas…
this was the heart that kept the building alive, and most likely the source of the fire we found evidece of.

Today, the fuel looks different — but the purpose is the same.

Still caring for the community.
Still creating warmth. 🤍

01/21/2026

🧱 What we uncovered. This one is big!

While removing layers of concrete, we discovered an original exterior stairway that had been completely buried over time. These steps once served as a dedicated entrance to the basement—likely used for deliveries, storage access, or utility functions when the building was first constructed.

⸻

🔑 Why this matters (big win)
• Creates an exterior basement entrance, eliminating the need to route access through the main floor
• Gives us more usable square footage upstairs for patient care and flow
• Restores an original architectural feature, rather than forcing a modern workaround
• Keeps the building’s history working for us, not against us

This discovery allows the basement to function independently while preserving the integrity—and the story—of the original design.

⸻

✨ The bigger picture

Moments like this are why we love this project. Each layer we peel back reveals that the building was thoughtfully designed from the start. We’re not just renovating—we’re listening to what the structure is telling us and letting it guide the future of the space.

01/18/2026

This building is quietly coming to life with each find.

Silent Vessels of Care: A Medical Past Reclaimed

These glass bottles—unearthed during the renovation of our historic building—likely date to the late 1800s through early 1900s, a time when medicine was prepared, dispensed, and stored locally. Their varied sizes, cork stoppers, and amber glass tell a story of early healthcare practices designed with intention and care.

Amber glass, like the larger bottle shown here, was commonly used to protect light-sensitive preparations such as tinctures, antiseptics, tonics, and medicinal solutions. The smaller clear bottles often held topical remedies, oils, or compounds meant for direct application—an early form of personalized care. Cork closures were standard, sealing contents while allowing reuse in an era when nothing was disposable.

Traces of paper labels, mineral residue, and soil suggest these bottles were once actively handled—filled, poured, and trusted—before being set aside and eventually hidden within the structure of the building itself.

Today, they resurface not as waste, but as witnesses.

At Dunes Dermatology, we see these vessels as a powerful reminder that healthcare has always been rooted here—quietly serving the community long before modern equipment or digital charts. Just as these bottles once carried treatments made for the individual, our practice continues that tradition through thoughtful, personalized dermatologic care, blending modern medicine with deep respect for the past.

Preserving these artifacts honors not only the building’s history, but the generations who trusted this space for healing—then and now.

Dunes Dermatology Onawa

02/20/2026

02/19/2026

02/15/2026

02/13/2026

02/13/2026

02/11/2026

02/10/2026

02/06/2026

02/06/2026

01/23/2026

01/21/2026

01/18/2026

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Tuesday	8:30am - 3:30pm
Wednesday	8:30am - 3:30pm
Thursday	8:30am - 3:30pm