Corn Belt Hero Reaps City’s Gratitude : Wall Street Investment Banker Adopts Small Iowa Town

There’s a Bolger Drive in town. A smiling Bolger portrait in City Hall. And, unlikely as it seems, a Bolger beach amid the cornfields.

But the name doesn’t belong to a founding father or local hero. Bolger wasn’t born here. He has never even lived here.

So who is he?

In Wall Street circles, David Bolger is a wealthy investment banker. In Fayette, Iowa, he’s a guardian angel.

“He kind of feels we’re his adopted community. And we’ve adopted him,” says former Mayor Roy Karlson.

Bolger and some friends and clients have donated to Fayette the ownership of part or virtually all of some 20 properties, ranging from a can factory to a bank.

The arrangement has brought Fayette hundreds of thousands of dollars that have helped build a new city hall, expand utilities and buy a street sweeper, lights, two ambulances and two police cars.

Cares for Them

“He really understands a small town in the middle of nowhere has needs,” Karlson says.

“Fayette exemplifies the best of middle America,” the New Jersey financier says, by way of explanation. “People are hard-working, relatively quiet and reserved. The city is of people and by people. . . . They care for each other.”

And he cares for them, through a friendship that belongs in a Frank Capra movie: big-time businessman embraces speck-on-the-map town, spreads greenbacks and good cheer.

No strings attached.

When Fayette got new Main Street lights, thanks to Bolger, flip-of-the-switch honors went to his wife, Barbara.

A sandy fun-in-the-sun spot in corn country? Bolger paid to bulldoze a riverbank area, and Bernard “Scorch” Pattison, the grain and feed mill owner, hauled white silica sand from his company’s underground mine to create a beach named after--guess who?

“He gets a kick out of seeing many things happen because of what he’s contributed,” says Mayor Denny Dumermuth, noting that taxes would have to be raised or services cut without Bolger.

Fayette needs help: many streets have potholes, houses are in disrepair.

To Bolger, good deeds are “what my parents taught me to do--put back in the community what you take out.”

Adopted Home

Bolger, whose Fayette link goes back 25 years, visits occasionally--sometimes by private jet. He eats at Lucy’s Garden of Eatin’ cafe, chats with Kenny, the hardware store owner, and is on a first-name basis with other shopkeepers.

No corporate pinstripes, no stuffy meetings. Bolger goes fishing or antique hunting and sometimes brings back his wife’s favorite--Iowa smoked pork chops.

“He works with Wall Street people 350 days a year,” explains city attorney Charles Hurley. “It’s a cutthroat world. He loves to come out here where the pace is slower. I think he’s doing some good things with his generosity, not squandering it on wine, women and song.”

Fayette, population 1,500, has made Bolger honorary mayor. His wife is honorary police chief.

This spring, Bolger received an award from Upper Iowa University. In the early 1960s when Bolger worked at a Wall Street securities firm, he arranged financing for a dormitory-food service center there.

Years later, the school’s lenders called on him when the university was $3 million in debt. Bolger arranged a refinancing plan, secured loans and canceled $1.8 million in long-term mortgages he held on the school.

Starting then, and continuing through the ‘70s and ‘80s, Bolger, business partners and some clients arranged to donate some 20 commercial properties they’d owned and leased to corporations.

Initially, the offer created “a lot of suspicion” and liability concerns, Karlson says. “Small town, big millionaire. Is this real or not?”

But manna from heaven it was.

“I think he was looking for someone to give a charitable gift to,” Karlson adds. “Thank God it was us.”

This year, Fayette received checks including $247,500 for the sale of a Michigan retail store and $30,000 for its share in an Ohio shopping center that was sold.

In some cases, Fayette owns the land, in others, the building, too. Bolger maintains some ownership of all properties, which include an Illinois can factory, a Texas cold storage house and several Cleveland supermarkets.

Experts say giving property to a municipality is a tax savings--the donor deducts the entire fair market value when the gift is given. But the money saved is less than if the property is sold and taxes are paid.

No one knows exactly how much money Fayette has received, though Karlson estimates that it’s more than half a million dollars.

A committee determines how to spend the “Bolger fund,” which in mid-June totaled $366,000. The council recently approved a committee recommendation to use most of the cash for street renovation, for razing an old sewer plant, for an ambulance and for a loan to the local development group.

“There’s a feeling of responsibility,” Hurley says. “We want to put it to good use. We want to have a nice town in 50 to 100 years.”

Bolger doesn’t participate, saying: “I think it’s appropriate the community decides what they want. Once I get something together, I pull back.”

Bolger, however, did provide $140,000 in long-term financing for Blessing Industries, a fast-growing metal fabricating firm.

“What he leaves behind to Fayette is something he’s been a part of,” says Blaine Blessing, the firm’s owner. “He wants to . . . make it better for the people who are here.”