CONTRIBUTED PHOTO — Author Lance Hansmann, a native of Steamboat Rock, poses with a copy of his new novel “The Night Riders of Hardin County.” He will be holding a book signing and reading event on Saturday morning in Steamboat Rock beginning at 9:30 a.m. in a tent across from the Historical Society Museum.

STEAMBOAT ROCK — Stories of the Rainsbargers and their alleged dastardly deeds have circulated around Hardin County for over a century, and two members of the family were even lynched in 1885 for a murder they supposedly committed. But was any of it true?

Lance Hansmann, a sixth-generation Steamboat Rock native who grew up hearing those tales himself, grew up, graduated from the University of Iowa and went off to Hollywood to work in entertainment before eventually returning to the Hawkeye State. A conversation with his aunt about 15 years ago brought the Rainsbargers back to his mind.

“The story was always (that) our little town’s claim to fame was this criminal family that murdered and stole horses and wreaked havoc,” he said. “So everybody I knew grew up hearing that. I never thought much about it, honestly, beyond that, because there wasn’t a lot to know or to read, but then I think it was about 15 or so years ago, maybe, my aunt Carol, who still lives in Eldora, said she heard a different version of that story, and what we’d heard about them being criminals might not be true. They might be innocent all along.”

Hansmann was still in California at the time, but he was intrigued by the information. When he and his wife returned to their family farm near Steamboat Rock in 2015 (they now live in Cedar Rapids), his aunt connected him with Mildred Griffin, the great-granddaughter of Martha Rainsbarger who recently celebrated her 100th birthday.

“She is just the nicest lady in the world. You can’t meet her and not fall in love with her. She’s a sweetheart,” Hansmann said.

A three-hour plus conversation between Hansmann and Griffin ensued as she laid out the shame and pain her family endured due to the false accusations, and the ordeal brought her to tears. Of the 10 Rainsbarger children — five girls and five boys — two of the brothers were lynched outside the Eldora jail as previously mentioned and two more went to prison for 30 years for murder. The other son, although attempts were made on his life, emerged mostly unscathed.

With plenty of documentation she was willing to share, Griffin gave Hansmann her blessing to tell the family’s story, and he considered it an honor. Although he now works in marketing and corporate communications, he had done some creative writing in the past and considered this the perfect opportunity to jump back into it. Once he had cracked “the angle” he felt he needed to crack the story, he set out to write “The Night Riders of Hardin County,” a historical fiction novel reframing the story and placing the blame on who he considers the actual culprits — a gang of counterfeiters and horse thieves who murdered one of their own, Enoch Johnson, when they learned he was about to turn state’s evidence against them.

“What I’ve written in the book, the big picture of this whole thing is that I didn’t want to just write a story that told the family side because there’s plenty of family members who say they didn’t do it. I wanted to find out who did,” he said. “It’s one thing to say ‘Hey, they didn’t do it.’ It’s another thing to say ‘I actually figured out who did.’ And that’s what I did.”

They successfully framed the Rainsbargers, who Hansmann described as “a family from the wrong side of the tracks,” for the crime, and members of the gang even used the then-editor of the Eldora newspaper to write articles warning of the dangers they posed to law and order in Hardin County. Chaos ensued as scenes that sound like they were pulled straight from old Western movies — haystacks being burnt down, horses being stolen and people being shot at — unfolded in a usually quiet corner of rural Iowa.

Speaking of which, Hansmann said he’s already been working on a script for television in the vein of “Deadwood” or “1883” and hopes to expand the story further beyond the novel. He said he didn’t want “Night Riders” to simply be a retelling of history but also a piece of entertainment, and he’s gotten great feedback so far.

“There’s a lot of history written, and especially about this locally, but I wanted to go a step further and breathe life into them and put them in situations that we can relate to and understand and give them feelings, and hopefully I’ve succeeded,” he said.

Hansmann plans to hold a book signing event on Saturday, Aug. 19 (tomorrow) across the street from the Historical Society Museum and Happenings bar in a tent beginning at 9:30 a.m. with a reading at 10 and a Q&A session afterward.

He’s anticipating plenty of questions as he’s already been contacted by two distant relatives of characters from the book, and the legend is still very much alive locally all of these years later. “The Night Riders of Hardin County” is also available for order online through Amazon and Barnes & Noble.