American Profile
Iowa

Iowa Trivia & Tidbits

Looking for Iowa trivia? Try our list Iowa little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

—The Grotto of the Redemption in West Bend (pop. 834) is a composite of nine separate grottos, each portraying a scene in the life of Christ, and is billed as the largest collection of precious stones and gems found anywhere in one location. Priest and artist Paul Matthias Dobberstein began building the bejeweled wonder in 1912 and was working on it when he died in 1954.
first appeared: 5/4/2008
—In 1972, the Iowa Democratic Party moved the date of its caucus forward to Jan. 24, positioning it ahead of the New Hampshire primary election, and was followed by the Iowa Republican Party in 1976. The Iowa Caucus quickly gained national significance as the first-in-the-nation presidential nominating event.
first appeared: 3/9/2008
—The first female commander of the International Space Station is NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, born in 1960 in Mount Ayr (pop. 1,822) and raised in Beaconsfield (pop. 11). The mission, Expedition 16, began last October, and Whitson will serve a six-month stint.
first appeared: 2/24/2008
—According to Iowa road maps, highway signs and residents, Frytown is the name of an unincorporated village of about 150 people. However, the federal government and its maps identify the village as Williamstown. Pioneer families named Fry and Williams are at the heart of the mix-up, which the Board of Geographic Names is researching.
first appeared: 2/10/2008
—The KCCI-TV Weather Beacon, a landmark on the Des Moines horizon, changes colors with the forecast. Red indicates warm weather ahead; white means cold weather in sight; green means no change foreseen; and a flashing light day or night means precipitation is on the way.
first appeared: 1/27/2008
—The state’s youngest governor and also its longest-serving was Gov. Terry Branstad, who was 35 when he was first elected in 1982. Branstad served four consecutive terms.
first appeared: 1/13/2008
—Music scores, photos, playbills, costumes and scenery from touring companies that played in opera houses, town halls and tent theaters from the 1850s to the 1950s are displayed at the Theatre Museum of Repertoire Americana in Mount Pleasant (pop. 8,751).
first appeared: 12/30/2007
—Prugh Funeral Service in Burlington (pop. 26,839) traces its roots to 1852, when Isaac Prugh began manufacturing coffins, furniture and cabinetry. Today, a fifth-generation owner, Robert Burton Prugh Jr., operates the funeral home business.
first appeared: 12/2/2007
—The “Taco Ride” is a Thursday night tradition for 600 or more bicyclists who pedal 10 miles on the Wabash Trace Nature Trail from Council Bluffs (pop. 58,268) to the Mineola Steakhouse in Mineola to chow down on tacos.
first appeared: 11/18/2007
—Webster City (pop. 8,176) was the home of two 1950s Pulitzer Prize winners. MacKinlay Kantor, born in 1904 in Webster City, won a 1956 Pulitzer for his Civil War novel, Andersonville. Clark Mollenhoff, reporter for the Des Moines Register, won a 1958 Pulitzer for national reporting that exposed racketeering by some labor unions. Mollenhoff was born in 1921 in Burnside, and attended high school and junior college in Webster City.
first appeared: 11/4/2007
—Thousands of yellow lotus lilies create a spectacular show each summer across the 170-acre Lily Lake between Amana and Middle Amana. A 3.1-mile recreational trail circles the lake.
first appeared: 10/21/2007
—Completed in 1869, the 18,000-square-foot Terrace Hill mansion in Des Moines was the home of the state’s first millionaire, Benjamin Franklin Allen, and today is the governor’s official residence.
first appeared: 10/7/2007
—Photographs, original survey reports and equipment, and artifacts trace the development of the railroad and the American West at the Union Pacific Railroad Museum in Council Bluffs (pop. 58,268). The museum is housed in the Beaux Arts-style former Carnegie Library.
first appeared: 9/30/2007
—Platted in 1855, Steamboat Rock (pop. 336) on the Iowa River got its name from a large protruding rock on the adjacent river bluffs, which gave the appearance of a number of steamboats lying at anchor.
first appeared: 9/9/2007
—The state’s oldest family-owned funeral home is Laufersweiler Funeral Home in Fort Dodge (pop. 25,136). Established in 1856, the business is operated by fourth- and fifth-generation family members.
first appeared: 8/12/2007
—Dennis Fett and his wife, Debra J. Buck, raise a colorful “crop” as peacock farmers and founders of the Peacock Information Center near Minden (pop. 564). Fett has published books on raising peafowl.
first appeared: 7/29/2007
—Abolitionist Josiah B. Grinnell, founder of Grinnell (pop. 9,105), provided shelter to abolitionist John Brown in 1859 after Brown’s anti-slavery raids in Kansas and Missouri. His namesake town also served as a stop on the Underground Railroad.
first appeared: 7/15/2007
—In the 1920s and ’30s, saxophonist and bandleader Peggy Gilbert pioneered all-female bands that performed widely and appeared in Hollywood films. She was born in 1905 in Sioux City.
first appeared: 7/1/2007
—Named for the state rock, Geode State Park near Danville (pop. 914) offers rock hounds a chance to admire beautiful geodes, which have a sparkling crystal lining inside a hard outer shell.
first appeared: 6/17/2007
—Each July, runners in Eldridge (pop. 4,159) participate in the Moonlight Chase. The race, which raises money for community projects, is held after dark, its four-mile course lit by luminaries.
first appeared: 6/3/2007
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