Iowa Trivia & Tidbits - Page 12

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

In 1928, the Des Moines Register and Tribune became the first newspaper in the country to own and operate an airplane. Dubbed the Good News, the five-seat Fairchild monoplane promoted aviation in Iowa and hastened newsgathering.

first appeared: 11/24/2002

St. Louis Rams Quarterback Kurt Warner, who led the team to the Super Bowl championship in 2000 and twice was named NFL Most Valuable Player, was born June 22, 1971, in Burlington (pop. 26,839).

first appeared: 11/17/2002

Established in 1838, The Hawk Eye in Burlington (pop. 26,839) is the state’s oldest newspaper.

first appeared: 11/10/2002

The first ghostwriter for the Nancy Drew mystery books was Mildred Wirt Benson, born July 10, 1905, in Ladora (pop. 287). Benson wrote 23 books, beginning in 1930, and worked as a newspaper columnist for the Toledo (Ohio) Blade until her death in May at age 96.

first appeared: 11/3/2002

Dedicated in 1920, Backbone State Park in Dundee (pop.179) is Iowa’s oldest state park. It is named for steep narrow ridges of bedrock carved by the Maquoketa River.

first appeared: 10/27/2002

Offering “maximum security with a minimum of jailer attention,” the 1885 three-story rotating jail in Council Bluff was cranked by hand to view each pie-shaped cell and was used until the 1960s.

first appeared: 10/20/2002

Andy Williams, who was born Dec. 3, 1927, in Wall Lake (pop. 841), made his debut at age 8 with the Williams Brothers Quartet but found solo success with multiple Top 10 hits, including his theme song, Moon River.

first appeared: 10/13/2002

Advice columnists and twin sisters, Pauline Esther Friedman and the late Esther Pauline Friedman, were born July 4, 1918, in Sioux City, but are better known by their pen names, Abigail Van Buren and Ann Landers.

first appeared: 10/6/2002

The 500-foot bluff at Pikes Peak State Park in McGregor (pop. 871) is the highest bluff along the Mississippi River.

first appeared: 9/29/2002

In 1893, Czech composer Antonin Dvorak summered in the Czech community of Spillville (pop. 386), where he composed String Quartet in F Major and String Quintet in E Flat.

first appeared: 9/22/2002

The Loess Hills in western Iowa are a rare geological feature of wind-blown silt deposits with steep angles and sharp bluffs, only found here and in China.

first appeared: 9/15/2002

Tired of messy fountain pens, Walter Sheaffer, a jeweler in Fort Madison (pop. 10,715), invented a self-filling fountain pen in 1908, and soon converted his jewelry store to the W.A. Sheaffer Pen Co.

first appeared: 9/8/2002

Abandoned in the book return at the Spencer Public Library in Spencer (pop. 11,317) in 1988, Dewey Readmore Books is a beloved library cat who starred in a national documentary, Puss in Books, and helps raise funds with his line of postcards.

first appeared: 9/1/2002

Artist Grant Wood, best known for his painting American Gothic, was born in 1891 in Anamosa (pop. 5,494) and led an artist colony and school in nearby Stone City in 1932 and 1933.

first appeared: 8/25/2002

Skateboarders in Corning (pop. 1,783) asked for a small contribution from native Johnny Carson to build a skate park, but the former talk show host donated $75,000 last March.

first appeared: 8/18/2002

Two hundred years of hot-air and gas-ballooning history are on display at the National Balloon Museum in Indianola (pop. 12,998).

first appeared: 8/11/2002

An old-fashioned ice cream parlor and the scoop on ice cream making are attractions at the Ice Cream Capital of the World Visitor Center in Le Mars (pop. 9,237).

first appeared: 8/4/2002

In 1998, the Marion County Conservation Board transformed a defunct water tower into the Cordova Park Observation Tower. Viewers climb a 106-foot spiral staircase to admire the Des Moines River Valley in the Lake Red Rock area near Knoxville (pop. 7,731).

first appeared: 7/28/2002

Iowa earned its nickname “The Hawkeye State” largely through the efforts of Judge David Rorer and James Edwards. Edwards, editor of the Fort Madison Patriot, moved his paper to Burlington in 1843 and re-named it the Burlington Hawk-Eye. The two men continued their campaign to popularize the name and territorial officials eventually gave it formal approval.

first appeared: 7/21/2002

George H. Gallup, born Nov. 18, 1901, in Jefferson (pop. 4,626), pioneered scientific polling methods and popularized the opinion poll.

first appeared: 7/14/2002

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