Iowa Trivia & Tidbits - Page 17

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

The International Wrestling Institute and Museum in Newton (pop. 15,116) chronicles the history of the sport and features, among other things, a life-size mural of Abraham Lincoln as a wrestler.

first appeared: 12/24/2000

The National Sprint Car Hall of Fame and Museum in Knoxville (pop. 8,312) includes 20 skybox-level suites overlooking a half-mile dirt oval where the small cars race.

first appeared: 12/17/2000

Johnny Carson, who hosted the Tonight Show for 30 years before retiring in 1992, was born Oct. 23, 1925, in Corning (pop. 1,606). Carson first practiced his entertainment skills on family members with magic tricks from a mail-order kit.

first appeared: 12/10/2000

First Lady Mamie Doud Eisenhower, the wife of Dwight D. Eisenhower, was born in Boone (pop. 12,741) on Nov. 14, 1896. She met her husband in San Antonio, Texas, in 1915, and they married a year later.

first appeared: 12/3/2000

The fictitious future birthplace of Star Trek’s Capt. James T. Kirk is Riverside (pop. 914).

first appeared: 11/26/2000

Arabella Babb Mansfield of Mount Pleasant (pop. 8,223) was the first woman admitted to the legal profession in the United States. She became a member of the Iowa bar in 1869 but never practiced law. Instead, she taught political science, English, and history at several colleges and universities, eventually serving as dean of the schools of art and music at Indiana Asbury University (now DePauw University).

first appeared: 11/19/2000

The state name is believed to be derived from an Native American word meaning "beautiful land."

first appeared: 11/12/2000

Lephe Wells Coates of Spencer (pop. 11,194) is credited with first calling a severe snowstorm a “blizzard” in 1868 after reading a story about a man named Mr. Blizzard who had a raging temper.

first appeared: 11/5/2000

West Okoboji Lake in northwest Iowa is one of only three “blue lakes” in the world—so called for its clarity and bluish tint caused by the spring-fed water “turning over” twice yearly, which adds to its quality and oxygen content. Switzerland’s Lake Geneva and Canada’s Lake Louise are the two others.

first appeared: 10/22/2000

Fort Atkinson in Winneshiek County is the only fort built by the U.S. government to protect one Indian tribe from another. The fort was built to keep the Winnebago Indians on neutral ground after their removal from Wisconsin in 1840 and to protect them from the Sioux, Sauk, and Fox tribes, as well as white intruders on Indian land.

first appeared: 10/8/2000

Herbert Hoover, the 31st president of the United States, was born Aug. 10, 1874, in West Branch—the first president born west of the Mississippi River. More than 2.5 million people have visited the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch since it opened in 1962.

first appeared: 9/24/2000

Spirit Lake is the largest natural lake in Iowa. Located a mile north of the town of Spirit Lake, the 5,584-acre body of water was created by glaciers and holds all-time big fish records for freshwater drum and muskellunge.

first appeared: 9/10/2000

“You scream. I scream. We all scream for ice cream.” Christian Nelson invented the Eskimo Pie in an ice cream shop in Onawa (pop. 2,919) in 1921. The treat originally was called the I-Scream-Bar.

first appeared: 8/27/2000

Elk Horn (pop. 664) in southwestern Iowa is the largest Danish settlement in the United States, and home to the only authentic, working Danish windmill in the United States. Built in Norre Snede, Denmark, in 1848, the windmill was dismantled and rebuilt in Elk Horn in 1976 by more than 300 volunteers. Shortly after, Denmark passed a law prohibiting the export of historic windmills.

first appeared: 8/13/2000

A corn field converted into a baseball diamond on a family farm in Dyersville was the site of the 1989 Academy Award-nominated film Field of Dreams. The site is open daily to the public from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., April through November.

first appeared: 7/30/2000

One Iowa farm family grows enough food and fiber on average to feed 279 people, one-fourth of whom live overseas. Iowa has more than 100,000 farms.

first appeared: 7/16/2000

The town of Winterset (pop. 4,669) in central Iowa is the birthplace of movie legend John Wayne, who was born Marion Morrison on May 26, 1907, in a modest four-room home now open to the public. Call (515) 462-1044 for information.

first appeared: 7/2/2000

A farm north of Sibley (pop. 2,795) in northwest Iowa marks the state?s highest point: 1,670 feet above sea level. Its lowest point, at 470 feet above sea level, is at the confluence of the Des Moines and Mississippi rivers in southeast Iowa.

first appeared: 6/18/2000

Story City (pop. 2,918) is home to the oldest continually operating theatre in Iowa. Opened in 1913, the Story Theatre/Grand Opera House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Live productions are presented there several times a year and motion pictures are shown each weekend.

first appeared: 6/4/2000

Burlington, Iowa’s Snake Alley has been called the crookedest street in the world. Built in 1894 as an experimental street design, the alley consists of five half-curves and two quarter-curves, and drops 58 feet over a distance of 275 feet.

first appeared: 5/21/2000

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