Iowa Trivia & Tidbits - Page 6

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

In 1886, an artesian well being drilled in Belle Plaine (pop. 2,878) spouted water 53 feet into the air and gushed millions of gallons a day for 14 months before the nicknamed "Jumbo Well" was brought under control.

first appeared: 9/25/2005

One of Iowa’s largest state parks, Lacey-Keosauqua near Keosauqua (pop. 1,066), consists of 1,653 acres of hills, bluffs and valleys along the Des Moines River, including a series of 19 ancient Indian burial mounds that overlook the river.

first appeared: 9/18/2005

Since 1960, Duffy Lyon of Toledo (pop. 2,539) has sculpted life-size cows from butter for the Iowa State Fair. Lyon’s other buttery creations include President Eisenhower, Garth Brooks and a full-scale Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

first appeared: 9/11/2005

The 2005 Pulitzer Prize for fiction was awarded to Marilynne Robinson, a teacher at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop in Iowa City (pop. 62,220), for her novel Gilead about a dying 76-year-old Iowa minister reflecting on his life and his ancestors.

first appeared: 8/28/2005

Pioneering makeup inventor Carl Weeks, who founded the Armand Face Powder Co. in 1915, also is known for his Des Moines home, Salisbury House, a 42-room castle modeled after the King’s House in Salisbury, England.

first appeared: 8/14/2005

Puppets created by Bil Baird for the "Lonely Goatherd" scene in 1965’s The Sound of Music take center stage at the Charles H. MacNider Art Museum in Mason City (pop. 29,172). Baird was born in Nebraska and grew up in Mason City.

first appeared: 7/31/2005

Born in Lake Mills (pop. 2,140) in 1909, Wallace Stegner wrote Angle of Repose (1971), the story of an ailing retired historian who set out to document his grandparents’ lives on the Western frontier. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1972.

first appeared: 7/17/2005

Called the greatest sacrifice by one family during World War II, five Sullivan brothers—in birth order, George, Francis, Joseph, Madison and Albert—from Waterloo (pop. 68,747) died when the USS Juneau was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in November 1942 during the Guadalcanal campaign in the South Pacific.

first appeared: 6/5/2005

John Ringling, born on May 31, 1866, in McGregor (pop. 871), started the Ringling Brothers Circus with four of his brothers in 1884. In 1907, the company purchased the Barnum and Bailey circus, quickly becoming "The Greatest Show on Earth."

first appeared: 5/22/2005

Wildlife artist Maynard Reece, born in 1920 in Arnolds Park (pop. 1,162), has won the Federal Duck Stamp art competition a record five times. First issued in 1934, the stamps are sold to hunters, birders, conservationists and collectors and fund migratory bird and wetlands conservation programs.

first appeared: 5/8/2005

The carriage house in Cedar Rapids where artist Grant Wood painted American Gothic in 1930 and other famous works is restored as the Grant Wood Studio and Visitor Center.

first appeared: 4/24/2005

He’s only 25, but Jamie Aaron Kelley of Boone (pop. 12,803) has impersonated Elvis Presley for 22 years and memorized more than 700 Elvis songs.

first appeared: 4/10/2005

Established in 1871 near Maquoketa (pop. 6,112), the Hurstville Lime Kilns produced 1,000 barrels of lime per day for the construction trades. An interpretive center opened at the historic site last August.

first appeared: 3/27/2005

Students engage in transcendental meditation twice daily at the Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield (pop. 9,509).

first appeared: 3/13/2005

Manning (pop. 1,490) citizens imported a 1660s German hausbarn, a shelter for both livestock and people, and reconstructed it in the Hausbarn/Heritage Park in 2000.

first appeared: 2/27/2005

Bryan Berg of Spirit Lake (pop. 4,261) broke the world record in 1999 for building the largest structure from playing cards, a 25-foot tower in a casino lobby in Berlin, Germany.

first appeared: 2/13/2005

One mile east of Arcadia (pop. 443) is the Missouri-Mississippi Drainage Divide, at an elevation of 1,429 feet, where water runs west to the Missouri or east to the Mississippi.

first appeared: 1/30/2005

A home built by George B. Hitchcock in Lewis (pop. 438) in 1856 was a stop on the Underground Railroad. A Congregational Church minister, Hitchcock and the home provided a safe haven for runaway slaves fleeing northward.

first appeared: 1/16/2005

Founder of the Farm Holiday movement, Milo Reno (1866-1936) of Wapello County campaigned for higher prices for farm products and called for the first "farm holiday," in reality a strike for higher prices, in August 1932. The movement collapsed after initial success in the Midwest.

first appeared: 1/2/2005

Advertising jingle writer William D. Fries introduced the public to CB slang with the creation of the trucker character C.W. McCall and his 1976 hit Convoy, which inspired a 1978 film of the same name starring Kris Kristofferson. Fries was born in 1928 in Audubon (pop. 2,382).

first appeared: 12/19/2004

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