Iowa Trivia & Tidbits - Page 7

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

The first railroad bridge across the Mississippi River, completed in 1856, linked Davenport and Rock Island, Ill. (pop. 39,684).

first appeared: 12/5/2004

In 1922, Marie Zimmerman started radio station WIAE in Vinton (pop. 5,102) and is credited with being the nation's first female station owner.

first appeared: 11/21/2004

In the 1830s, a section of land along Wyacondah Creek in southeastern Davis County was known as the "Hairy Nation" for its rough lot of male settlers, who were shaggy, rude and belligerent—and proud of it.

first appeared: 11/7/2004

Ames (pop. 50,731) is home to the nation’s first land-grant university. Under the 1862 Morrill Land Grant Act, the federal government gave land to the state, which was sold to endow what is today Iowa State University of Science and Technology.

first appeared: 10/24/2004

Dutch settlers in Orange City (pop. 5,582) held their first Tulip Festival in 1936, a celebration that blooms each May.

first appeared: 10/10/2004

The state’s first courthouse was built in 1839 in Mount Pleasant (pop. 8,757).

first appeared: 10/3/2004

Three states—Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin—are visible from a bluff in Mount Hosmer City Park in Lansing (pop. 1,012).

first appeared: 9/19/2004

During a train ride in 1879, women passengers were asked to name the town then known as St. Paul Junction. The women decided on Le Mars (pop. 9,237), after combining the first letters of their names—Lucy, Elizabeth, Mary, Anna, Rebecca and Sarah.

first appeared: 9/12/2004

With 16 historic buildings downtown and two outside town, the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah (pop. 8,172) is the nation’s largest museum devoted to a single immigrant group.

first appeared: 9/5/2004

The 1848 Pine Creek Grist Mill in Muscatine (pop. 22,697) ground to a halt in the 1920s, but is preserved at Wildcat Den State Park.

first appeared: 8/29/2004

Breitbach’s Country Dining in Balltown (pop. 73) has been dishing up hot meals since 1852 and is the state’s oldest bar and restaurant.

first appeared: 8/22/2004

For 28 years, Macksburg (pop. 142) has welcomed summer with a national skillet-throwing championship in which contestants hurl 4- to 7-pound cast-iron skillets and knock basketball “heads” off dummies.

first appeared: 8/15/2004

The U.S. flag, 50 state flags, international flags and the armed services’ flags fly in Brooklyn (pop. 1,367), known as the “Community of Flags.”

first appeared: 8/8/2004

At the state’s first “boat and breakfast,” guests sleep in the 1934 William M. Black steamboat at the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium in Dubuque (pop. 57,636).

first appeared: 8/1/2004

William “Buffalo Bill” Cody, whose 1880s Wild West show embodied the spirit of the West, was born in 1846 in LeClaire (pop. 2,847).

first appeared: 7/25/2004

The state’s largest tract of native prairie is 3,070 acres within the Broken Kettle Grasslands Preserve in Plymouth County.

first appeared: 7/18/2004

From 1837 to 1838, Burlington (pop. 26,839) served as the capital of the Wisconsin Territory, and from 1838 to 1840 as the capital of the Iowa Territory.

first appeared: 7/11/2004

Dubuque (pop. 57,686) is the state’s oldest city, founded in 1788 by French fur trader Julien Dubuque.

first appeared: 6/27/2004

Visitors can plow into 300 years of agriculture history at Living History Farms, which consists of three working farms on 600 acres in Urbandale (pop. 29,072).

first appeared: 6/20/2004

German immigrants named the town of Guttenberg (pop. 1,987) after Johann Gutenberg, who invented movable type. Ironically, a lithographer printed an extra “t” with the town’s name on an 1848 plat.

first appeared: 6/13/2004

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