Since late 1997, you can drive down 1st Ave and and pick out Cedar Rapids’ only gay bar with ease. Club Basix has been out and proud from the start. The first day it was open, original owner David Thompson mounted Pride flags around the entire roof. “I boarded up that middle window in the […]
Iowa history
Posted inArts & Entertainment
A free festival for punks of all ages, Chroma63 returns to Waterloo with a local lineup, pop-up skate park and 40 years of Iowa show flyers on display
On the website for the Waterloo Center for the Arts, you’ll find a list of perennial outdoor festivals hosted in the museum’s RiverLoop Amphitheatre. You may notice one of the events is not like the others. Nestled amongst the likes of Cedar Valley Stem & Stein and the Holiday Arts Festival is the Chroma63 Arts […]
Posted inCommunity/News
The Blazing Saddle is home to leather daddies, lesbians, cowboys, queens and queer elders who can remember a Des Moines before Pride
The Blazing Saddle is open 365 days a year, but a Thursday afternoon at the bar is very different from a Friday or Saturday night. The doors open at 2 p.m., and the bar quickly fills with men, most at retirement age or approaching it. They’ll drink a few beers, or a cup of coffee, […]
Posted inCommunity/News
In July 1933, Bonnie and Clyde’s gang hid out at an Iowa amusement park — and were nearly killed in a shootout with police
Americans have always had a soft spot for flamboyant, devil-may-care criminals and the tales of their escapades and fast living. Add in a doomed love affair, and you’ve really got an enduring hit. The infamous Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were together just a few short years, meeting in January 1930 and dying in a […]
Posted inCommunity/News
How bald eagles came back from the brink to dominate Iowa’s skies
Ask anyone how long the bald eagle has been the official bird of the United States, and the answer is likely to be 200 years or more. In reality, the bald eagle has been the official bird for less than two years. In December 2024, President Joe Biden signed into law a bill designating the […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
A new burlesque festival honors Davenport’s history as ‘the wickedest city in America’
Local burlesque performers hope to throw the biggest burlesque festival the Quad Cities has ever seen with their Wickedest City Burlesque and Variety Festival, happening April 16-20 across various venues in the Q.C. area. Highlights include The Wickedest Performer competition at the Adler Theatre, a Fandom Showcase at the Circa ’21 Speakeasy and the Grand […]
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Athlete and lawyer Paul Robeson was a renowned singer of spirituals, Broadway hits and patriotic tunes. By 1950, the U.S. government flagged him as a radical.
On the evening of Feb. 4, 1932, an eager crowd gathered at the Hoyt Sherman Place auditorium for a recital of spirituals by a man whose bass-baritone voice was already legendary. Paul Robeson was an all-American football player, Columbia-educated lawyer, and star of both a hit musical and a West End Shakespeare production. A Des […]
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Sol Butler, Olympian and football star of the Jim Crow era, is a Dubuque icon — and the subject of a new book
One hundred years ago, Sol Butler’s name was well known throughout the sports world. A multi-sport athlete, Butler set records at the University of Dubuque, was a quarterback in the early days of the NFL, competed in track and field at the Olympics and played pitcher and shortstop in the Negro Leagues. His achievements came […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa’s last adult movie theater attracted loners and swingers alike in Waterloo
When my friends and I turned 18 in the early aughts, we decided we were tired of our parents’ basements. We found our new hang on the north side of Cedar Rapids. Sure, Adult Shop North was the place where people in town picked up their lubricants, toys and triple-X movies, but it also had […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Sundance 2026 features documentaries on Iowa teacher Jane Elliott, the Chicano Movement and public access TV
The last Sundance Film Festival based in Park City, Utah, has drawn to a close. The future sees the fest relocating to Boulder, Colorado, but for now, Little Village brings dispatches from Sundance to you in Iowa — starting with three documentaries that premiered at the fest. Representing three U.S. regions, these films critique the […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Lifting a heavy hog led to 68 years of hiccups for one long-suffering Iowan
For 68 years, an Iowa man suffered from a condition most people shake off in minutes. Charles Osborne of Anthon, Iowa endured nonstop hiccups for nearly his entire adult life, earning the record for the longest continuous hiccup attack ever documented. His struggle lasted until shortly before his death in 1991. Osborne’s ordeal began in […]
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Iowa Senate Republicans advance bill to eliminate possibility of reopening Iowa City State Historical Society research center
A Senate subcommittee advanced a measure Tuesday to remove the state requirement to maintain a State Historical Society of Iowa research center in Iowa City — a point of litigation as the state has already moved to close the facility. SSB 3033 strikes the state requirement for the Iowa Department of Administrative Services to maintain […]
