At the corner of 8th Avenue and 8th Street in Belle Plaine, there’s a boulder with a bronze plaque put there in 1954 to commemorate “Jumbo,” a well-turned-geyser that briefly made the Benton County city famous almost 70 years earlier. By the time the well that became Jumbo was dug, the Belle Plaine area already […]
Iowa history
Posted inCommunity/News
With no plan to manage groundwater in Iowa, Big Ag threatens the aquifer supplies most households rely upon
Friday the 13th was a lucky day this June for the southwest Iowa city of Avoca, pop. 1,700. Restaurants along Main Street had their best week since problems with the city’s water supply began. “It was the first time we hit our standard Friday mark in weeks,” Andrea Radd, owner of Raddberry’s Bakery and Cafe, […]
Posted inCommunity/News
‘It was necessary to become activists’: LGBTQ-affirming Iowa religious groups find church in quiet rooms, loud rallies
Sunday services of the Ames Friends Meeting are held at their meetinghouse on S Maple Avenue, marked by a sign in the front yard declaring “All are welcome.” I visited on a sunny spring morning. Beams of sunlight seemed to make the houseplants against the walls glow. Occasional birdsong seeped through a barely open window. […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Peak Iowa: 100 years ago, central Iowans embraced gender-nonconforming immigrant and fortune teller Heroda Kaiji
Heroda Kaiji, when he sensed that he was dying, asked his friends to take him from his rooming house apartment in Stuart to a shady hill beside the South Raccoon River near Dexter. He wanted to spend his final moments looking out across Dexfield Park, the amusement park where he had performed as a palmist […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
A sister state relationship — forged after the 1960 ‘hog lift’ — brings a rare Japanese art form to Iowa this week
Steam wafts from the big bowl of noodles before me while Yoko Tanaka, the executive director of the Japan America Society of Iowa, shares her plan to bring the Japanese art of bunraku to Iowa. It is a traditional form of puppet theater that dates back to the 17th century. It was particularly common in […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Our liberties she pries: Eight years into a decade in office, Gov. Kim Reynolds has cemented her legacy
A range of emotions could be heard in Gov. Kim Reynolds’ voice as she spoke to reporters at the annual Terrace Hill Easter Egg Hunt on April 12. It was the day after her surprise announcement that she wouldn’t run for reelection in 2026, and Reynolds was clearly feeling sentimental as she reflected on her time […]
Posted inCommunity/News
With City Park Pool closed for the summer, it’ll take some creativity to stay cool in Iowa City
Fashion photos by Karla Monroe, featuring Natalie Lawrence and Lexi Wells at the Robert A. Lee Community Recreation Center pool in Iowa City. Update: As a result of construction delays, the new City Park pool will not open until 2027, the Iowa City Parks and Recreation Department announced on June 5, 2026. The last time […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Plain Spoken: This ever-evolving American anthem recalls Iowa’s abolitionist glory days
In keeping with tradition, one dramatic beat of the presidential inauguration in January was the Naval Academy Glee Club’s performance of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” While it was standard inaugural fare, it was also, of course, a nauseating co-optation. A song of solidarity, bravery and liberation — an alternative national anthem — was […]
Posted inCentral Iowa
Des Moines locals fight to save Birdland Pool and prove the North Side isn’t ‘a path of least resistance’
Generations of Des Moines residents have flocked to their neighborhood swimming pools for fun and to find relief from the heat, especially during potentially deadly heat waves. For almost 90 years, destinations have included the historic Birdland Pool at 300 Holcomb Ave in Highland Park, which opened to the general public on May 31, 1936. The […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
David Lynch’s Iowa odyssey
David Lynch, who was called “America’s first surrealist filmmaker” by actor Dennis Hopper, died in Los Angeles at age 78 on Jan. 16, four days shy of his 79th birthday. Known for films such as Mulholland Drive (2001), he gained a new audience during the COVID pandemic as the internet’s favorite weatherman, streaming daily reports from “Here in sunny L.A.” on his YouTube channel.
Posted inCommunity/News
Peak Iowa: ‘Meteor excitement’ brought a small fortune to the Amana area in the 1870s
On Friday, Feb. 12, 1875, shortly before 10:30 p.m., “one of the most brilliant meteors of modern times illuminated the entire State of Iowa, and adjacent parts of the States of Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.” “The meteor, in rapidly moving through the atmosphere, produced a great variety of sounds — rolling, rumbling, and detonations […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Peak Iowa: Getting his Phill of freedom
In the summer of 1820, as he led an army expedition across the territory that became Iowa, Capt. Stephen Kearney spotted “a large drove of Buffaloe … probably 5 thousand.” Of course, the animals weren’t buffalo. The big, shaggy beasts were bison. It doesn’t feel quite so pedantic to make that distinction now that Iowans […]
