Popcorn was already popular when Cloid Smith started selling it out of his home in Sioux City 110 years ago. It was cheap; it was tasty. And it’s been eaten in the Americas for thousands of years in a variety of ways. Archaeologists working in Peru found the remains of ears of popcorn dating back […]
Iowa history
Posted inCommunity/News
This 159-year-old bonsai is living its best life at the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden
There are, of course, no bonsai seeds — only bonsai trees. Most tree species can be “trained” to become bonsai through a sophisticated, often obsessive process of cutting, potting, pruning, wiring and styling a plant into a miniature, meticulously sculpted version of itself. The art form is rooted in centuries of Japanese and Chinese tradition, […]
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Bison made the prairie what it was. Iowa conservationists hope they can do it again.
According to the National Park Service, the tallgrass prairie is “one of the rarest and most endangered ecosystems in the world.” It once covered 167 million acres in the middle of North America, stretching from the Red River Valley in Canada into Texas. Only about 4 percent of the tallgrass prairie that existed before the […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
At LIAL, queer history is an ever-growing hodgepodge of letters, diaries, doodles, recipes, magazines and ‘GAY ART’
My best friend Valentine will sometimes text me a picture of a page from his old journal. We’ve been friends a long time. Last fall he sent me a page, a beautiful letter — he still writes entries like the poets do, formally — in which he gushes about the sanctity of queerness, of our […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
TrekFest 39 is sure to be a Trilling experience for ‘Deep Space Nine’ fans
Update: After a long delay—perhaps caused by subspace interference, tachyon particles, or communications jamming technology—the U.S.S. Little Village has received answers to interview questions posed by Acting Ensign Rob Cline to Terry Farrell, who portrayed Jadzia Daz on Star Trek: Deep Space 9, just in time for this weekend’s TrekFest event in Riverside, Iowa. What […]
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Monkee Micky Dolenz plans to play the hits ‘exactly as people remember them’ — and then some — at the Surf Ballroom on Sept. 13
Editor’s note: Dolenz’s May 24, 2024 performance and meet-and-greet at the Surf was rescheduled for Friday, Sept. 13 at 7 p.m. The headline of this article has been updated with the new date. When Micky Dolenz sets foot on the stage of Clear Lake’s Surf Ballroom, the last living member of the Monkees knows that […]
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Photo Gallery: African American Museum of Iowa holds grand reopening
The African American Museum of Iowa (AAMI) reopened on Saturday after being closed for renovations since 2022. The $5 million renovation project included changes to the building, such as constructing a new main entrance and expanding the lobby, as well as the addition of an interactive genealogy lab, which will help people research the history […]
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When the Iowa women’s basketball team packed Carver — in 1985
For most of her 62 years, “nobody cared about women’s basketball,” Lisa Bluder has said, especially when compared to the phenomenon it is today. Athletic scholarships were practically nonexistent before 1972. Attendance could range from a few dozen to a few hundred. Uniforms and facilities were often less than ideal. But the sport still had […]
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Famous food, fast cars, a bull named Albert and a free-roaming courthouse: Stories from RAGBRAI 2024’s overnight towns
The route for RAGBRAI LI stretches from Glenwood on the Missouri River to Burlington on the Mississippi. At 424 miles, this year’s route is fairly short, but it will be the “hilliest ever RAGBRAI,” according to organizers. It’s not the first time Glenwood and Burlington have been connected. In 1869, the Burlington and Missouri River […]
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When the Saints went marching through southern Iowa
Long before I-80 cut a clear path through the state — and before any asphalt, rubber tires, railways or virtually any infrastructure existed to aid westward travelers — crossing the roughly 310 miles between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers was a long, arduous journey. The native landscape, wildlife and bacteria familiar to generations of indigenous […]
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The Long game: A brief history of the six-on-six era of women’s basketball
More than 50 years before number 22 of the Iowa Hawkeyes was amazing basketball fans and creating new ones, number 55 on the girls basketball team of Union-Whitten High School in Harden County was doing the same. The six-on-six era of girls basketball in Iowa had a lot of dynamic players and high scorers, but […]
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Emlen Tunnell, heroic Coast Guardsman, groundbreaking NFL player and one-time Hawkeye, was born 100 years ago today
Friday, March 29, marks 100 years since Emlen Tunnell was born in eastern Pennsylvania. Tunnel made history on the football field, first as a Hawkeye, then in the NFL. After his playing days were over, Tunnell continued to make football history by becoming one of the first Black assistant coaches in the NFL. In 1967, […]
