Byron’s Bar is one of those places where the tale of the tape doesn’t measure up: a Grateful Dead haunt in a tiny rural town in western Iowa. I had to check it out, especially now that its future is in doubt. More on that later. The dive sits on a mostly abandoned, rundown Main […]
Iowa history
Posted inCommunity/News
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have entertained, aided and provoked for 45 years. Their habits began in Iowa.
In 2014, while the marriage equality movement worked to prove just how normal and nuclear LGBTQ families could be, Des Moines-born musician Perfume Genius released “Queen,” its lyrics glamorizing age-old stereotypes of queer men: “cracked, peeling,” “wrapped in golden leaves,” “riddled with disease” and, triumphantly, “No family is safe when I sashay.” The song quickly […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘A New History of Iowa’ by Jeff Bremer
“History doesn’t repeat itself,” the saying goes, “Historians repeat each other.” There’s some truth in that, but the bigger truth is that most people just repeat whatever version of history they learn in school, seldom venturing far beyond what they learned in a general survey course. (Many LV readers may be exceptions to that rule, […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Artifacts unearthed in Davenport in 1877 might have changed history. Instead, they’re remembered for a conspiracy.
On Jan. 10, 1877, Reverend Jacob Gass, who was known for his amateur archeological finds and as a part-time charlatan, excavated a mound in a field near Davenport, Iowa. The burial mounds along the Mississippi were of great interest to archeologists at the time, as there was a widespread (and racist) theory that they were […]
Posted inCommunity/News, Eastern Iowa, Recreation
Birds, fish, reptiles and thousands of historic objects make up the National Mississippi River Museum in Dubuque
The National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium is a one-of-a-kind Iowa institution founded in 2003 on the site of the former Dubuque Boat and Boiler Works, which built boats from 1870 to 1972. The roughly 26,000 objects in the museum’s collection tell a wide-ranging history of the region — from prehistoric geology to the First […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Would you stay overnight at the Villisca Axe Murder House?
On the morning of June 10, 1912, the Villisca, Iowa home of prominent business owner Josiah B. Moore and his family was eerily still. That stillness gave way to a terrible discovery that would shake the small rural community in southwestern Iowa to its roots and live on as one of the most mysterious crimes […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Officers trained at Fort Des Moines broke barriers during WWI and WWII
Iowa has had three army posts called Fort Des Moines. The first, a ramshackle outpost along the Des Moines River in what’s now Lee County, existed from 1834 to 1837. The second was built at the confluence of the Racoon and Des Moines rivers in 1843 to stop the Sauk and Meskwaki peoples from returning […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Founders of Elkader, Iowa named their town after an Algerian freedom fighter, forging a 175-year tie to the Muslim nation
By all accounts, it’s the only U.S. city named after a Muslim hero. And it’s right here in Iowa. More than 100 years before the Geneva Convention codified in international law the rights of prisoners of war and civilians to humane treatment, 19th century Algerian freedom fighter Abd al-Qadir ibn Muhyi al-Din, the leader of […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa’s loose-meat sandwiches go by several names (just don’t use the wrong one)
There’s no question that Iowa is the birthplace of the loose-meat sandwich — that beefy, slow-cooked and wonderfully messy American comfort food served on a hamburger bun. But which version of this sandwich is the definitive Iowa loose-meat sandwich is a debate that’s raged from river to river for nearly 100 years. Most Iowans call […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Sac City’s enormous popcorn ball watches over town from a climate-controlled temple
‘ Have you seen a popcorn ball? Have you seen a large popcorn ball? What about the world’s largest popcorn ball? If not, head to Sac City, in the heart of Iowa’s popcorn producing region. The popcorn ball in question is 12 feet in diameter and weighs 9,370 pounds. This nearly five tons of popcorn […]
Posted inCommunity/News
In the ‘outdoor museum’ of Effigy Mounds, historic objects stay in their rightful place
In the northeast corner of Iowa, near the confluence of Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin, lies a collection of more than 200 earthworks, built between 650 and 1200 AD or so by ancestors of Indigenous peoples still living in the state. Effigy Mounds National Monument in Allamakee and Clayton counties is unique among Midwestern mound sites: […]
Posted inFood & Drink
The ubiquitous ham balls of Iowa
It’s impossible to say when the first ham ball was formed in Iowa or who formed it. Some link ham balls to their Swedish heritage, others to their Pennsylvania Dutch ancestors, but everyone who loves this undeniably Iowa dish would agree it’s reliably present on the buffet table at most every church potluck, funeral luncheon, […]
