The history and evolution of beer zombies in Iowa City

Iowa City is about to receive its annual plague of beer zombies. Between students coming back, the ruckus of football weekends and party-town binge drinking, the number of these late-night drunks staggering the streets will increase exponentially. For all residents that find beer zombies lost in their neighborhood, flailing in their yard or evacuating their bladder and retching off the neighbor’s porch, this can be a time for fear. Beer zombies may boldly walk into your house, try to break down your door, pass out in your shrubbery or accost you on the street. For residents looking to elude these beer zombies or wondering how Iowa City got to this place and point in time: Knowledge is power.

From the 1850s to the 1890s, Iowa City was a crazy drinking town, but still not as bad as some cities that were stupid crazy.  The stupidest was Dubuque with Sioux City (John Wayne crowed about “Saturday night in Sioux City” in Angle and the Badman), Clinton, Davenport and Ottumwa rounding out the top five.

In Iowa City, saloons were prevalent downtown and local breweries provided for personal consumption. For only a nickel, a person of any age could take a bucket of beer home for the family. Beer was both a food, a beverage and a substitute for unsafe water. Many children drank beer along with adults as beer was integrated into family life at an early age.

Liquor was treated differently. In Iowa City, liquor was sold only at bars and these were called “standup bars,” which meant that there were no chairs. If you were too intoxicated to stand up you had to leave. Most alcohol consumption occurred from five in the afternoon until nine in the evening, so the length of time people were out drinking was relatively short, ended early and occasionally a fellow fell off his horse. This changed little from 1855-1933 during the five state prohibitions and the National Prohibition, as bootlegging and liquor importation ran rampant.

From 1890 to 1940, the drinking of townspeople and students was conducted civilly and manners stopped most from public overindulgence. Women drank only in private, and public intoxication was a product of the riff-raff. Boarding houses banned alcohol as did all University-related housing. With the drinking age at 21, alcohol was hard to acquire for underage consumers, and enforcement was conducted with care. Outside of bars, the state liquor stores controlled access to alcohol; beer and liquor couldn’t be purchased at grocery stores or gas stations.

From the late 1930s to early 1970s, much of the youthful population lived above businesses on Washington, College, Dubuque, Gilbert and Clinton streets. When Urban Renewal was introduced to America and Iowa City in the late ‘40s, older buildings–including the Carson Building–were torn down in order to put up “modern” buildings that fit the post-WWII aesthetic. Unfortunately, very few new buildings were actually constructed. Instead, beautiful, well-built homes and buildings were razed, driving the city’s youth out of the established housing areas downtown and into the hands of developers and landlords. On both sides of the river, many private residences were either torn down for the construction of large apartment complexes or divided up into cheap rental units.

Between the end of WWII and the early 1970s, the University also tore down many beautiful old homes to construct dorms and modern campus buildings. The city and the University both seemed to favor parking lots to historic homes, and these construction projects forced students to move to outlying neighborhoods such as the Old North End, Goosetown, the neighborhood around College Green Park and the area around South Van Buren Street. The student population, which was once diversely and diffusely living throughout Iowa City, was suddenly clustered together in disparate pockets of the city, resulting in the first student ghettos.

As the 2013 University of Iowa school year opens, beer zombies are coming back in force. On the march, most are stoically quiet, some are raucous but others are dangerous. Beer zombies are here because they handle alcohol poorly, and their habits are helped by the binge-drinking promoted at many bars and the perpetuation of a culture of party-town frivolity.

There is also a sense of entitlement that comes with excessive drinking and poor behavior; there is a perceived attitude that a right has been bestowed upon beer zombies to uphold the party-town mentality. The concentration of thousands of people in high-occupancy house rentals, large apartment complexes and poorly zoned residential neighborhoods helps normalize this attitude by creating drinking enclaves. These zombie-box apartments, rentals and whole neighborhood blocks breed a social obliviousness that borders on contempt and takes the form of beer zombie marches, black-outs, break-ins, fights and excessive after-hour revelry.

So what are the consequences? Certain neighborhoods are greatly affected. While the downtown is obvious, there are neighborhoods where zombies roam in mass: the Old North End, Goosetown, College Green and South Van Buren.

The majority of beer zombies cause little trouble. They are a small nuisance, perhaps, by crashing the wrong party, being a navigational hazard or contributing to the local color–something to remark about or laugh at from the porch. Conversations with local residents have described encountering beer zombies lost around Oak Grove Cemetery. The more serious stories tell of beer zombies wandering into private homes, or insistently pounding on their doors late at night.

So far the zombies are winning. Our party town ranking is at its historical climax–if you happened to miss the recent headlines, the University of Iowa is the number one party school in the nation according to the Princeton Review.

Due to cultural lag and official process, the city’s zoning and enforcement are years behind. Ever more zombie-box complexes rise each year while it seems self-indulgence and entitlement are at an all-time high. Neighborhoods are under zombie siege until winter comes and they thin out again.

Marlin R. Ingalls is a professional archaeologist, historian and architectural historian within Iowa’s Office of the State Archaeologist. He is a member of the state historical society of Iowa’s Technical Advisory Network and former member of the Iowa’s State Nomination Review Committee, which reviews nominations for listing on the national register of historic places. He is also a consultant specializing in helping preservationists and communities evaluate, document and restore their historic buildings, neighborhoods and other historic resources.