If Iowa’s farmers would just practice a few economizing steps they could save time and money when it came to fence posts, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics released in 1910. The USDA estimated that farmers in the state used $1.4 million worth of new fence posts each year and cou
It was a scene of complete chaos in downtown Cedar Rapids on May 3, 1919. An explosion had occurred at the Douglas Starch Works. Wrecking crews searched the debris for bodies as women gathered outside the gates of the factory hoping for word of their husbands who worked inside.
It was known as the oldest girls’ camp in Iowa and one of the oldest in the United States. Camp Hantesa was established by the Des Moines chapter of the Camp Fire Girls in 1919.
In early May 1938 management at the Maytag Washing Machine Company plant in Newton posted a notice to employees that a 10 percent pay cut would soon take effect. The nation was still in the midst of the Great Depression, and Maytag families were more than a little unhappy about the news.
Ruth McCollough was paid to work her charms on snakes in a traveling carnival show. It’s not known how successful she was at her job. But there’s no doubt she worked her charms on Charles McCormick who came under her spell in the summer of 1914.
Maybe rain and snow won’t stop the mail; but thieves will. People who were waiting for articles sent through the U.S. Mail via Council Bluffs in the fall of 1922 may have had a long wait for those items.
Although Iowa's past is filled with women who have impacted the course of our history, we’ve selected a few to highlight. Try your hand at our news quiz.
His real name was Ira Pavey, but he’d earned the nickname “Hard-Boiled” because of his tough demeanor and lack of emotion. And he never cracked — even as he went to the gallows.
Iowa’s roads in the 1850s were challenges for horses, oxen or humans regardless of the season. Other states had experimented with plank roads and found them to be quite satisfactory — they were sturdy, almost impervious to bad weather, and they could be money makers.
That was a question asked by farmers in 1920. And scientists at the Iowa State University (ISU) agriculture experiment station at Ames had an answer. Scientists at the facility tested several soil types throughout the state to find an answer to the critical question that was on farmers’ minds at the
In 1911 a group of State University of Iowa (University of Iowa) alumni started a petition to oppose the appointment of the new president of the university. John Gabbert Bowman was only 33 years old and was about to become the youngest college president in the country. The alumni petition failed, an
In the morning of September 25, 1913, Leon, Iowa Sheriff F. L. Lorey received a phone call from Deputy Sheriff Bob Craig in Shenandoah. Craig had gotten word from authorities in Fremont County, Nebraska, that a horse thief was hiding out near his town. Help came in the form of a neighbor listening i
