IowaWatch (https://www.iowawatch.org/tag/iowa-history/page/2/)
“A lot of fellows tried to drive the bull into the wires with him on it,” J.H. Harrington described an incident that had occurred at the Delaware County fair at Delhi in 1859. When a “somewhat intoxicated” fair goer hopped on a bull’s back and rode around a track enclosed by a strange looking fence, Harrington took notice.
It was about 1:30 in the morning on October 28, 1902, when Prairie City dentist, Dr. S. B. Gidford, woke up in his room across the street from the bank. As he stuck his head out a window, a “loaded 44-caliber Colt” was “presented to his face” by a stranger who told him his life was “worth less than 30 cents.”
Kim Reynolds has made history as Iowa’s first female governor. Test your knowledge of other chief executives in Iowa’s history.
Survivors described the cries and shrieks of dying passengers as “heart-rending.” And one recalled the last voice he heard was that of a “little child in a cabin.”
Railroad man S.G. Durant once said the conveniences at a Georgia prison “outdo services at many good hotels” in the country. He knew that first-hand. He had been a prisoner there. His story:
Farmers in the Charles City area threatened to take their business to neighboring towns if the Improvement Association removed the hitching posts in the city park. But the 45 women who had formed the new association in 1903 weren’t about to back down. Before long the hitching posts were gone and only a fading memory. The hitching post removal had been a hard-fought victory for the women, but it was only one of many improvements they planned for the town over the next ten years. Number one on the list was to beautify the city’s only public park.
It was rumored that a wagon and team of oxen had disappeared from sight as its driver attempted to cross Purgatory Slough. They were never seen again. And the Marshalltown Evening Times Republican reminded readers about the rusty gun barrel and human skeleton that had been discovered in Hell Slough. Both sloughs were located in Calhoun County, but travelers in most parts of the state faced the dangers of the wet, marshy swamps that mired down wagons and caused headaches for human. Iowa History, a weekly column, appears at IowaWatch on Saturdays.
The Secret Service said it was his “unusually inquisitive” nature about military matters that tipped off personnel about a German man working as a waiter in the officers’ mess at Camp Dodge, according to the Des Moines Register in 1917. John Conrad Ebert, 24, was arrested by federal agents on Saturday, November 24, 1917, at the camp. The agents had him under surveillance for about six weeks. He was charged as a suspected spy for Germany. Iowa History, a weekly column, appears at IowaWatch on Saturdays.
As the coach rounded the bridge at Walnut Creek, nine miles west of Centerville, the passenger on the driver’s box pulled out a revolver and jabbed it into the left breast of drive F.J. Leach. Here’s the rest of the story.
Civic leaders in Iowa in 1869 were proud of their state. It offered some of the most fertile soils and flourishing towns and cities. Railroads snaked across the landscape north and south and east and west. It was believed there were inexhaustible amounts of coal beneath the earth’s surface in Iowa.