Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

December 25, 2018: The former (and most famous) home of the Traer Star-Clipper, downtown Traer.

“It is with extreme modesty that we take upon us the duty of editor, for we feel that its paths are not always paths of pleasantness and peace, nor its duties, duties of delightfulness; but with the help of other power which we believe will come in time, we feel safe in venturing out on the waves of the editorial sea. If we are wrong, it will only make the waves dash higher to lecture, for it is now too late — one thing that will quiet the waves is to come up now and then and encourage rather than discourage. We mean to try and run a paper that will correspond with a common person’s pocket-book — little, but lively — not only in form but in finance.”
— E.E. Taylor, Traer Star, Vol. 1, No. 1, May 1, 1878

The Traer Clipper was established in 1874; the Traer Star was founded in 1878. The Clipper building was destroyed in a fire on Christmas Eve 1878; “its proprietors though somewhat discouraged soon had new presses and material on hand.” (History of Tama County, 1879) For a few years the Clipper was half-owned by future U.S. representative and agriculture secretary James “Tama Jim” Wilson. Elmer Taylor, founder of the Star, took control of the merged Traer Star-Clipper, and he and/or his son remained in charge for a century.

Now the nameplate is fading into history. The inevitable has arrived.

Ogden Newspapers, a West Virginia company that owns all the weeklies in Tama County plus the Marshalltown Times-Republican, Fort Dodge Messenger, and Webster City Freeman-Journal, is folding six papers into three.

The Traer Star-Clipper and the Dysart Reporter are becoming the North Tama Telegraph. This would be a fine name for a paper in 1883. Today, though, it seems like an attempt to connect to a history it doesn’t have. Because the editor’s position is vacant at this time, there is no online story.

The Gladbrook Northern Sun-Print and Reinbeck Courier are becoming the Sun Courier. The Tama News-Herald and Toledo Chronicle are becoming the Tama-Toledo News Chronicle.

Just because you know something is bound to happen doesn’t make it any easier when it does. 🙁

Through a photo with a Gazette article about two Vinton-Shellsburg seniors who are Certified Nursing Assistants currently in New Jersey, I found out something completely unrelated: No one’s writing for the Traer Star-Clipper right now.

Two years and two months ago, the TSC building in Traer was abandoned and all newspaper functions were relocated to Tama. At that time, C.J. Eilers (who graduated from ISU in 2014) was named “editor” for both the TSC and the Dysart Reporter.

It turns out he has moved east, where he is now county editor for Vinton Newspapers. His introduction column there is from Feb. 9, and the last Traer-specific news articles on the TSC website are dated Feb. 10. Since then, the TSC has been running press releases and countywide news — but that might be hard to notice with the significant lack of events to cover the past two months.

November 27, 2002: The King Tower Cafe on the east edge of Tama.

The Indian head sign/icon/logo outside the King Tower Cafe is being restored. The Tama-Toledo News website reports that Berleen Wobeter is finishing her work this month. You can kind of see the neon on the sign in the picture above, but that is not part of the restoration.

“It was an elaborate sign for its day, with the various colored tubes and an electric transformer for each,” said a 1991 story in the Cedar Rapids Gazette about lighting up the neon on that sign. The story said it was put up around 1950, which would be the right time period for the convergence of roadside cafe, neon and Indian imagery exemplified here.

The King Tower is a part of Tama County/Iowa/Lincoln Highway history, with a strange convergence: It opened the same week in October 1937 that the Belle Plaine cutoff of US 30 opened.

June 22, 2012: The kind of thing at these kinds of things.

From the Gladbrook Corn Carnival website:

The Corn Carnival Corporation Board has made a tough decision based on what we believe to protect our community members, visitors, sponsors, and all who make our annual celebration a success, that we cancel our 2020 Corn Carnival 4-day celebration for June 18-21. Please know that the decision was a difficult one to make for everyone but we also know it is in everyone’s best interest due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

If we can’t have a few hundred people milling around a food line and a bingo tent, be afraid. Be very afraid.

UPDATE 6/13/22: There was a Corn Carnival parade in 2020. It was the only thing that happened that year, but has been deemed sufficient enough to continue the streak.