Category Archives: Iowa Miscellaneous

Jun 17

Where Iowa’s newest courthouses actually are

September 28, 2025: The Mitchell County Courthouse in Osage. A recent story about county courthouses says the newest one is in Pottawattamie County in 1978. This is wrong, twice over. Dickinson County built a new courthouse in stages in 2006 … Continue reading

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Jun 11

Iowa transportation history presentations, part 2

I wrote 2200 words about five presentations in Ames on May 1. Well, technically, I wrote whatever percentage of those words are not from quoted material. Here’s the second part, and the story links to a full presentation about “streamliner” … Continue reading

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Jun 09

Iowa transportation history presentations, part 1

Of course I’m going to go all out on writing about FIVE presentations in Ames on May 1 covering various aspects of Iowa roads and rails. I couldn’t contain it to one Substack post!

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Jun 02

Back-to-back Big Boy stories

KTIV has two stories related to the Union Pacific’s Big Boy going through western Iowa on Sunday. The first is about the train’s stop in Carroll. The second, whose video plays after the first, is about maintenance of the train … Continue reading

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May 22

Iowa and the Underground Railroad

As endorsed by former Des Moines Register editor and current president of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, Randy Evans: “This is a very readable account of the role Iowa, and Iowans, played in slaves gaining their freedom in the … Continue reading

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May 20

Iowa radio and TV in the 20th century

Jeff Stein came to Toledo last month to give a presentation based on his book about Iowa news on the airwaves. It’s about the early years of radio and television. This story been printed in the two Tama County papers, … Continue reading

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Apr 28

Black Hawk and the Army at Fort Madison

When the U.S. Army built Fort Madison, the first fort on the west side of the Mississippi River, the Native American tribes in the area took notice. Chief Black Hawk was the leader of one of those tribes. Through his … Continue reading

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Apr 16

At a famous site, learning about famous Iowans

Jeff Stein brought his “Stories of Famous Iowans” series to Terrace Hill Historic Site in March. Visitors to the event also got to tour the site, the current Iowa governor’s residence. The presentation had expanded versions of his radio stories, … Continue reading

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Apr 09

Governor Larrabee and Clermont

On the last day of February, far northeast Iowa got some snow. The divide between Arlington, which had nothing, and Clermont, which had light flakes, was stark. The weather added some flavor to pictures I took at Montauk, the historic … Continue reading

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Apr 02

Dish-Gray dispute enters another week

It’s been a while since I’ve posted about a retransmission dispute, but there’s two of them going on, and one may be severed permanently. Five Gray Media (formerly Gray TV) stations serving Iowa were pulled off Dish on March 10: … Continue reading

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