Around Des Moines

Court Avenue west of the Des Moines River to Fifth Street was resurfaced on Sunday, April 27, 2008. As the sign states, this is your tax dollars at work. The street should look nice and smooth for the start of the downtown farmers’ market on Saturday, May 10th. A machine laid down asphalt and pressed it to the roadway. Several people monitored this process. Another person followed behind with a broom to smooth out the edge of the new covering. Another crew painted new stop lines and crosswalks on the side streets.

The Court Avenue Bridge over the Des Moines River was constructed in 1917 and reconstructed in 1982, according to a plaque at the site. If you stand on the southern side and look down river, you will see an old railroad bridge converted to a pedestrian and bicycle walkway. This red-painted bridge was finished in 2006 as part of the Principal Riverwalk. Next to it is a still-functioning railroad bridge. Look a bit further on the west side of the river and you might see the lights of Principal Park. This minor league ballpark was called Sec Taylor Stadium until Principal donated several dollars to cover repair costs. The Iowa Cubs, a farm team for the Chicago Cubs, play there.

The Court Avenue Bridge is shown in the bottom picture below. The top right picture shows the western bank with steps down to a sidewalk that runs alongside the river. The old public library building, located between Walnut and Locust Streets, is in the picture. The riverside steps help mark the level of the river, which does rise above the top step. Note that there is no sidewalk along the bank to the steps, though. The top middle picture shows the John Pat Dorrian Trail, a bicycle and pedestrian path. According to the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, the Dorrian Trail was formerly known as the East River Trail and is 2.2 miles long. It is an asphalt trail that links to the Neal Smith trail, which is 26 miles long and gives access to Saylorville Lake. Dorrian was mayor of Des Moines from 1987 through 1996. A quick search of the Internet did not return any information on the rock beside the Dorrian Trail that mentions a 2001 Sculpture Walk.

On the west side of the river at Court Avenue (below, bottom left) are the offices of Polk County. The old post office, built in 1908, also houses county offices and faces Walnut Street. In 1975 the post office was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The county’s voters approved buying the building for government offices at a cost of $5.8 million. The picture in the top left shows the historic plaque at 4th and Court in honor of Ronald Reagan, who was a radio announcer in Des Moines before moving to California and on to the presidency. The picture to the right looks down Court Avenue from the river to the county courthouse.

M.R. Field writes about local issues for AroundDesMoines.com. 

The Pajama Game is a musical comedy based on the book, 7-1/2 Cents, by Dubuque native Richard Bissell. It was performed at the Des Moines Playhouse in 1967 and returns in its current production after winning the 2006 Tony Award for best Broadway revival. This is not a show with a complex plot or challenging characters. Instead, it is the type of show to attend if you want to hum some of the score while waiting in the bathroom during intermission.

A few people sitting behind me at the Saturday, April 12, 2008, performance snickered several times during the first act. While I did not appreciate the distraction, I agreed with their reaction. There are numerous similarities between a 1950’s factory as presented in the musical and modern day work places. However, there are also many significant changes, not least being the power of unions. An updated version of the play would be more likely to hold the attention of audience members younger than 40. One song in particular, “Steam Heat,” offers a good example of changes time has brought. While I have lived in numerous places warmed with steam heat and know what it is like to have radiators, years of central air heating reduced my emotional reaction to the song.

The premise of The Pajama Game is simple. There is a new male superintendent at the Sleep Tite pajama factory in Cedar Rapids. He has an encounter with the female head of the union’s grievance committee. Sparks fly, conflict erupts, all turns out perfectly. Boy gets girl and gets the union a 7-1/2 cents raise that lets the workers live like royalty, or so they dream.

Alison Shafer’s choreography was the first thing that I admired about this production of the musical. It offered an energetic coordination of moving bodies and objects in “Racing With the Clock” and a playful pas de deux in “Her Is.” After I stopped trying to think of the show in terms of a story and started looking at it only as a series of musical entertainment, I began to enjoy the singing, too. Susan M. Grozier (Gladys), Craig Peterson (Sid Sorokin), and Jim Benda (Hines) had choice roles and all deserved them. Andrea Markowsi (Babe Williams) gave a decent performance but she seemed to be trying too hard to get the chorus correct in “There Once Was a Man (I Love You More).” Yet she got the shouting in “I’m Not At All in Love” just right. She also had the misfortune of a small microphone problem at the start of another song. Lenny Houts (Prez) deserves mention for his acting and for the puppy dog steps in “Her Is.”

The entire cast earned the plentiful applause. The scenic design and most of the costumes complemented the story well. The lighting could have been much better. The musical was directed by John W. Viars. Viars is executive director of the Playhouse and was a member of the 1967 cast of The Pajama Game.

M.R. Field reviews arts for AroundDesMonies.com. 

What a treasure!

It seemed like a good day to visit the State Historical Museum, and was it ever! Not only were the major and smaller exhibits up and running, but the Irish Fest was in full swing in the afternoon.

Thanks to Drake University President David Maxwell I took the bus. As part of a commitment to civic and global responsibility Drake University under Maxwell’s leadership has signed on to help support DART and in doing so to provide access to free rides to all members of the Drake community. The bus ride was not door to door but definitely close enough - a one and a half block walk to the bus stop and at the end of the ride across the street to the museum, definitely closer than I could have parked.

Did you know that the State Historical Museum is free? Take your friends from out out town. Tell them, “My treat.”

Once inside I looked at a couple of antique autos with Iowa connections including a Mason built in Des Moines by Fred and August Duesenberg and financed by Edward Mason. F. L. Maytag later built Mason-Maytags in Waterloo. The Duesenbergs went on to build the Duesenberg (It’s a Doozy.), the Cord, and Auburn. I loved the electric car driven by former Governor George Clarke’s wife Arletta. Patten’s Neighborhood: Memories of the Center Street Community is a fascinating 40-year history of one African-American neighborhood in Des Moines. Take some time, soak it in, and don’t miss it.

I had a nice lunch at Cafe Barrata’s at the top of the museum overlooking the city. (Baratta’s on South Union has always been one of my favorites.)

After lunch came the Irish Fest, a special event at the Historical Museum. And suddenly the Museum got very busy. I listened to the talented Bay area duo named Four Shillings Short as they played flutes and strings and sang their original interpretations of Irish folk music. You can hear them on their website.

One talented local group was the Des Moines branch of the Foy School of Traditional Irish Dance, young people who performed energetic, colorful, and precise Irish dances to the delight of family and friends. The small stage was a perfect setting for them.

The MacKenzie Highlanders played bagpipes and drum in the main hall. Have a listen and you will understand how impressive it is when you are standing just feet away.

And there was a lot more to the Irish Fest, but that is all I saw.

The exhibit Portrait of a Governor: A Life, A Legacy traces the history of Iowa’s Governors from Territorial Governor Robert Lucas to current Governor Chet Culver - lots of pictures, short bios, videos, significant facts about each period in Iowa history. Read what you like and leave the rest. You’ll enjoy it.

That is just the shortest introduction to the State Historical Museum. There is so much to see and do - a coal mine, airplanes, natural history, Ding Darling, education, special events. It is very well done. The docents are plentiful. Everyone feels welcome. Check out the special events calendar.

Waiting at the bus stop for the ride home I struck up a conversation with a worker going home. By the time we got on, we were friends. By the time he got off we knew we were neighbors. It turns out that he lives just a few blocks from me. Ride the bus; meet your neighbors. See ya.

Guest Writer: James G. Lindberg (Jim) is the Purple Wren’s sweetie and is a visiting chemistry professor at Grinnell College and retired from Drake University.

Technorati Tags: Iowa, Des Moines, Central Iowa News, State Historical Museum, Drake University, DART, Irish Fest

(Des Moines, IA) A bit of history was found in this week’s legislative record in the form of SR105. Winnebago Industries was started on February 12, 1958, in Winnebago County. The resolution notes the company’s history, beginning as a travel trailer factory, manufacturing its first motor home in 1966, going public in 1970, and reaching vehicle number 500,000 in its 50th year. Winnebago County is located on the Minnesota border approximately halfway between the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers.

There were several items at the Capitol that I had on my agenda for the week. Last Sunday’s winter storm and the week’s cold weather adjusted my schedule somewhat. Other people were similarly persuaded to forego certain activities and meetings.

Cultural Advocacy Day was on Monday, but I missed it. I also had planned to attend a committee meeting on proposed changes to the state’s open meeting law. At last year’s Cultural Advocacy Day legislative reception I made some interesting contacts. I met Tom Wheeler, who heads Iowa’s film office, and promoted film industry work as a means for small women-owned businesses to generate income. I also met someone on staff at the Vesterheim Museum in Decorah and learned about Norwegian settlers in Iowa. That encounter led me to include Decorah in my eastern Iowa photo series. On Tuesday I made it to the Capitol and planned to listen to Dr. Heather MacDonald, an associate professor at the University of Iowa, talk to the Senate Economic Committee about housing and the economy in the state. Unfortunately, the speaker was not able to attend. On that day there were several tables set up to share information on the Iowa Housing Finance Authority and assorted housing trust funds throughout the state.

In the House Journal for February 19th is the speech given by Major General Ron Dardis on the condition of the Iowa National Guard. Dardis spent much of the speech talking about the stories of individual soldiers. His other big themes were that the National Guard is stretched thin but the military is still preeminent in the world, soldiers serve on the prairie helping with storm response and help with reconstruction in a foreign country, and decisions made about military readiness post-Cold War that ran into the Global War on Terror have increased the demand upon the National Guard.

HF2194 passed the House 100-0. This replaced HF2002 which was withdrawn upon passage of HF2194 which exempts certain retail businesses doing less than $300,000 in sales from the law on minimum wage. Generating more fire on the House floor was HF2212, an act for creating a smokefree air Act. After several amendments and even amendments to amendments, some of which lost on a 50-50 vote, the bill itself passed the House on a vote of 56-44.

Under the Fiscal heading on the left side of the General Assembly’s web site is a comparison of the current local school sales tax option and the proposed statewide tax. The page also has historical per-pupil spending.

M.R. Field is editor of Leading Voices: Iowa. 

A short history of asbestos

It is pretty obvious, isn’t it? Once upon a time someone looked at the materials we now call asbestos and said, “What great stuff! Think of all the things we can use it for!” And use it they did.

Three of the great properties of asbestos are 1) flame resistance, 2) steel-like durability, and 3) wonderful insulating properties, and we should also note 4) asbestos can be woven into soft fabric. Every material has its own combination of good and bad properties, and asbestos has some that are quite unique. An article in print called Asbestos Revisited was written by two college professors, James Alleman in civil engineering at Purdue University and Brooke Mossman of the College of Medicine at the University of Vermont. You will find the article on pages 70-75 in Scientific American in July of 1997 in any established library (Des Moines Public Library downtown or Drake to name two).

Let’s examine some minor anecdotal stories of asbestos use. In ancient Persia (now principally Iran and areas both west and east) some tablecloths were woven from asbestos fibers. When it was time to clean them, they were put over fire. Everything on the tablecloth burned off and left it white. Royals and slaves from Persia to Greece had clothing of asbestos. (Imagine the hand-me-downs in those families - grumble, grumble - soft fabrics possessing steel-like durability. “But that was great-great-grandpa Ganath’s. It’s sooo out of style.”)

As a chemist schooled in the 1960s and working since, I have seen a lot of asbestos in lab settings. As we will see in the upcoming Part 3, this was not always a good thing. Most of the common lab equipment using asbestos - but not all - is gone now, replaced by materials considered less hazardous. All schools had 4″ square wire screens with an asbestos center, 8″ square fiberboard asbestos hot pads (that we would break in two accompanied by a little puff of dust), rolls of soft, gray asbestos ribbon that looked a lot like thick burlap, spools of asbestos yarn, and asbestos gloves to handle hot glass. (You can still buy asbestos gloves and find them in labs, but Kevlar has many of the same insulating properties and durability without the dangers.) For the first twenty-five years of my career bottles and cans of chemicals used to arrive packed in a chunky, dusty material called vermiculite, some but not all of which, contained asbestos. Before we laugh too hard about the Persians and Greeks in ancient times, check out this asbestos homeware available in my lifetime.

But people didn’t make their fortunes selling tablecloths and lab gloves. They made their fortunes insulating and fireproofing with asbestos itself and by making products formulated, that is, combined or mixed with asbestos.

Some of the products made with minimally modified asbestos included insulation for steam furnaces, steam engines, and heating pipes, thermal insulation and fireproofing for chimneys and flues, fire blankets, electrical wire insulation, asbestos tape for sealing duct work, and one of the biggest - for insulation in ships for boilers, nuclear reactors, and hot water and steam pipes. In some critical military applications, asbestos is still used. But when you consider this list always keep in mind that asbestos has been largely replaced with safer but sometimes inferior products. Other products that used to be formulated with asbestos include sprayed-on insulation and fireproofing, brake linings and pads, clutch plates, acoustical plaster, ceiling tiles and panels, floor tiles, linoleum, shingles, black jack tar, wallboard, sheetrock, putties, caulking, glues for tile (mastic), siding, popcorn ceiling texture, and lots of other materials. An earlier version of “soft concrete” included asbestos. It was lighter and considered fireproof so was just the ticket for construction, especially roofs. Asbestos of a somewhat different composition is still used in a few types of construction today as noted in Table 6 of the USGS publication. These newer formulations are bonded and nicely contained (unless they are sawed, ground, or finely pulverized by other mechanical processes). Generally I don’t like to posts lists, but this one from Princeton University is nicely qualified. Note where asbestos is likely to be found in buildings constructed before 1981.

If you want to see what some of these asbestos-containing materials look like (because many have survived to this day in older buildings and in homes), try this Web site with great photos of actual aging asbestos materials. These photos are posted by a state-licensed inspector in New York. You can see a few more pictures from a training site at the University of North Texas.

Well, that’s Part 2, a quick tour of the history of asbestos. What great possibilities! The Magic Mineral of the 1939 World’s Fair. I’ll be back later with a little about the discovery of some adverse health effects.

Guest Writer: James G. Lindberg (Jim) is the Purple Wren’s sweetie and is a visiting chemistry professor at Grinnell College and retired from Drake University.

Photo on flickr by J. James Bono

Technorati Tags: Iowa, Des Moines, Central Iowa News, Asbestos, Equitable of Iowa

In any discussion of girls’ and women’s sports in Iowa I feel compelled to add just a note about Iowa high school girls’ 6 on 6 basketball. It was a wonderful game played by generations of Iowa girls from 1898 until 1993. Catch a little of the history on a site developed by Dennis Brum.

In the history link if you have Flash 5 you will see a very short clip ending with, “There goes Brinkmeyer, all the way down and under and scoops and scores.” Of course that was Lisa Brinkmeyer of Hubbard. Lisa graduated from Hubbard-Radcliffe in 1993, the last year that Iowa girls played 6 on 6 basketball. She is in the IGHSAU Basketball Hall of Fame and also in the record books of softball. Lisa went on to play at Drake on several of Drake’s finest women’s basketball teams.

Lisa is just one example of the tens of thousands of examples of how important women’s sports in Iowa are to the development of strong, capable and confident women. I could tell you about hundreds of athletes who in their earlier lives were “Iowa girls,” many of whom played 6 on 6 high school basketball. I have met them at Drake in the classroom and through Drake sports, great people and great athletes like Jan Jensen of Elkhorn-Kimballton, Jenni Fitzgerald of North Scott, Lisa Geiss now Bluder of Linn-Mar, Tammy Blackstone of Cherokee, Kristi Kinne now Hayes of Jefferson, Laura Leonard of Des Moines Roosevelt, Deha Peyton now Miller of Linn-Mar, Lorri Bauman of Des Moines East, Keisha Cox of Des Moines Lincoln, Connie Newlin of West Des Moines Valley, Nicole Hennigan of Dowling Catholic, Carole Baumgarten of Hartley, Julie Fitzpatrick of Davenport Assumption, Linda Sayavongchanh of Des Moines Lincoln, Julie Rittgers of West Des Moines Valley, Kay Riek now DeLeo of Grundy Center, Natalie Raub of Union, Jan Krieger of Winfield-Mt. Union and these are just a few of the Iowans. (I know it’s provincial, but I am omitting the out-of-staters.) The lives of these people have been molded in very positive ways by their participation in high school sports in Iowa.

Lisa Brinkmeyer VanDeventer now works at the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union. Incidently the IGHSAU does a great job for us, Iowa. As they point out on their website the IGHSAU “is the only organization in the nation solely devoted to interscholastic competition for girls. Over 70,000 students participate in IGHSAU sponsored events.” Be grateful. And don’t forget about the upcoming Iowa girls basketball games this month and in March: district and regional pairings and state tournament pairings.

At $8/session tickets for the tournament games are a bargain. The district and regional games are less, and you will see some of tomorrow’s leaders. Maybe you will see your future attorney (Newlin, Blackstone), veterinarian (Miller), physical therapist (Fitzpatrick), Habitat for Humanity director (Baumgarten), sportscaster (Leonard), or your daughter’s basketball coach (Bluder, Jensen, Fitzgerald).

Photo credit: Photo on flickr by kurros

Guest Writer: James G. Lindberg (Jim) is the Purple Wren’s sweetie and is a visiting chemistry professor at Grinnell College and retired from Drake University.

Technorati Tags: Iowa, Des Moines, Central Iowa News, Athletes, 6 on 6 Iowa Girls’ Basketball

The quantity of legislation in committees increased in the third week of the 2008 Iowa legislative session. In addition, SF2054 (HF2098) has been sent to the governor. This bill allows for payment to counties of certain mental health services expenses if paperwork is filed by March 15, 2008, instead of being due December 1, 2007.

A Senate committee passed legislation to exempt from property taxes structural work to farm buildings necessary to preserve their uses as barns, if the barn is over 50 years old. The current tax exemption exists only for barns built before 1937. The bill (SF2075) passed on a vote of 13-0, with 2 absent.

February 29th was the day I spent at the capitol this week. The day started with a legislative breakfast for the Chrysalis Foundation, an organization serving girls and women in Polk, Warren, and Story counties. One of its projects, The Women’s Alliance, is working to increase the number of girls and women living in economic self-sufficiency by promoting employment, education, and health care opportunities. Rep. Cindy Winckler (D-Scott County) was one of the legislators attending and talking about issues with middle school students, the foundation’s board members, and partners from other organizations and businesses, including myself.

The Iowa Water Well Association had a table set up in the morning on the first floor by the rotunda. I spoke with Justin Rewerts of Rewerts Well Co, Inc., out of Nevada, Iowa. Rewerts is on the IWWA board of directors. He .said the association was at the capitol to talk about proposed Department of Natural Resources (DNR) regulations for runoff of muddy water from drill sites.

Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement had a press conference and lobbying day. This was originally scheduled for the prior week but a snowstorm forced a postponement. I missed the speeches because I had to make a quick trip back home to pick up material I needed later in the day and had forgotten. Factory farms and campaign finance reforms are two of the group’s biggest issues. CCI’s literature distributed for the lobby day noted that Iowa is the only state that does not allow consumers to file a private lawsuit under the state’s Consumer Fraud Act.

As I was preparing to leave the capitol in mid-afternoon, I met up with the Iowa CareGivers Association. These are the people, mostly women, who help with basic needs of patients, whether at home or in hospital. In addition to improving their own access to health care, the association’s members are hoping to establish health training standards that can be portable across employers. That way if a direct-care worker decides she doesn’t like working with one group of people, she might be more likely to stay in the field by working with another group.

In addition to attending the joint meeting of judiciary committees, as reported earlier this week in a post on Iowa’s prison population, I sat in on a House Economics subcommittee meeting with Reps. Helen Miller (D-Webster), Art Staed (D-Linn), and Tami Wiencek (R-Black Hawk). The subcommittee met in the House Lobby Lounge. Several subcommittees use this area and it is easy to hear discussions of more than one meeting at the same time. The economics subcommittee was considering HSB540 and HSB569. Gordon Hendrickson, administrator of the public trust division of the Department of Cultural Affairs and the state archivist legislative liaison, was available to answer questions. HSB540 is a simple bill that includes discontinuing an insurance option for museums exhibiting loaned art. There has been no demand for the option in two decades so the recommendation was made to take the law off the books. HSB569 is more complicated. It directs the department to establish a web-based portal for historical documents and to expand cultural tourism in the state. The latter proposal would not be in competition with the Tourism Office but would lean towards better promotion of many of the smaller activities held throughout the state each year. In addition, Cultural Affairs is working on projects connected with the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, starting in 2011. Wiencek was concerned about future funding needs related to the web portal and electronic storage and maintenance of documents. Miller asked that language requiring minority participation in planning of Civil War commemorations be included. This was of particular importance given the continued existence of properties in Iowa that were part of the Underground Railroad.

On the General Assembly web site, select Committees on the left hand side. Click the committee in which you are interested. Scroll down that page to the option for subcommittees. Click on that and you will see individual bill listings. Do not hesitate to contact the chair of the committee if you want to provide testimony.

M.R. Field is editor of Leading Voices: Iowa. 

The person I would most like to interview on this holiday celebrating the life and work of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. is Alma Powell. It was just over a decade ago that her husband, Gen. Colin Powell, declined to run for president because Mrs. Powell feared he would be assassinated. Has there been a change in the country in these past ten years or so that makes it more permissible for an African American to seek the highest political office? Is the change merely a younger generation whose members do not remember King’s death very well, if at all?

The person I would most like to interview tomorrow on the 35th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade is Patricia Schroeder. In the book she wrote after leaving Congress, she voiced the opinion that legal abortions are very much about women’s rights to participate equally in society. In the 1970’s Schroeder literally had to share a chair on the House Armed Services Committee with Ron Dellums because the chairman of the committee thought half a chair was good enough for a woman and for a Black.

Barack Obama is a new type of African American leader. I say this because he did not rise to his position through methods common to older leaders. He did not lead a religious congregation. He did not earn fame as a basketball player. He did not gain experience in the military. Instead, he took an intellectual approach and was able to make that choice because of all the breakthroughs made by other African Americans. Hillary Clinton is not a new type of feminist leader. While she, too, valued an intellectual approach, she gained acceptance through the power of her husband. Interestingly, women’s military experience is starting to appear as a new channel for moving women into political office. Even though Obama and Clinton are getting the nation’s attention as likely nominees of a major political party, I was much more excited by the possibilities of Pat Schroeder and Colin Powell running for president.

The first year in which Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday was celebrated as a national Monday holiday was 1986. Iowa has celebrated the day since 1989. While I am more familiar with the Iowa Commission on the Status of Women and the assorted organizations and programs for women in the state, there is just as rich an environment for education, advocacy, and outreach through the Iowa Commission on the Status of African-Americans.

The ICSAA works with several organizations to strengthen African-Americans in Iowa. These include Creative Visions in Des Moines and the African American Historical Museum and Cultural Center of Iowa, located in Cedar Rapids. The latter organization held the second annual “Laying Claim to Our Spirit: Iowa African American Women’s Leadership Conference” in September 2007. The museum is currently hosting a temporary exhibit on George Washington Carver, through August 4, 2008. A virtual tour of the exhibit is available on the museum’s web site.

M.R. Field is editor of Leading Voices: Iowa. 

George Washington Carver is one of the greatest of all American scientists, and he has strong connections to Central Iowa. He started college at Simpson and earned his B. S. in Agriculture at Iowa State where he also earned a Master’s degree. If you read his fascinating biography at the George Washington Carver National Monument website, you will find among other facts that he made sure when he applied to Simpson that they knew he was a Negro. Why? Because after showing up at Highland University in Kansas, the first college in Kansas, he was turned away with the words, “You didn’t tell me you were a Negro. Highland College does not take Negroes.”¹ Simpson can be proud to have been founded by a Methodist bishop who believed in the equality of all persons.

Carver’s work at Iowa State brought him into contact with two noteworthy professors, James G. Wilson (Secretary of Agriculture) and Henry Cantwell Wallace (Secretary of Agriculture and Editor of Wallace’s Farmer) and with Wallace’s son Henry Agard Wallace (founder of Pioneer Hi-Bred, Secretary of Agriculture and Vice-President of the United States).

George Washington Carver was a spiritual man who felt his work was a God-given mission. He worked without bitterness. Carver was prolific; he held few patents but had hundreds of agricultural inventions and processes to improve crop yields, revitalize depleted soil, and make products from peanuts and peanut waste. The American Chemical Society has a series of pages devoted to his work as an agricultural chemist and a teacher. Simpson College has named a science building after Carver; Iowa State has named a building too.

In recognition of Black History Month and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and in honor of George Washington Carver, Simpson College will be holding a free event on Thursday January 17 2008 at 7:30 pm in Smith Chapel on campus in Indianola. (W. Clinton and N. Buxton). The Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright, will receive the first Carver Medal and present the college’s 34th Annual George Washington Carver Lecture. Dr. Wright is the senior pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Dr. Wright sometimes uses the phrase, “Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian.” I can’t afford to miss it so I’m going.

¹ http://www.nps.gov/archive/gwca/expanded/gwc_tour_03.htm (accessed 1/13/2008)

Guest Writer: James G. Lindberg (Jim) is the the Purple Wren’s sweetie and is a visiting chemistry professor at Grinnell College and retired from Drake University.

Technorati Tags: Iowa, Indianola, Ames, George Washington Carver, Black History Month, Central Iowa News

The City of Des Moines printed a poster in 2007 that looks at the early history of the area. It was prepared with assistance from the University of Iowa and from the Office of the State Archaeologist (OSA). I picked up a copy at the Central Library. There is a logo on the double-sided poster for the Southeast Connector, i.e., the extension of Martin Luther King, Jr. Parkway, more commonly known as MLK, to US 65, and for the State Archaeologist. The poster includes a bibliography and credits. Will Thomson of Armadillo Arts in Iowa City provided the design and original art. Paleotopographic reconstruction and text were provided by the OSA.

Much of the information on the poster came from research that was conducted as a result of new development in the city. An example of these required studies can be found in a January 1993 archaeological survey prepared for the riverfront greenbelt near the Botanical Center. Remains of the former Iowa Tile and Pipe Company, operating from approximately 1881-1957, were found. The survey’s conclusion was that destruction of the plant buildings and bulldozing in the late 1950’s for construction of I-235 left nothing of value in the greenbelt area.

An archaeological timeline for Iowa is available online. This was also created by Will Thomson. Among the highlights is evidence of an early house in Louisa County from 4500 B.C. and cultivation of goosefoot as a food crop long before corn became important.

There are several places to find documentation on historic and prehistoric times in Iowa. The State Historical Museum at 6th and Locust contains a library and displays. The bones of a mammoth found during construction of the downtown Des Moines Allied Insurance building in 2001, near 10th Street, are at the museum. Bones from a mammoth found in Wisconsin in 1994 also are on display. These bones are known as the Hebior mammoth after John Hebior, the farmer who discovered them while digging a drainage ditch. Iowa was home to wooly and to Columbian mammoths.

Oral histories of life in Des Moines, mostly in the early years of the 20th century, can be found in the non-circulating material at the Central Library. The library also has interesting books on the geology of Iowa. I found Fragile Giants: A Natural History of the Loess Hills by Cornelia F. Mutel quite useful when I read it before a photo shoot in western Iowa. For those with older houses, searching the history of the property can be done through the recording of deeds.

According to information on the new poster, the Raccoon River channel was rerouted to its present location in the 1930’s. It used to enter the Des Moines River a block south of what is now MLK. The road passes over the land where Fort Des Moines’ enlisted men’s quarters were in 1843-1846. Farther west, on the bluffs above the Raccoon River, an Indian settlement now identified as the Raccoon River Settlement was established by 1300 A.D.

M.R. Field is editor of Leading Voices: Iowa and has a curiousity the size of a saber-toothed tiger.