97 Fun Facts About Iowa

What is the capital and largest city of Iowa?

Des Moines became the capital in 1857, when lawmakers left Iowa City for a site nearer the middle of the state; the capitol they left behind became the state university's first building.

Which two rivers form almost all of Iowa's eastern and western borders?

The Mississippi and the Missouri bound Iowa east and west, with the Big Sioux finishing the north-west edge; statehood came late because voters threw out a first constitution after Congress shrank the borders.

Which Iowa city is home to Iowa State University and its Cyclones?

Ames is home to Iowa State, whose teams became the Cyclones in 1895 after a 36-0 rout of Northwestern drew the Chicago Tribune headline 'Struck by a Cyclone'.

Iowa's nickname, the Hawkeye State, is usually traced to a character in which author's novels?

James Fenimore Cooper's scout Hawkeye, of The Last of the Mohicans, is the origin usually given; editor James G. Edwards, who pushed the name from 1838, also meant it to keep alive the memory of the Sauk leader Black Hawk.

Which president signed Iowa into the Union in 1846?

James Polk signed the bill on 28 December 1846; Congress had paired free Iowa with slave-state Florida to keep the Senate balanced, but Florida got in almost two years sooner.

Iowa's state flag is patterned after the flag of which country?

France: Dixie Cornell Gebhardt drew the blue, white and red banner in 1917 because Iowa guardsmen posted on the Mexican border had no state flag to carry; the colours nod to Iowa's years as French territory.

Iowa is the nation's largest producer of which two commodities?

Corn and ethanol: dozens of Iowa plants turn much of the crop into fuel, and what is left of each kernel goes back to farms as distillers grains for livestock feed.

Which farm animal outnumbers the people of Iowa by about seven to one?

Hogs: about 24 million are on Iowa farms at any one time, nearly a third of the nation's herd, fattened on the corn and soybeans grown in the fields around them.

Which Iowa city was Maytag's home from 1893 and hosts the Iowa Speedway?

Newton, east of the capital on Interstate 80, was Maytag's headquarters from 1893 until Whirlpool closed the plant in 2007, and has hosted the Iowa Speedway oval since 2006.

Which little-known candidate's showing in Iowa's 1976 caucuses launched him to the presidency?

Jimmy Carter took 28% in January 1976, behind only 'uncommitted', and the headlines that followed carried the peanut farmer to the White House and made Iowa a fixture of every campaign.

What sets Iowa's caucuses apart from a primary election?

Caucuses are party-run meetings of voters held at set times in precincts, not state-run elections with all-day secret ballots; Iowa Democrats traditionally sorted into candidate groups in the room.

Which state's primary did the DNC put first on its 2024 calendar, displacing Iowa?

South Carolina, whose 2020 primary had turned Joe Biden's campaign around, was given the first slot, 3 February 2024, by the Democratic National Committee after Iowa's 2020 caucus count collapsed amid app failures.

What has the Iowa State Fair's famous life-size cow been sculpted from since 1911?

Butter: about 600 pounds is layered over a wood, wire and steel frame inside a chilled case, and much of it is saved and reused for up to ten years.

Where was the very first Iowa State Fair held, in 1854?

Fairfield, in southeast Iowa, staged the first two fairs from 1854; the fair then moved from town to town around eastern Iowa before settling for good in the capital in 1879.

The Field of Dreams diamond was cut into a cornfield for the 1989 film outside which Iowa town?

Dyersville, in northeast Iowa, is where the diamond was laid out on the Lansing family farm in 1988; fans kept coming, and in 2021 the White Sox and Yankees played a Major League game beside it.

What does the cornfield voice first whisper to Ray in Field of Dreams?

'If you build it, he will come' is the first whisper, and 'he' proves to be Ray's late father rather than Shoeless Joe; the line is often misquoted as 'they will come'.

In The Bridges of Madison County, Robert Kincaid photographs the bridges for which magazine?

National Geographic sends Robert Kincaid to shoot Madison County's covered bridges in 1965; Robert James Waller's novel poses as a true story, but the photographer and his assignment are invented.

Which US president was born in West Branch, Iowa, in 1874?

Herbert Hoover, the only president born in Iowa, was orphaned by nine, sent to an uncle in Oregon at 11, and graduated in Stanford's first class in 1895; his library and grave are in West Branch.

Which Hollywood legend was born Marion Robert Morrison in Winterset, Iowa?

John Wayne was born in Winterset in 1907; the 'Duke' nickname came later in California, where a fireman named the boy after the big Airedale terrier that went everywhere with him.

Grant Wood's American Gothic was inspired by a house in which Iowa town?

Eldon's little white 'Dibble House' caught Grant Wood's eye on a drive in 1930; he sketched it and then painted, in his words, the kind of people he fancied should live in that house.

Who modelled for the two figures in American Gothic?

Wood's sister and his dentist: Nan Wood Graham and Byron McKeeby posed for the pair; viewers took them for husband and wife, but Nan insisted she was the farmer's daughter.

The Amana Colonies were founded by religious refugees from which country?

Germany: the Community of True Inspiration fled persecution there for New York in the 1840s, moved to Iowa in the 1850s and shared all property until hard times forced the 'Great Change' of 1932.

The Amana Colonies gave their name to a maker of what?

Appliances: George Foerstner began building coolers in Middle Amana in 1934, and in 1967 Amana launched the Radarange, the first popular microwave oven made for home kitchens.

What does RAGBRAI stand for?

Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa began in 1973 when Register columnists John Karras and Donald Kaul invited readers along on a six-day ride; some 300 set off and 114 rode the whole way.

In which direction does RAGBRAI cross Iowa each year?

West to east: riders dip a rear wheel in the river on Iowa's western border before setting off and a front wheel in the river on its eastern border a week later.

Which conference do the Hawkeyes play football in?

The Hawkeyes play in the Big Ten; since 2017 the Kinnick Stadium crowd has turned at the end of the first quarter to wave to patients watching from the children's hospital that overlooks the field.

Which sport have the Hawkeyes and Cyclones combined to win more than 30 NCAA team titles in?

Wrestling: Dan Gable lost just once in 118 college bouts for Iowa State, then crossed the state and coached the rival Hawkeyes to 15 NCAA team titles.

Caitlin Clark, the Iowa Hawkeyes star drafted first overall in 2024, grew up in which city?

West Des Moines: Clark starred at Dowling Catholic High School there, once scoring 60 points in a game, before choosing the Hawkeyes over Notre Dame.

Which WNBA team took Caitlin Clark first overall in the 2024 draft?

The Indiana Fever took Clark first on 15 April 2024, and the crowds followed: their 340,715 home fans that season set a record for any WNBA team, beating a mark that had stood since 2001.

Which Iowa university is home to the famous Writers' Workshop?

The University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop, begun in 1936, is the country's oldest graduate writing program; a teaching job there, Kurt Vonnegut said, came like the rescue of a drowning man.

Effigy Mounds National Monument in northeast Iowa preserves prehistoric mounds shaped like what?

Bears and birds: Late Woodland peoples shaped the earth into animal outlines roughly a thousand years ago; 31 such effigies survive in the monument, which 20 tribes with ties to the builders still hold sacred.

Which That '70s Show actor was born in Cedar Rapids in 1978?

Ashton Kutcher studied biochemical engineering in Iowa, hoping to cure the heart condition that had put his twin Michael through a transplant, until a model scout spotted him in a bar.

The Sergeant Floyd Monument in northwest Iowa honours the only member of which expedition to die en route?

Sergeant Charles Floyd, the only member of the Lewis and Clark expedition to die on the journey, succumbed on 20 August 1804, probably to a burst appendix; the obelisk stands on a bluff above the river.

Meredith Willson based The Music Man's fictional setting on his boyhood in which real Iowa town?

Mason City, Willson's birthplace, became River City in The Music Man, which beat West Side Story to the 1958 Tony Award for Best Musical.

Kurt Warner, the only undrafted player to be NFL MVP and Super Bowl MVP, played college football where?

Northern Iowa: Warner started only his senior season, 1993, for the UNI Panthers in Cedar Falls, then stocked Hy-Vee shelves and played Arena football before the Rams signed him.

Davenport's Otto Rohwedder built the machine that first put what on sale in 1928?

Sliced bread: Rohwedder sold his jewellery stores to fund the slicer, lost his prototype and blueprints in a factory fire, and finally saw pre-cut loaves go on sale in Chillicothe, Missouri.

Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper died in a 1959 plane crash near which Iowa town?

Clear Lake's Surf Ballroom hosted their last show; Waylon Jennings gave his plane seat to the flu-stricken Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens won his on a coin toss.

Which cereal giant took its present name in 1901, having absorbed the Stuart family's Cedar Rapids plant?

Quaker Oats never had any tie to the Quaker faith: the millers borrowed the name as a byword for honesty, and the round canister followed in 1915.

Which Iowa city was left on Nebraska's side of the river when an 1877 flood cut a new channel?

Carter Lake sits beside Omaha's airport because the river jumped its bed; Nebraska claimed the land, but the Supreme Court ruled in 1892 that it still belonged to Iowa.

Which event cut Iowa's population by nearly 5% in a decade?

Farm crisis: Iowa farmland prices collapsed after 1981, farms were foreclosed, and the 1990 census counted some 137,000 fewer Iowans than in 1980.

Which industry is Iowa's capital best known for, as the home of Principal and dozens of rival firms?

Insurance: so many insurers are based in the city, Principal and Wellmark among them, that it picked up the nickname 'Hartford of the West', after Connecticut's insurance capital.

Which bandleader, lost over the English Channel in 1944, was born in Clarinda?

Glenn Miller left Clarinda as a small boy, his family moving on to Nebraska and then Missouri; the town keeps the house where he was born as part of a museum and holds a festival in his name.

Which Civil War governor of Iowa, namesake of a Cedar Rapids community college, rallied the state behind the Union?

Samuel Kirkwood began his term in 1860 by sending back Virginia's demand for one of John Brown's raiders as legally flawed; the man was in Canada before corrected papers arrived.

Which Iowa town is home to the Grotto of the Redemption?

West Bend's Grotto of the Redemption was begun in 1912 by Father Paul Dobberstein, who is said to have vowed as a gravely ill seminarian to build a shrine to Mary if he lived; he worked on it for 42 years.

Which Iowa city's Fenelon Place Elevator is billed as the world's shortest, steepest railway?

Dubuque's Fenelon Place Elevator, a 296-foot funicular up the river bluff, began in 1882 as banker J.K. Graves's private lift, built so he could get home for dinner and a nap in his midday break.

Which town in central Iowa is home to a well-known Dutch community?

Pella was founded in 1847 by some 800 Dutch settlers under Dominie Hendrik Scholte, who named it for the ancient city where Jerusalem's Christians once found refuge; its Tulip Time festival marks the heritage.

Which of Iowa's 99 counties has two county seats?

Lee County, in Iowa's southeast corner, has kept two courthouses since 1847, when a quarrel over court business gave a second town equal standing with Fort Madison; hence 100 county seats for 99 counties.

Which Iowa river town was Buffalo Bill Cody's birthplace?

Le Claire, just north of the Quad Cities, is where William 'Buffalo Bill' Cody was born in 1846; his father sold the farm in 1853 and took the family to Kansas, where the boy became a rider and scout.

The Ioway people, from whom the state takes its name, spoke a language of which family?

Siouan: the Ioway spoke Chiwere, a language shared with the Otoe and close kin to Ho-Chunk; in 1837 the tribe was moved out of Iowa to reservations in Kansas and Nebraska.

Which Iowa-born agronomist won the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for the Green Revolution?

Norman Borlaug, raised on a farm near Cresco, bred high-yield wheat in Mexico that nearly doubled harvests in India and Pakistan within five years; he is often credited with saving a billion people from starvation.

Which future president served as a militia captain in the 1832 Black Hawk War, which opened eastern Iowa to settlers?

Abraham Lincoln was elected captain by his Illinois company but never saw combat, later joking that his only bloody struggles were with mosquitoes; the peace cost the Sauk and Meskwaki six million acres of eastern Iowa.

Iowa's only federally recognised tribe is the Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi, based near which town?

Tama is the nearest town to the Meskwaki Settlement, which began not as a treaty reservation but as 80 acres the tribe bought for itself in 1857, after Iowa passed a law letting them stay.

Which Iowa city recorded the state's all-time high of 118 °F in July 1934?

Keokuk hit 118 °F on 20 July 1934, fittingly for Iowa's southernmost city; the state's record low, -47 °F at Elkader in 1996, lies 165 degrees below it.

The Sioux City metropolitan area spans Iowa and which two neighbouring states?

Nebraska and South Dakota: the metro takes in South Sioux City, Nebraska, and North Sioux City, South Dakota; its airport code is SUX, which the city fought to change and then embraced on 'Fly SUX' souvenirs.

Where does the Interstate 80 truck stop billed as the world's largest sit?

Near Walcott: the Iowa 80 Truckstop went up at exit 284 in 1964, while the interstate itself was still being built, and the founding Moon family still runs it, with parking for about 900 trucks.

Which Triple-A baseball team plays at Principal Park in the state capital?

The Iowa Cubs were the Iowa Oaks until 1982, taking the Chicago Cubs' name a year after joining their farm system; their ballpark stands where two rivers meet downtown.

Which PGA Tour golf event has been held in the Quad Cities since 1971?

The John Deere Classic began in 1971 as the Quad Cities Open on an Iowa course, later crossed the river to Illinois, and had TV sidekick Ed McMahon as its host from 1975 to 1979.

Which rock singer bit the head off a bat on stage in Iowa's capital city in January 1982?

Ozzy Osbourne thought the bat thrown on stage by a 17-year-old fan was rubber, and he was treated for rabies afterwards.

Which Star Trek character's future birthplace is marked by a plaque in the small town of Riverside, Iowa?

Captain Kirk was claimed by the town in 1985 with the blessing of creator Gene Roddenberry, and an annual Trek Fest now celebrates the birth centuries early.

Which M*A*S*H character, the 4077th's young company clerk, comes from Ottumwa, Iowa?

Radar O'Reilly was inspired by a real company clerk, Don Shaffer, who was also born in Ottumwa and served in Korea beside the author of the original novel.

Which masked metal band, formed in Iowa's capital in 1995, named its second album after the state?

Slipknot settled on a nine-member lineup in 1999, and the band has called its home state one of its greatest inspirations.

Which actor earned his first Oscar nomination for What's Eating Gilbert Grape, set in Endora, Iowa?

Leonardo DiCaprio was 19 when the part of Gilbert's younger brother brought him the nomination, and the Iowa town was really filmed in Texas.

Which piece of gym equipment did Cedar Rapids, Iowa gymnast George Nissen first build in 1934?

Trampoline comes from the Spanish word for springboard, which Nissen heard in Mexico, and during World War II his invention helped train pilots to orient themselves in the air.

Which famous apple variety began as a chance seedling on Jesse Hiatt's farm in Madison County, Iowa?

Red Delicious was first called Hawkeye by Hiatt, until Stark Nurseries bought the rights after it won the firm's contest in the 1890s and renamed it.

After the first quarter at Kinnick Stadium, Iowa football fans turn and wave to people in which building?

Children's hospital patients watch from windows high above the stands, and the wave began in 2017 with a suggestion on a fans' Facebook page.

Which two rival advice columnists were identical twin sisters born 17 minutes apart in Sioux City, Iowa?

Ann Landers and Dear Abby were pen names of Eppie and Pauline Friedman; Pauline launched her column months after Eppie's, and the sisters fell out for years.

In The Straight Story, Alvin Straight leaves Laurens, Iowa, to visit his brother riding what vehicle?

A lawn mower was the real Alvin Straight's answer to having no driver's licence: in 1994, aged 73, he rode one about 250 miles to see his ailing brother.

Which host of The Tonight Show for 30 years was born in Corning, Iowa, and began as a teenage magician?

Johnny Carson debuted at 14 as the Great Carsoni, earning three dollars a show, having left Iowa with his family when he was eight.

Which star of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to parents who ran a delicatessen?

Elijah Wood won the part of Frodo Baggins after sending in an audition tape of himself in costume, reading lines from the novel.

Which motorhome maker, founded in Forest City, Iowa, in 1958, takes its name from the county around it?

Winnebago began as a bid to revive a struggling town: local leaders persuaded a California trailer firm to open a factory, and five Midwesterners later bought it out.

Which rock is Iowa's official state rock, with a state park in Henry County named after it?

Geode State Park is named for the crystal-lined rock, yet few can be found there, and removing one from any state park is against the law.

Which convenience store chain, known across the Midwest for its pizza, began with one service station in Boone, Iowa?

Casey's was named after K.C. Fish, the fuel supplier who urged founder Donald Lamberti to buy that first station; Lamberti chose not to put his own Italian surname on the sign.

Jane Smiley's Pulitzer-winning novel A Thousand Acres retells which Shakespeare tragedy on an Iowa family farm?

King Lear becomes Larry Cook, an ageing farmer who hands his land to his three daughters, and the novel was filmed in 1997.

Which songwriting duo wrote the 1945 film musical State Fair, in which the Frake family heads to the Iowa State Fair?

Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote only this one musical directly for the screen, and one of its songs won them an Academy Award.

Which Iowa city was home to the five Sullivan brothers, all killed when USS Juneau sank in 1942?

Waterloo's five brothers had joined the Navy on the stipulation that they serve together, and their loss partly inspired the film Saving Private Ryan.

Which small songbird, also the state bird of New Jersey and Washington, is the official state bird of Iowa?

American goldfinch males turn vibrant yellow in summer and olive in winter, and it is the only finch in its subfamily to moult twice a year.

Which harmony duo behind Bye Bye Love spent most of their childhood singing on the radio in Shenandoah, Iowa?

The Everly Brothers sang on local stations as Little Donnie and Baby Boy Phil, and they joined the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its first class of 1986.

Who escaped a 1933 police shootout at Dexfield Park, an abandoned amusement park near Dexter, Iowa?

Bonnie and Clyde slipped away on foot while police and about 100 spectators closed in, but Clyde's wounded brother Buck was captured and died five days later.

Which group gathers in Britt, Iowa, every August for a national convention the town first hosted in 1900?

Hobos have their own museum in Britt too, and the convention weekend runs to a parade, an auction and a memorial service for those who have died.

Which First Lady, a 1950s fashion icon known for her bangs and love of pink, was born in Boone, Iowa?

Mamie Eisenhower first cut her famous fringe to keep cool when Ike was stationed in Panama, and her favourite shade, nicknamed Mamie pink, became a fashionable 1950s colour for bathrooms.

Decorah, Iowa, home of the Vesterheim museum and the Nordic Fest each July, celebrates settlers from which country?

Norway's language lived on in the Decorah Posten, one of the largest Norwegian-language newspapers in the United States, which was printed there into the 1970s.

Which Iowa city did President Lincoln name as the official starting point of the first transcontinental railroad?

Council Bluffs was known as Kanesville until about 1853, and under that name it had been the historic starting point of the Mormon Trail.

Which northwest Iowa city, home of Blue Bunny maker Wells, calls itself the Ice Cream Capital of the World?

Le Mars owes the Blue Bunny name to a 1935 newspaper contest, won by a man whose son had liked the blue rabbits in a shop window at Easter.

Which pollster, born on a dairy farm in Jefferson, Iowa, made his name by calling the 1936 presidential election?

George Gallup beat a Literary Digest poll built on over two million replies by asking a far smaller but more representative sample of about 50,000 people.

Which Czech composer spent the summer of 1893 in Spillville, Iowa, writing his American string quartet there?

Antonín Dvořák came on holiday from hectic New York because his secretary's family lived in the Czech immigrant village, and he sketched the quartet in three days.

At which Indianola, Iowa school did George Washington Carver study art and piano before turning to botany?

Simpson College's art teacher saw his talent for painting plants and urged him on to Iowa State, where in 1891 he became the first Black student.

Which Iowa restaurant chain, begun by butcher Fred Angell in 1926, is known for its loose-meat sandwich?

Maid-Rite began as a walk-up counter, and its spiced ground-meat filling is served loose in a bun rather than as a traditional hamburger.

Which southwest Iowa town gives its name to the 1912 axe murders of eight people in one house?

Villisca's victims were the six members of the Moore family and two overnight guests; a travelling minister confessed in 1917 but recanted at his trial.

Which Intel co-founder, nicknamed the Mayor of Silicon Valley, grew up in the college town of Grinnell, Iowa?

Robert Noyce was suspended from Grinnell College for a semester after stealing a 25-pound pig from the mayor's farm and roasting it at a campus luau.

Which Iowa-born vice president under Franklin Roosevelt had earlier founded the seed company Pioneer Hi-Bred?

Henry A. Wallace was born on a farm near Orient and followed his father into the job of US secretary of agriculture before joining the ticket in 1940.

The battleship USS Iowa, which took President Roosevelt across the Atlantic in 1943, is now a museum in which city?

Los Angeles has berthed the ship since 2012; for the 1943 voyage it was fitted with a bathtub, because the paralysed president could not use a shower.

Which famous 1869 hoax, unearthed on a New York farm, was carved from gypsum quarried at Fort Dodge, Iowa?

The Cardiff Giant's makers told the Iowa quarrymen the block was for a monument to Abraham Lincoln; creator George Hull wanted to prove how easily people could be fooled.

Which Iowa city's Snake Alley was called the crookedest street in the world in Robert Ripley's newspaper column?

Burlington's brick lane was built in 1894 on the model of European vineyard paths, with the bricks laid at an angle to give horses better footing going down.

Which country has the only deposits of wind-blown silt comparable to the Loess Hills of western Iowa?

China's Shaanxi province is the only match; Iowa's hills formed after Ice Age glaciers ground rock to a fine flour and westerly winds carried the dried silt away.

Which Iowa governor, in office for over 22 years across two stints, became America's longest-serving governor?

Terry Branstad took office at 36 as the state's youngest governor, and in December 2015 he broke George Clinton's record of almost 21 years in a governor's chair.

Which Marilynne Robinson novel, a dying Iowa pastor's long letter to his young son, won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize?

Gilead takes its title from its fictional small town, where the narrator recalls a grandfather who was an abolitionist preacher and fought in the Civil War.

Which Iowa river city was once known as the Pearl Button Capital of the World for buttons punched from mussel shells?

Muscatine's trade began when a German immigrant button-maker started machine-punching buttons from freshwater shells, and by 1915 one local firm was the world's largest of its kind.