TIME IMMEMORIAL – The First Residents
The first residents of Iowa were corn stalks. Then came corn snakes to eat the corn, corn whiskey distillers/moonshiners to grind up and ferment the corn and the snakes (most of the piquant flavor in the whiskey comes from the snake bits), and finally popcorn vendors to sell popped corn to the kiddies and teetotalers.
By 1940, the Iowans had the corn business down to a science. Here’s a farmer and his pet fox squirrels (bred to look like and be as large as horses) sowing corn seed.
The two matched buckets on the farmer’s go-kart are filled with corn seeds; the other canister contains corn squeezin’s to help him and his squirrels keep up their energy. In theory. He rarely shared.
1803 – Iowa Purchase
In 1803, Tommy Boy Jefferson bought a ginormous tract of land from Napoleon Dynamite. Napoleon needed the money for cannons and ships.
This transfer of land ownership was called by some The Louisiana Purchase. But it wasn’t just Louisiana that was being purchased. Among other places, Iowa was part of that deal, too.
Jefferson told shrimpy James Madison (who would be president next, but was Secretary of State at the time) to fork over 15 million dollars for the land to Napoleon. Back then, 15 million dollars was a lot of money. It works out to about one cent for every 1.5 billionth part of the land, though – not bad speculating on Jefferson’s part!
The corn didn’t care who owned it, though. Nor did the pigs, the anthrax, or the fox squirrels.
1804 – Sole Casualty of Lewis & Clark Expedition
Even though they traveled through the wilderness, and through Indian country, for years, the (Jerry) Lewis and (Dick) Clark Expedition only suffered one casualty.
Wouldn’t you know it, it was in Iowa. And as a direct result, nobody on the crew got a haircut for the rest of the trip. It was Floyd the barber who bit the dust there in Iowa.
The untimely demise of the wielder of the clippers took place while the group was camped just south of Sioux City. It was not a violent attack, or a tragic accident, such as a drowning or a fallen tree or such, that doomed Floyd. It was appendicitis.
There is still an obelisk there where he fell, which was later used as a model for the Washington (Irving) Monument.
1804 – Indians Tricked
The nice thing about the Sock Indian tribe was that all of them were chiefs.
Because of this, the Euro-Americans could randomly grab any handful of Indians and shuffle them off to treaty councils. This they did in 1804, taking some along with them to St. Louis, where they got them drunk and then coerced them to sign away not only their land, but the land of all the other chiefs back home.
1832 – Black Hawk War
The only war named for a man in Ewe-Knighted States history was the “Black Hawk War” (it must be remembered that “King Philip’s War” took place during Colonial times).
To make a long and tedious and familiar story as short as possible, the upshot of the war was that the Sock tribe was forced to cede their land (allow the Euro-Americans to take it) on the west side of the Mississippi River.
Both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were present at this war. In fact, a famous Iowa meat product was named for the former participant. Eventually, the name of this breakfast food and sandwich ingredient was shortened to simply “Ham.”
Which was okay, because Lincoln was well-known for hamming it up, and some thought he descended from Ham (rather than either Shem or Japheth).
Two of Black Hawk’s friends were interviewed by People Magazine regarding their thoughts on the conflict. They showed up for the session in full regalia:
The man on the left is a Sock Indian; he wore socks (not visible in the picture). The man on the right is a Fox Indian; he wore a faux Fox breechclout (also not ascertainable in the photo). The “Elvis Rule” was still in effect, and people with pompadours were never filmed below the waist back in those simple times.
1838 – Territoryhood
In 1838, Iowa became a Territory. It almost became a Terriwhig, but the Tories finally carried the day, after some visitors from Illinois showed up and stuffed the ballot boxes.
Fay2 provided the Visicalc spreadsheet below of the Territory. The dark green part shows the boundaries once Iowa became a State in 1846, bounded on the east and west by Rivers (Mississippi and Missouri). The lighter green part shows the original Territory boundary, which included parts of Minnesota and the Dakotas:
You shrink when you go from being a “mere” Territory to a State, because there’s too much paperwork to deal with, otherwise. That’s why the Northwest and Yukon have remained Territories and never become Provinces (“Province” is Canuck for “State”).
1838 – Black Hawk Dies
Black Hawk, who gave his name to a war his people lost, died on an Iowa reservation in 1838. He was the grandfather of Jim Thorpe, who lettered in every sport imaginable: football, basketball, baseball, curling, and tiddlywinks. Not really; but he was the grandfather of A.J. Hawk, former Green Bay Packers linebacker.
Here’s our man posing for his official mugshot during the annual reservation Pow-Wow:
Black Hawk is here adorned in a genuine fox squirrel hat (designed by Coco Chanel) as a defense against the birds flying over, who had been known to poop on his head from time to time.
1841 – Fort Atkinson
In 1841, Fort Atkinson was erected to house soldiers whose orders were to keep the Winnebago Indians from leaving Iowa and returning to Wisconsin, from whence they had been evicted. It was the only fort whose purpose was to keep Indians in rather than out of an area.
1843 — “New Purchase” Land Rush
Foreshadowing the Oklahoma Land Rush to come decades later, at midnight on April 30, 1843, a cannon was shot to indicate settlers could come in and stake out plots of “New Purchase” land in Iowa. Many of the takers came from the neighboring states of Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and Missouri.
Even before this (in 1840) many Norwegians had arrived. 1845 then brought large numbers of Swedes, and finally plenty of Dutchmen (and -women) arrived in 1847.
1846 — Statehood
Iowa became a State in 1846, a year after Texas, and a year-and-a-half before Wisconsin.
The corn still didn’t care. It continued to grow apace, and didn’t particularly concern itself with whether it was eaten by hogs or turned into corn squeezin’s and guzzled by grizzled old farmers.
It didn’t even know it ended up on the commemorative stamp:
The stalks on the left represent those growing along the State border with the Missouri River; those on the right, those growing along the border with the Mississississippi (I know how to spell it, but I don’t know when to stop)
1848 – Winnebagos Moved Out
The Winnebagos, who had been displaced from Wisconsin and moved to Iowa earlier, were in 1848 kicked out of Iowa, too (after they graciously agreed to give up the land that they had been given there).
The soldiers politely escorted them to Minnesota. Nature abhors a vacuum, though, so when the Winnebagos moved out, Dr. Hekyll and Mr. Jekyll, two supposed scarecrows, moved in.
They really wanted the corn to themselves, though.
1850s — Utopian Communities Founded
The 1850s saw Utopian communities spring up in Iowa. Two particularly noteworthy ones were the German Amana community, and the French Icaria compound.
Some of the families in the Amana Colony were so close-knit that they kept their white picket fence right up against their house:
“This way I don’t have to mow the yard, as we don’t have one!”
1955 -- “Andersonville”
Webster City’s MacKinlay Kantor wrote Andersonville in 1955, the tale of a southern health spa provided for Union soldiers in the 1860s.
Acts of random kindness such as funding and running such a place of rest and recuperation were what caused historians to deem the conflict of that era The Polite (or “Civil”) War.
One can only get a feel for just how luxurious the accommodations were by seeing them with their own imagination. If you’re not coming up with anything, here’s an idea to get you started:
“Hey, Billy, if I’d known how hospitable these Southerners were, I would have let myself get captured a long time ago!”
1969 — “True Grime”
The actor known as John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in Winterset. His middle name was later changed to Michael in a failed attempt by his parents to cash in on some money from the 3M corporation.
Wayne won an academy award for his role as Rooster Clogborn in the musical True Grime in 1969.
Wayne/Morrison followed that up with The Shootist in 1976, about an aging gunfighter.
Some people claim that John Wayne was the grandfather of Jim Morrison (of the rock group The Floors).
1989 -- “Field of Nightmares”
1989 saw the horror film Field of Nightmares infest the silver screen. It starred Kevin Causeway, Amy Wutchoo Gunna Do, James Earl Ray, Gabby Hayes, Burt Reynolds, Chick Corea, Ben “Goose” Aflac, and Matt Dillon, with guest stars Dr. Hekyll and Mr. Jekyll.
Most of the “action” (scarecrows scaring people, for the most part) took place in Iowa cornfields.
You can see some of the locales used in this shot taken by either Hekyll or Jekyll as they were flying in one morning for their scarecrow scenes:
The squiggly line was caused by Causeway teaching the actors how not to run between the bases (they were always playing baseball during their lunch breaks). “Always run in a straight line, not in a serpentine fashion like this!” he would say. How bossy!
. . .
Each Saturday and Tuesday an excerpt of one State’s (satirized) history will be posted here, in alphabetical order (from Alabama to Wyoming).
The (32-page) complete book “The New All-too-True-Blue History of Iowa” is available here.
The regions of the U.S. have been combined into volumes, too; Iowa is included in the volume The New All-too-True-Blue History of the American Midwest
You can listen to this excerpt here:
Blackbird Crow Raven is also the author of the book “the Zany Time Travels of Warble McGorkle”