Tidbits of: Iowa

I tried, I really really did! The truly interesting history of each individual state in the U.S. is difficult to find. I confess I didn't find much until I happened to search the history of fire horses. You know, once upon a time, there were no fire engines (gasp!) the first fire station was made up of volunteers, handpulling a cart loaded with water buckets. As things became more sophisticated, horses were used to pull the pump wagon and the hook and ladder wagon. So that's what I was researching. Almost everything I came up with was about the California fire stations. Yes, I can just hear you all saying, "now wait a minute, how did she get California mixed up with Iowa.

It was this way. While researching fire horses (I wanted to see if a book I read was based on true facts or not) I came up with the famous Iowan fire horses, Snowball and Highball. ("Yay, now you're in the right part of the country) Probably this is beginning to sound interesting. I hate to disappoint you, but since I was dissapointed myself...You're probably wanting to know why these two horses were famous. HOwever, while I discovered the fact that they were famous, nothing anywhere would tell me why. The few facts I found were simply that they came in second not first, at a fire department race competition, and were hugely popular. Oh, and when they were retired, because fire engines came into fashion, they had their pictures taken with the 1912, and 1922, fire engines. During a picture, a fire whistle blew signaling that their was a fire. The two old fire horses were the first to arrive, although it was a false alarm. (I think that's pretty funny myself.) Legend has it that the alarm was rigged by dissidents to prove that fire engines weren't as quick to respond as the old methods of reaching a fire.

That's some of Iowa's history, but I was going to explain my opening apology. I still didn't find much about the state's history, even after discovering the bit about the fire horses. However, one thing leads to another. (I now know that if I want interesting history, it might be a good idea to check fire department archives.) Somewhere in the article about the fire horses I came across the word folklore. "Aha!" I thought, "That's a good word to search when looking for history."

When googling Iowan folklore, I came across a link to a story about "the counterfeit silver dollar." Since I like detective stories etc., I looked it up. And that's where it hurts and brings joy. The December 4, 1884 Fairfield, Iowa Weekly Journal only mentioned that a 'very cleverly executed' silver dollar was in circulation. "there is no proof against the suspect passer and he was discharged. All attempts of the U.S. officers to locate the criminal have been unsuccessful." How anticlimatical is that! Well, not too discouraged, I decided to see if there was a followup. There wasn't. But if I find it somewhere, I'll let you know.

In reading the 1884 newspaper, I was astonished to note how incredibly dissimilar it was to the modern media. And then again, it was pretty similar. News in those days was concise and to the point, and yet, hopelessly unimportant, most of it. The first words that greeted my eyes were along the lines of "G.B. Corns, Pittsburgh, is here" "B.B. Frase, of Des Moines, is in the city" A little further down, (after a long list of people who were apparently "in the city") I came across, "A new grocery store has been opened in the former Republican headquarters" (neglecting of course, to say what grocery store had opened.) Still further down the page I came across a couple of amusing tidbits, such as "A man stopping his paper wrote to the editor: 'I think folks otten to spend their munny for paper, mi daddy didn't and everybody nod he was the intelligetist man in the country and had the smartest family of boiz as ever dugged taters." Still further down was an admonition by the paper to consult the paper's office before subscribing to any other paper. And then followed "An old man who said he had two sons in the newspaper business recently applied for admission for the almshouse. The sons, who are traveling in the same direction, say they were willing to support their father, but he refuses to live on cough syrups, kidney pads and liver regulators...the man chose the almshouse instead"

I wondered, even as I laughed at this paper, whether it was really any different from today's paper. So, I looked up Fairfield's Daily Ledger (the weekly journal, can anyone be surprised? is out of business.) My eyes were greeted with headlines such as "City plans to disconnect sump pumps," "Goodwill store moving to town" (at least they said the name of the store.) Obituaries followed, with only an occasional interesting headlines such as, "grenade scare closes parts of town" and "fire fighter's fight smouldering hay fire for 9.5 hours."

Am I the only one that sees a strong similarity? The only dissimilarity that I could see was that modern newspapers are a little bit more detailed. You know, instead of 10 words, they use an hundred to make the same boring point.

So, that was my adventure while researching Iowa. While I didn't find very much, I think that if I refine my researching a little, I can utilize useful things such as old newspapers and fire department archives. Hopefully, I'll run across something more interesting however. Oh, and a couple of more things about Iowa. Iowa is home to: tinsmithing, quilting, willow basket weaving, gardening, cooking, and zither playing. (whatever that is.) (Never mind, I looked it up) A zither is a flat board with strings. It is used extensively in Hungary, Slovenia, Austria, and Germany. It looks kind of fun. (The picture went and stuck itself at the top...oh well.)

(This has been: Tidbits of Iowa. Look in next time to read: Foutain of Thoughts)