Civil War Soldier's Letter From 2nd Iowa Cavalry

 On May 8, 1863, The Muscatine Journal printed this letter from an unnamed member of the 2nd Iowa Cavalry.

2nd Iowa Cavalry setting off on a scouting expedition

April 17, we, the 2nd Cavalry, started out on a scout, in company with the Sixth and Seventh Illinois Cavalry, having five pieces of two pounders. We all went south together as far south as Houston, which is south and east of Grenada. Here our regiment was sent off on the Columbus Road. When within about 20 miles of Columbus (on the Ohio and Mobile railroad), we were attacked by parts of three rebel regiments, 900 strong. We had about 500 men, but soon made the rebels fly, with no loss whatever on our side. We wounded 12 of the rebels, that we know of.

About an hour before this fight, 27 of our men were sent out on a byroad, leading into a swamp, to get a lot of horses and mules, known to be secreted there. They got some 60 head, and mounting a lot of darkies on them, started to rejoin the regiment. Soon, however, they found out that they were cut off by the rebels and endeavored to reach us by another route. After riding on this tack eight or ten miles, they found themselves between a heavy rebel column and their advanced guard. They now took off through the woods, on no road at all, but in executing this maneuver four men who were in the rear were taken prisoner. The rest got back to the regiment about 11 o’clock at night. The four men taken were from Atalissa. Their names are: Chas. Cope, C. Eves, B. F. Barkalow, and Barclay J. Embree.

Cy Slapnick Didn't Make It In The Majors But He Knew How To Pick Them

 

Cyril Charles Slapnicka was born in Cedar Rapids in 1886. Farm country. Immigrant parents. Baseball was the quickest way out of town and the surest way back in.

He pitched forever in the minors. Iowa. Illinois. Anywhere they’d pay him. In 1911 he won 26 games in Rockford and forced the Chicago Cubs to notice. September call-up. Big league clubhouse. A few appearances. Then, back on the train.

He resurfaced with Pittsburgh in 1918. Ten major league games total. Record: 1–6. He wasn’t a star. Not even close.

A lot of men would’ve faded right there.

Slapnicka didn’t.

In 1921, he signed on with Cleveland as a scout. That’s where the story actually starts. He had an eye, and knew what a big-league arm looked like before it knew itself. He drove Iowa’s back roads. Watched high school kids throw in half-empty parks. Talked to parents. Took notes. Made bets with other scouts and usually won.

In 1936, he found Bob Feller, an Iowa farm kid throwing gas past grown men. Slapnicka signed him. That changed Cleveland for a decade. Later came Bob Lemon and a pipeline of players who filled out rosters that could actually win.

For a stretch in the mid-1930s, he ran the club. General manager. Contracts, salaries, egos. No draft system back then. You wanted a player; you found him first and signed him fast. Slapnicka operated like a man who understood scarcity. Talent was gold. Hesitation was death.

He stayed with Cleveland over forty years, scouting into his seventies because he trusted his judgment more than anyone else’s reports.

He died in 1979 at 93, back in Cedar Rapids.

Here’s the clean version: He had a short, forgettable pitching career and a long, consequential second act.

He didn’t conquer the mound. He built the roster. And in baseball, that can matter more.

Historic old Buildings in Des Moines

 

Des Moines in 1858

On September 30, 1906, the Des Moines Register ran a pictorial on the historic old building of Des Moines. I picked two of them to feature hereL  a look at Des Moines in 1858, and the Des Moine Hotel in 1855. Some of the other pictures not shown here included the Old Congregational Church in 1858, the first bridge on Walnut Street in 1866, and the D. F. C. Grunell House, built in 1848.

Mrs. W. F. Mitchell President Des Moines Women's Club 1906

 

Picture from the Des Moines Register. September 30, 1906.

Mrs. W. F. Mitchell became the president of the Des Moines Women's Club in September 1906. She succedded Mrs. H. L. Carrell.

Colonel Earl D. Thomas Fort Des Moines 1906

Colonel Earl D. Thomas, commander of the Eleventh Cavalry at Fort Des Moines, took command several cavalry units in Cuba in 1906.

Thomas began his military service as a private in the Eighth Illinois, rising to sergeant-major during the Civil War. He graduated from West Point in 1869 and was assigned to the Fifth Cavalry where he took part in many of the Indian Wars. He fought in the Indian campaigns in the Republican River Country, the Apache Campaign of 1872-1874, at Four Peaks, Salt River Canyon, Music Mountain, and many more campaigns in the West.

Thomas was on frontier duty in Kansas and Nebraska from 1878 to 1885, led a surveying expedition in 1879, and fought in the Western Indian Wars from 1885 to 1898. 

When the Spanish American War broke out, he helped outfit Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders, then served as an inspector general of volunteers. In 1899, he became an associate judge in a provincial court in Cuba. He returned to the United States in 1900 and served on the frontier for several more years.

Thomas was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in 1904 and took command of the Eleventh Cavalry at Fort Des Moines in April of that year. When he headed to Cuba in 1906, two-thirds of the 851 men at Fort Des Moines went with him.

Artists' Sketch Proposed Fleming Building in Des Moines

The Des Moines Register printed an artists' sketch of the proposed Fleming Building in its September 30, 1906. The building was to be erected on the southwest corner of Sixth Avenue and Walnut Street. When completed, the ten story building would be the largest office building in the city, and one of the most expensive at a cost of $350,000. Each floor would house 28 offices.

Capitol Park High School Baseball Team 1903

The Des Moines Register printed this picture of the Capitol Park High School baseball team on May 3, 1903. They didn't identifty the players in the picture, but they did list the team members and positions. 

Robert Gates, catcher; Andrew Chalmers, pitcher and team captain; Martin Peterson, first base; Fred Gates, second base; Walter Sargent, third base; Ray Prather, shortstop; Burt Sargent, left field; Ray Hampton, center field; John Dwight, right field; and Benjamin Franklin and Charlie Holmes, substitutes.

Capitol Park High School Football Team 1903

The Des Moines Register printed this picture of the Capitol Park High School football team in a special section on area schools in th May 3, 1903 issue.Unfortunately they didn't name the individual players.

Robert Gordon Cousins Eight Term Iowa Congressman

 

Watercolor after a photograph in the Des Moines Register. February 16, 1908.

Robert Gordon Cousins grew up on a farm near Tipton where people argued politics as seriously as they planted corn. By the time he left Cornell College in 1881 he knew two things: how to work and how to talk.

 

He started in the Iowa House in 1886, cut his teeth in an impeachment trial, and proved he could prosecute a case without blinking. In 1892, he landed a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and stayed there for eight straight terms.

 

Washington at the turn of the century was loud, partisan, and spoiling for big arguments. Cousins thrived on it. He memorized his speeches and delivered them like a man who trusted his own voice. When he stood up, people listened.

 

After the Spanish-American War, the country split over what to do with the Philippines. Cousins backed expansion and said America couldn’t grab global power and then pretend it was shy. Strength meant responsibility. Retreat meant weakness.

 

His showpiece was a speech called The Glory of the Republic. It was red meat patriotism, wrapped in constitutional language. He talked about sacrifice, duty, and the price of liberty. Newspapers picked it up. Crowds asked to hear it again. He became one of the Republican Party’s go-to voices when the subject was national pride.

 

He chaired the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, stayed firm on America’s role in the world, and then stepped away in 1909. He went back to Iowa, took to the Chautauqua circuit, and kept preaching citizenship under canvas tents.

 

Cousins died in 1933.

 

Civil War Letter Fourth Iowa Cavalry At Vicksburg

 

Union advance at Vicksburg, from an 1885 print

Following is an extract of a letter from James B. Gregg, a soldier in the Fourth Iowa Cavalry, written from Bear Creek, Mississippi on July 6, 1863. It was published in the Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye on July 25, 1863.

 

Our regiment has not been idle. Since we left Helena on 29 April, we have not lain in camp more than ten days altogether. We have scouted and explored all the country for 40 miles around Vicksburg. We have been engaged in a great many skirmishes, some which would’ve been called battles a year ago.

 

In all these, we have lost as many men as any one of the regiments engaged in the investment line of Vicksburg, excepting a few; we are satisfied, we will become generally known and respected by the rebels we have met in battle, and the smoke houses and beehives we have visited. The Fourth boys are fond of ham, honey, and milk.

Iowa Barely Noticed The First Plot To Kill John F. Kennedy

 

Watercolor drawing of a public domain image from Wikipedia

A plot to kill President elect John F. Kennedy in December 1960 barely got a mention in the Des Moines papers.

 

The Des Moines Tribune reported the story on page 7 in the December 16, 1960 issue. Headline: “Plot to Kill Kennedy, Man Seized.” The December 19 issue of the Des Moines Register buried the story on page 9, lumping it in with an article titled, “Kennedy Sets Talks On Bills.”

 

The Iowa City Press-Citizen was the only paper to run the story on the front page. It was one small column wedged between an article on the plane crash in New York and Christmas for missing airmen. The tiny headline said: “Hold Man In Death Plot On Kennedy.”

 

The story that claimed the front page that week was the crash of two airliners in New York, which claimed 126 lives. The Kennedy story faded into the background.

 

And yet, what happened in Palm Beach that week could have blown the entire decade apart.

 

The man at the center of it didn’t look like a villain out of central casting. Richard Paul Pavlick, 73, was a retired postal worker from Belmont, New Hampshire. The guy you’d expect to argue about stamps, not wire a car full of dynamite.

 

But he’d convinced himself Kennedy was dangerous. Too rich. Too Catholic. Propped up by “big money.” Pavlick decided the country needed saving.

 

So he bought explosives.

 

Not one stick. Not a little bundle tucked under a coat. Authorities later said there was enough dynamite in his Buick to level a building. He rigged it with blasting caps and a detonator. The plan was simple and horrifying: park close to Kennedy, hit the switch, and die along with him.

 

This wasn’t Dallas. No rifle. No long distance.

 

It was going to be a suicide car bomb in broad daylight.

 

Kennedy was in Palm Beach in December 1960, staying at his father’s estate and easing into the role of president-elect. He hadn’t taken the oath yet. The inauguration was still weeks away. Security was present, but nothing like the wall of protection that would surround presidents after 1963.

 

Pavlick followed him.

Des Moines Iowa Automobile Advertisements 1909

Iowa residents had a large assortment of automobiles to choose from in 1909. Like today, you could select a gas or electric model, and in some cases steam driven. 

Here are two advertisements from Des Moines Automobile dealers taken from the Des Moines Register. November 28, 1909.

Thomas Flyer - Model H, sold by Moyer Auto Co,

Proposed Route Davenport-Iowa City Interurban Railway

 

Map showing the proposed route of the Davenport-Iowa City Interurban Railway. Company name: Davenport, Iowa City & Western Traction Co. It would run within five miles of the Rock Island and Clinton-Iowa City branch of the same road.

(The Daily Times. October 18, 1909)

Joan Hammill of Britt Iowa

Joan Hammill, wife of John Hammill, who served as a state senator from 1909 to 1913, representing the 43rd district. The couple lived in Britt, Iowa. 

John Hammill served as Lieutenant Governor from 1921 to 1925, and as Governor from 1925 to 1931. In 1913, Mrs. Hammill was elected associate grand conductress of the Order of the Eastern Star.

(Photograph from the Des Moines Register. October 26, 1913)

Great Eagle Hearse Stops in Des Moines 1913

On the stranger side, the Great Eagle hearse from San Francisco made a stop in Des Moines in September 1913. The vehicle was carrying the body of Michael Moran whose last wish was to travel the continent one final time. The hearse was accompanied by undertaker R. H. Hambley; W. A. Peck, sales manager for the United carriage company; and R. A. MacBride, a Des Moines Undertaker.

Waveland Park Golf Club Des Moines

 

Waveland Park Clubhouse in 1913

Waveland Park Golf Club had nearly 250 members in 1913. Not bad for a club that started in 1907.

The present building went up in 1911 on ground leased from the city. It was three stories and built to be used.

The main floor held dining rooms, reception rooms, and a kitchen. Upstairs was a card room and a ladies’ locker room. The basement had another locker room and bath equipment. You could play 18 holes, eat, smoke, wash up, and sit down for cards without leaving the building.

The club met every week. There were smokers, card parties, and dances. The smokers meant cigars, speeches, and stories that improved with each telling. The card parties meant competition that lasted longer than daylight. The dances brought in the rest of the membership and made the place feel less like a sports club and more like a social one.

Fan Riding Hot Air Balloon Over Football Field 1913

This 1913 cartoon from the Des Moines Register (September 7, 1913) shows that football was as big a part of Iowa life then as it is today.

Photograph: Columbia Theater & Hotel Davenport Iowa

 

The Davenport Democrat and Leader printed this picture of the newly built Columbia Theater and Hotel in 1913. The building at Third and Ripley Street in Davenport was built by T. J. Walsh at a cost of $150,000.

H. C. Kahl Home in Davenport Iowa 1913

 

The H. C Kahl home on Marquette Street Hill in Davenport as it looked in 1913. Kahl, vice president of the Walsh-Kahl Construction Company, built the home at a cost of $200,000.

(Colorized photograph from the Davenport Democrat and Leader. December 29, 1913)

Herbert Hoover During World War I

 

Before he was president, Herbert Hoover was a mining engineer. A numbers man. A logistics wizard who’d made a fortune digging minerals out of the ground on three continents. Then, in 1914, war exploded across Europe.

Thousands of Americans were stranded with no cash and no way home.

Hoover organized emergency loans. Chartered ships. Set up offices. Within weeks, he’d helped get tens of thousands of Americans out of Europe.

He became chairman of the Commission for Relief in Belgium after it had been overrun by Germany. Millions of civilians faced starvation. Britain’s navy blockaded food shipments. Germany occupied the land. Hoover negotiated with both sides to move grain across oceans and through battle lines.

Under his direction, ships crossed the Atlantic loaded with wheat and flour. Warehouses rose. Distribution networks spread across occupied territories. The commission fed millions of people every day.

When America entered the war in 1917, Woodrow Wilson made Hoover the U.S. Food Administrator, a post he held from 1917 to 1919.

Hoover didn’t want heavy-handed rationing laws. He believed in voluntary cooperation. So he made food patriotic.

All Eyes Were On Babe Ruth In The 1916 World Series

 

In October 1916, every eye in Iowa was focused on the World Series and Babe Ruth. Farmers leaned on fence posts. Barbers argued over box scores.

Telegraph wires hummed like angry bees. Out there in Boston, a thick-armed kid with a mean fastball was turning October into his own private carnival.

Ruth wasn’t the Sultan of Swat yet. He was just a left-handed wrecking crew in wool flannel, chewing up the Brooklyn Robins. In Game 2, he worked fast, jaw set, eyes flat. Brooklyn hitters swung like men chopping at ghosts. Boston won. No fuss.

Game 5 was where things got strange. Fourteen innings. No lights. No mercy. The crowd sagged and swayed. Pitch after pitch, Ruth kept firing, as if he’d tapped into some private reservoir of stubborn American madness. When it ended—scoreless for Brooklyn—he’d stacked up nearly 30 straight World Series innings without allowing a run.

Iowans read the numbers in the morning papers and shook their heads. They didn’t know they were witnessing the early rumble of a coming storm that would blow the fences down and change the sport forever.

Babe Ruth would be an unstoppable force in the game.

Pitcher Ray Fisher Des Moines Federal League

Ray Fisher, 18, was the leading picture for the Des Moines Federal League in 1916. When he pitched for the MsCurmin Drug team, he won twelve straight games, averaged twelve strikeouts, and five hits per game.

He got his start in the West Des Moines Sunday School League, where he played for the South Des Moines Methodist team. In 1916, he was given a trial with the local Western League Club.

 

(Picture from the Des Moines Register. February 20, 1916)

Iowa Crime Time Is Available Now

 

Iowa looks harmless.

Wide skies. Gravel roads. Farmhouses spaced just far enough apart that nothing ever seems to happen. The place where people leave doors unlocked and believe evil belongs somewhere else.

It didn’t.

Between 1874 and 1935, violence slipped quietly into Iowa’s towns and countryside. It didn’t arrive with warning signs or sirens. It came in the night. It came through back doors and empty streets. It hid behind borrowed names, stolen cars, and familiar faces.

Iowa Crime Time exposes forgotten crimes that shattered the illusion of safety. Bank robberies carried out with military precision. Outlaws who passed through the state like ghosts—here one day, gone the next. Men and women whose names would become legends, leaving fear and blood behind them as they moved on.

Some crimes were fast and brutal. Others were slow, calculated, and deeply unsettling. In one quiet town, a single night of violence left a scar so deep it never healed. After that, no door felt strong enough. No night felt truly quiet again.

These stories don’t unfold in crowded cities or lawless frontiers. They happen in places that believed they were immune. That belief made the danger worse.

This book isn’t about puzzles or courtroom drama. It’s about atmosphere—about the growing sense that something is wrong long before anyone realizes how bad it’s going to be. It’s about the fear of knowing that help is miles away, that darkness can move freely, and that evil doesn’t need chaos to thrive.

Iowa Crime Time drags these stories back into the light and reminds us of a chilling truth: The most dangerous places aren’t always obvious. Sometimes, they’hide in the corn.

Fire Destroys Crescent Macaroni And Cracker Company 1915

 

Crescent Macaroni and Cracker Company

Flames gutted the Crescent Macaroni and Cracker Company on January 25, 1915.

The plant at Fifth and Iowa Streets in Davenport, Iowa, was the largest macaroni company in the country. The company that employed 250 laborers and 35 salespeople had its best year in 1914, requiring employees to work overtime most of the year.

The fire broke out shortly after 8:15 p.m.

Night watchman George Montz said it started in front of oven number one on the west side of the plant. He turned in the alarm at 8:16, but nearly twenty minutes passed before the first fire company arrived.

Coca Cola Big Six Advertisement 1915

 

Coca Cola was pushing the National Pastime in this advertisement from The Muscatine Journal, published on June 18, 1915.

Dick Nesbitt Drake University Football 1928

 

Dick Nesbitt, Drake University football player, Des Moines, Iowa. (watercolor drawing of black and white image published in the Des Moines Register. November 29, 1928)

Charles Nigg The Maquoketa Wheelman

 

Charles Nigg of Maquoketa, Iowa, pushed a wheel barrow called the Iowa Special from Maquoketa to the American Legion convention in San Antonio, Texas in 1928. He served in the Spanish American War with his two brothers. (picture from Des Moines Tribune. October 11, 1928)

Mrs. Lewis Neff (Formerly Marjorie Love)

 

This photograph of Mrs. Lewis Neff, formerly Marjorie Love, was published in the Des Moines Register on March 11, 1923. She was the daughter of Otis G. Love. Mrs. Neff lived in New York where her husband worked in the export department of a large sugar company. (watercolor drawing of a black and white newspaper image)

Iowa Military Units at Camp Dodge

The Des Moines Register (October 7, 1917) published these pictures of Iowa soldiers at Camp Dodge, training for overseas duty in World War I. It's an interesting look at army life.

Sioux City men of Company A training at Camp Dodge.

Pictures From The Villisca Axe Murders

On October 7, 1917, the Des Moines Register published these photograpghs of the Villisca Axe Murder house and some of the victims and suspects. I hadn't seen a few of these before so I thought they were worth a look.

The Villisca Axe Murder house as it appeared in 1917.

Luther College Decorah, Iowa circa 1910

 

Main building at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa (circa 1900-1910 - watercolor after a vintage postcard)

Inn at Fejervary Park Davenport Iowa

Fejervary Park feels easy now. Wide lawns. Trees. Walking paths. Families with coolers and kids running loose.

But for a stretch of time, it had an inn sitting right at its center.

Nicholas Fejervary built the mansion in the 1800s, up on the bluff with a clear view of the Mississippi. It wasn’t tucked away. It was meant to be seen.

In 1902, his daughter gave the property to the city of Davenport. The mansion became an inn.

And Davenport used it.

Weddings filled the rooms. Clubs held meetings there. Community dinners ran long into the evening. If something important was happening in town, it was happening at the Fejervary Inn. People dressed up, shook hands, and looked out over the river like it were part of the evening.

It didn’t last. By the 1930s, the building had been torn down.

Now it’s just park. Grass under your shoes. Trees overhead. A regular afternoon.

But once upon a time, this wasn’t just green space. It was where the entire town turned out for events and celebrations.