Fox War Chief Sogonapothanji

Sogonapothanji was a Meskwaki (Fox) war chief in what is now eastern Iowa. His name meant “He Slew Three Sioux,” and it wasn’t a metaphor. It was a record.

Among the Meskwaki, names like this marked what a man had done, not what he hoped to be remembered for. Sogonapothanji’s reputation came from direct conflict with the Dakota (Sioux), longtime enemies in a region where raids and counter-raids were part of daily reality. Survival depended on speed, strength, and nerve. Leaders proved themselves in action.

He was not a council chief. His authority came from warfare—planning attacks, leading fighters, and defending Meskwaki territory when violence broke out. Killing enemy warriors was dangerous, personal work. Doing it more than once mattered. Doing it three times gave him a name people remembered.

By the time Americans began building forts and pressing westward, men like Sogonapothanji were already veterans of another kind of struggle. Intertribal warfare didn’t pause for treaties or survey lines. It continued even as a new and far larger threat crept into the region.

Meskwaki Chief Taimah

Chief Taimah was a Meskwaki (Fox) leader in the early nineteenth century, known less for fighting than for dealing with Americans face to face. That alone made his job dangerous.

He was a civil chief. A negotiator, expected to sit through long councils, listen to translators stumble through his words, and answer to officials who already believed the outcome was decided. Taimah understood that once something was said, it lived on paper. And paper lasted longer than promises.

He spent years moving through that system. Treaty talks. Delegations. Repeated demands that the Meskwaki give up land and move west. Saying no often brought soldiers. Saying yes brought regret. Taimah chose his words carefully because there were no good options left—only less immediate disasters.

He wasn’t naïve. When he signed treaties, it wasn’t trust. It was calculation. Delay could mean another season on familiar ground. Another year to plant corn. Another chance to keep families together before removal became unavoidable.

George Catlin said he was calm, dignified, and deliberate. He noticed how carefully Taimah dressed and carried himself. That wasn’t vanity. It was strategy. Appearance spoke before words did.

Lewis Worthington Smith Drake University Poet

Lewis Worthington Smith was an English professor at Drake University from 1906 to 1940. He believed writing mattered. Style wasn’t decoration. Ideas should stand up to pressure.

He belonged to the Poetry Society of America and the Authors’ Club of London, alongside writers who shaped modern literature. Locally, he was active in Des Moines intellectual circles like the University Club and the Prairie Club. That mix—Midwest roots with international reach—defined him. He was proof that you didn’t have to live on the coasts to think seriously about culture.

 

Smith wrote eighteen books, ranging from criticism to broader reflections on language and civilization. Ships in the Port used metaphor and reflection to explore stillness, waiting, and transition. The Mechanism of English Style broke writing to its moving parts, treating prose like a machine that had to work cleanly and efficiently. The Skyline in English Literature examined how writers used cities, horizons, and modern landscapes to express ambition, anxiety, and change.

 

He didn’t chase trends. He asked how English actually worked—and what it revealed about the people using it.

Mary Allen Talbert: Remembering Slavery

Mary Allen Talbert of Ottumwa, Iowa, was featured in the Des Moines Register on July 5, 1924. Born on Christmas Day in 1799, she was believed to be 115 years old. She had been born into slavery in Garrett County, Kentucky.

Talbert said long life ran in her family. Her mother lived to be 120.

 

She’d been sold three times in her 66 years as a slave. Her second owner, a man named Alford, sold Talbert and one of her daughters to John Bird Hamilton of La Grange, Missouri. Hamilton paid $1,000 for Talbert and $500 for her daughter. The sale separated her from her other children.

 

When Hamilton moved west, he sold Talbert to a man named Price, who also owned her husband. Hamilton kept four of her children—two sons and a daughter.

 

One of her sons joined the army and was killed. Another son, John Hays, also served in the army and later fought with Custer in the Big Horn. By 1924, Hays was 90 years old. One of Talbert’s daughters, then 87, was living in Kentucky. She did not know what had become of her other daughter.

Iowa Poet Edwin Ford Piper

Edwin Ford Piper joined the faculty at the University of Iowa in 1905 and stayed there for decades, writing and teaching until his death in 1939.

He wrote about the Midwest the way it really felt. Dirt roads. Wind. Work. And long days that didn’t care if you were tired.

 

Barbed Wire was published in 1917. The Land of the Aiouwas followed in 1922. Then came Paintrock Road in 1927.

 

People compared him to Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg. Maybe. But Piper had his own style. He favored simple words, sharp images, and no fake drama.

 

And here’s the wild part. He didn’t just write poems. He collected Americana—828 folk songs, work songs, ballads, and little rhymes people sang without thinking.

 

Edwin Ford Piper wasn’t just writing Iowa’s story. He was recording its voice.

Samuel J. Kirkwood: He Mobilized Iowa For The Civil War

When Samuel J. Kirkwood became governor of Iowa in 1860, the country was already sliding toward civil war. He acted fast, calling for volunteers, forming new regiments, and getting those men ready to serve the Union.

On April 16, 1861, Washington ordered Iowa to send a regiment for immediate service. Kirkwood didn’t have time to ease into the war; he began organizing at once.

The United States didn’t have a large army. That meant the states had to do much of the work. Iowa had willing men, but supplies were scarce. Guns and ammunition were the biggest problem. Even when volunteers poured in, the state couldn’t outfit them properly.

Kirkwood’s job became a constant scramble for equipment. At first, he wasn’t sure he could raise a full regiment. When volunteers flooded in by the thousands, the number of men ready to serve was larger than the state could quickly arm and outfit.

That created a fresh crisis. Kirkwood and other leading Iowans took unusual steps to get the state moving. They pledged personal property to borrow money for supplies, because waiting meant wasting time the Union didn’t have.

Author David Morrell: Rambo Was Just The Beginning

David Morrell

David Morrell published First Blood in 1972. It introduced John Rambo. The original Rambo was wounded, furious, and lost. The story was a pressure cooker.

Vietnam was still fresh. America was jumpy. The country felt like it was cracking at the seams. And here was a novel about a returning veteran who couldn’t fit back into normal life, colliding with a small-town system that didn’t know what to do with him.

 

Morrell wasn’t guessing about any of this. He taught literature at the University of Iowa and knew how stories work and what themes do when you tighten them like a vise. He just aimed that knowledge at a new target: suspense.

 

Morrell taught American literature at the University of Iowa from 1970 to 1986, became a full professor in 1977, and wrote bestselling novels during that same stretch.

 

So picture it. He lectured on American writing and culture during the day… then went home and wrote chase scenes, manhunts, and plots with real teeth. 

Author John Irving New Hampshire Born Iowa Bred

John Irving

Iowa City looks harmless. Bookstores. Brick streets. Workshop gossip. Then John Irving shows up and says, “Sure, but what if we make it weird?”

He comes to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in the mid-60s, and ends up studying under Kurt Vonnegut—who’s basically a human smoke alarm with a typewriter. Funny. Furious. Allergic to fake seriousness.

 

Irving’s young. Full of big-story energy. A writer who loves accidents, coincidences, and fate like they’re all cousins at the same chaotic family reunion.

 

At Iowa, he drafts Setting Free the Bears. A thesis that turns into a full-blown novel. Europe. Wild turns. That shaggy, runaway-cart feeling that becomes his signature. Kirkus called it “a wonderfully fresh, wildly imaginative notion of a book,” which is reviewer-speak for this kid might be trouble in the best way.  

 

Then he cranks out The Water-Method Man and drags the chaos closer to home. Iowa City shows up. Graduate school creeps in. Relationships get messy. The jokes get sharper. The plot keeps slipping sideways like it’s trying to escape the room.

Wicked Liz and the Bellyswirls Rocking Davenport for 30 Years

Davenport, Iowa. 1998. Back when bands still had to earn it. No algorithms. No “content.” You played until your fingers hurt and the bartender hated you and the sound guy stopped pretending he was going to help. You played until people finally went, “Alright. Fine. These maniacs are for real.”

Liz Treiber sings like she already knows what you want. Behind her: Leo Kelly on lead guitar, Bob Kelly on bass, Greg Hipskind on drums.

That’s the BellySwirls. The name sounds like something you get from gas station nachos, but onstage it’s a tight machine built to wreck a room. These guys don’t float through songs—they kick the door in.

Genre? Call it blues-rock if you need a label—greasy, hooky, and mean enough to make you forget you were going to leave after one drink. Big riffs, fat groove, stomp-on-the-floor energy. Stuff that makes you spill your beer and not care.

Their songs have that “we’ve done this the hard way” feel. “Believe.” “Mary Kate.” “Nick of Time.” “Ruby.” “Wicked Waltz.” “Break Me” is exactly what it sounds like—not a poem, not a diary entry, more like somebody slamming a door and daring you to follow.

Buffalo Bill Cody Frontier Scout Wild West Performer

Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show

Buffalo Bill Cody was born in Le Claire on February 26, 1846—the same year Iowa became a state.

The family left for Kansas in 1853, searching for freedom because Iowa was feeling a little too crowded. That wanderlust followed Bill for the rest of his life.

The Pony Express was Bill’s first brush with fame. It only ran for about eighteen months, but it changed everything. Riders hit relay stations at full speed, swapped horses, and kept flying. Mail moved across the country faster than anyone thought possible. It was dangerous, brutal work. A boy could vanish on the prairie and no one  would know.

Bill said he rode for it. People still argue about whether he did, but it doesn’t matter. The Pony Express fit the image he sold the rest of his life: an inexperienced rider in empty country, living on speed and nerve.

After that, he trapped, scouted, and rode with soldiers. Then he picked up the name that turned him into a brand.

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds

Kim Reynolds didn’t burst into politics. She edged in. Her first job was Clarke County treasurer, a position built entirely on numbers and trust. Taxes came in. Bills went out. If the math worked, no one noticed. If it didn’t, the phone rang. The job taught her a useful lesson: government feels very different when you’re the one people call after it fails.

In 2008, she ran for the Iowa Senate from a rural district. Voters wanted someone dependable, conservative, and unremarkable in the best way. Reynolds fit neatly. She didn’t chase attention. She listened, voted with her party, and avoided turning routine decisions into public drama.

That made her an easy choice when Terry Branstad returned as governor in 2011. He needed a lieutenant who would compete for the spotlight, someone who understood the machinery and wouldn’t touch the dials unless told to. Reynolds filled the role comfortably. For six years, she learned the rhythms of state government by staying just offstage.

When Branstad became ambassador to China in 2017, Reynolds stepped into the governor’s office. She kept the cabinet intact and promised continuity. Her early months were careful, almost cautious, focused on proving she could hold the job without dropping it.

John Wayne: Born In Iowa, Built For America

John Wayne had a problem growing up. He lived in Winterset, Iowa, and his name was Marion. Marion Michael Morrison.

He grew up poor. His father struggled with health problems. Money was nonexistent, and nothing came easy. He worked odd jobs, and learned not to complain when things didn’t go his way.

That mindset stuck.

When the family moved west, Marion grew into a big kid—tall, strong, athletic. Played football. Earned a scholarship to USC. And for a while, it looked like his future might be on the field.

Then fate intervened. A football injury ended his athletic dreams. The scholarship money dried up, and he found a Hollywood job. Nothing glamorous.

Crocker's Iowa Brigade: General Marcellus Monroe Crocker

Marcellus Monroe Crocker

Marcellus Monroe Crocker was living in Des Moines when Fort Sumter fell, practicing law and coughing his way through tuberculosis. He was thin, already sick, and had every excuse to sit the war out. Few would have questioned it. Instead, he went to work.

Within weeks he was moving through central Iowa raising volunteers. The Iowa State Register said he took up the task “without flourish or delay,” traveling town to town despite failing health, speaking plainly about what lay ahead and promising nothing except hard service. Those efforts produced the 13th Iowa Infantry. When the regiment elected its officers, the men chose Crocker as colonel, “because he knew what he was doing and didn’t pretend otherwise.”

The 13th Iowa entered service in the fall of 1861 and headed south almost immediately. Training was brief. Rifles and gear were uneven. Crocker made up for it by drilling the men hard. He pushed order and repetition until movement became instinct. An officer said he “taught us to move as if confusion were a thing we could not afford.”

The lesson paid off at Shiloh. On the morning of April 6, 1862, the 13th Iowa was rushed into line as Confederate forces crashed into Grant’s army. The battlefield dissolved into smoke and noise. Units overlapped. Officers vanished. Orders arrived late or not at all. The Dubuque Herald called it “a fog of powder and panic, where men fought what they could see and guessed at the rest.”

Jacob G. Lauman, Iowa's Forgotten General

General James G. Lauman

Jacob G. Lauman was born in Maryland, but Iowa shaped him. He settled in Burlington years before the war, working in construction and business, known locally as steady and exacting. When the first calls for volunteers echoed across the state in 1861, Lauman stepped forward quickly. The Burlington Hawk-Eye said he joined “with no flourish and no delay, as one who understands that duty does not require applause.”

He helped raise the 7th Iowa Infantry and was elected its colonel. That mattered. In those early regiments, men chose leaders they trusted to keep their heads when smoke and fear took over. A private said, “We wanted a man who would stand still when the air was full of lead. Lauman did.”

 

The 7th Iowa went south early and learned the war in fragments—quick marches, sharp fights, confusion that never quite matched the maps. At Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861, the regiment saw its first actual combat. Confederate fire cracked through the thick woods along the Mississippi. Men lost sight of the officers within seconds. Smoke turned the trees into shadows.

 

A soldier in the 7th said, “We fought in a fog of powder and noise, firing at shapes that moved and sometimes at nothing at all.” Lauman stayed mounted longer than most officers dared, riding between companies and shouting orders that barely carried. The Dubuque Times said Colonel Lauman “exposed himself freely and seemed indifferent to danger so long as his men held.”

James Tuttle: The Iowa General Who Held The Line

General James Madison Tuttle

James Madison Tuttle didn’t look like a soldier. He had the look of someone used to counting ledgers and weighing grain, not ordering men forward into rifle fire.

Before the war, he was a businessman in Keokuk, Iowa. Steamboats, trade, the river. A life built on schedules and contracts. When the war broke out in 1861, Tuttle was forty-one years old. Older than most volunteers. Too old, some thought, to start a war career from scratch.

 

The Keokuk Gate City said he was “not a man of noise or flourish, but one whose habits of order and decision commend him to command.” It was meant as reassurance. Iowa was sending fathers, clerks, and farm boys to war. They wanted officers who looked like men who’d bring them home.

 

Tuttle helped raise the 2nd Iowa Infantry and was elected its colonel. In 1861, officers weren’t handed down from Washington. Men chose whom they trusted. The 2nd Iowa chose Tuttle. The Gate City noted the regiment had selected “a commander of cool judgment, whose influence over the men is quiet but complete.”

 

They learned what that meant at Fort Donelson in February 1862.

 

The Union army pushed into Tennessee under Ulysses S. Grant, crashing into Confederate forts that guarded the rivers. Donelson was cold, muddy, and confused. Attacks stalled. Lines bent. Confederate generals tried to break out and escape.

James Wilson: The Iowan Who Made Farming Make Sense

James Wilson

James Wilson didn’t stumble into power. He plowed his way there, boots dirty, hands calloused, brain always chewing on the next problem. Born in Scotland and dragged to America as a boy, he grew up learning that the land didn’t care about your intentions. Crops failed. Weather lied. Hard work sometimes wasn’t enough. That lesson stayed with him longer than any sermon.

He became the longest-serving Secretary of Agriculture in American history—sixteen years, three presidents, no theatrics. McKinley picked him. Roosevelt kept him. Taft trusted him. While others came to Washington to make noise, Wilson came to fix systems. He turned farming into science, dragged food safety into the daylight, and built the Department of Agriculture into something that actually mattered.

Wilson believed farmers deserved facts, not fairy tales, and that belief reshaped American agriculture whether anyone noticed.

The story starts before Washington ever smelled him coming.

A Speaker Without Swagger: The Iowa Politician Who Didn't Need It

David Bremmer Henderson

David Bremner Henderson was born in Scotland in 1840, brought to America as a boy, and raised in the Midwest, where reliability mattered more than ambition. That background stayed with him, even after he reached the highest levels of power.

When the Civil War broke out, Henderson joined the Union Army. He expected the war to be short. Most people did. It wasn’t. He was shot in the neck. Later he was shot again, this time in the leg. Part of that leg was taken off, and he walked with a limp for the rest of his life. Years later, he summed up the experience with characteristic restraint. “War is not a parade.” He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to.

After the war, he went back to Iowa. He became a lawyer, married, and stayed involved in his community. He didn’t trade on his injuries or his service. He believed that surviving carried responsibilities, not privileges.

Politics eventually found him anyway.

Henderson entered Congress in the early 1880s and stayed there for twenty years, representing Iowa’s 3rd District. Washington was loud and combative in those days, but Henderson wasn’t interested in volume. He listened more than he talked. A colleague said he had  “the manner of a man who had already seen the worst that could happen.”

Henry Cantwell Wallace The Farmer Who Wouldn't Shut Up

Henry Cantwell Wallace was born in 1866, just after the Civil War finished. Rock Island, Illinois, on paper. Iowa in practice. Adair County dirt under his boots. Weather in his bones. A place where optimism depended on rainfall and a man learned early that effort didn’t guarantee reward.

His father preached the gospel and edited farm papers with the same intensity. Faith, soil, and justice were all part of the same equation in the Wallace household. Dinner wasn’t quiet. It was arguments about land, debt, and whether America would eventually remember who kept the lights on. Young Henry absorbed it all and went off to Iowa State believing, dangerously, that facts might matter.

He studied agriculture when it was still half science and half superstition. Graduated in 1892, convinced that farmers weren’t failing because they were lazy or dumb, but because the system was rigged to chew them up and move on. He would later write that the farmer’s greatest need was not harder work, but better knowledge. This wasn’t a popular opinion among men who profited from confusion.

Before Hollywood Had Rules: Iowa Actress Rita Bell's Wild Moment in Film

Rita Bell was born Marguerite Hughes Bell in 1893, back when the Midwest still believed it could raise children who would never leave. Iowa City was orderly and calm, a place that expected people to fit. Bell didn’t.

She sang her first part in an amateur performance in Iowa City while she was still a little girl, dressed in pinafores and wearing pigtails, standing on a small local stage and learning what it felt like to be seen.

 

She changed her name to Rita Bell because the old name belonged to classrooms and expectations. The new one fit on a program and was easy to remember.

 

This wasn’t a movie story. Despite later guesswork, Rita Bell never worked in silent films. Her career lived where voices mattered and mistakes were public—stages and music halls, where you either held the room or you didn’t.

 

By the early 1920s, she was working professionally. In 1922, she played the ingenue role in The Spice of Life, produced by John Murray Anderson. The role demanded charm without softness and confidence without arrogance.