A Double Murder in Low Moor

 

By the time the sun came up over the Lincoln Highway on November 14, 1922, Homer (47) and Rose Brownfield (38) were dead on the floor of their roadside store and the killer was gone.

 

No witnesses. No arrest. No suspect.

 

Just two bodies beside one of the busiest roads in America and a murderer who vanished into the darkness somewhere west of Low Moor, Iowa.

 

People around Clinton County still talk about it more than a hundred years later. A husband and wife running a little highway store. A cold November night. Then gunshots followed by silence.

 

The Lincoln Highway brought strangers through eastern Iowa at all hours.

 

That was part of the problem.

 

By 1922, it had become one of the busiest roads in the country. Cars rattled through Clinton County day and night carrying salesmen, drifters, farm families, tourists, and men nobody knew anything about. Most just passed through.

 

Some didn’t.

 

Homer and Rose Brownfield ran a little roadside store near Low Moor. It sat out in the open country where the road cut through fields and darkness. Travelers stopped for gas, cigarettes, sandwiches, coffee, or directions before moving on.

 

The Brownfields worked long days.

Murder of Edward Stuart At Lone Grave Bluff In Clinton

 

Harold Riggs (The Daily Times. October 8, 1926)

The place already had a bad reputation before Edward Stewart was murdered there.

 

People around Clinton called it Lone Grave Bluff. Legend says a steamboat stopped there once so the crew could bury a dead river pilot. Maybe it happened. Maybe it didn’t. By 1926, nobody cared much either way. The name fit. High bluffs. Thick brush. River fog rolling off the Mississippi. The place kids dared each other to visit after dark, then ran all the way home afterward.

 

It was where Harold Riggs took Edward Stewart.

 

Riggs was young, but the police already knew him well. According to the Clinton Advertiser, officers first arrested him when he was eight for breaking into automobiles. Not long after, they picked him up again for stealing a gun from a local house. He pleaded guilty and was supposed to go to reform school, but got paroled at the last minute.

 

The city watched him grow up mean.

 

Teachers complained. Police hauled him in over and over. Neighbors said he was always looking for trouble. Even as a teenager, he had a bad temper and could fly off over almost nothing.

Something Big and Wooden Is Happening in Iowa

 

Fjord Ferryman at the Museum of Danish History in Elk Horn

Something weird showed up in Iowa, and for once it wasn’t a rumor or a blurry photo of something out in a cornfield.

It was a troll.

 

A big one.

 

If you’ve been near Elk Horn lately, you’ve probably seen it or at least heard someone mention it. It’s become a thing to take your picture next to it and post it on Facebook.

 

They named it Fjord Ferryman. Sounds like something out of a storybook, which doesn’t exactly scream “western Iowa,” but here we are.

 

It went up at the Museum of Danish America, which makes sense once you think about it. Elk Horn leans into its Danish heritage. Windmills, festivals, all of it. So if a giant wooden figure was going to land anywhere in Iowa, that’s one place it wouldn’t feel completely out of left field.

 

Still, it’s something to see.

 

It’s sitting in a wooden boat, holding what looks like a tree branch for an oar, like it’s rowing across… nothing. Just prairie. No water. No river. Just dirt, grass, and sky. And somehow it works.

 

When you get closer, the scale hits you. It’s bigger than it looks in pictures. Way bigger.

Who Remembers Riverboat Days On The Clinton Riverfront

 

Riverboat Days crowd in the 1960s

Riverboat Days was one of those things you didn’t really think about… until it was gone.

If you lived anywhere near Clinton, you just knew. Late June, sliding into the Fourth, you were going down to the river. Didn’t matter if you planned it. You ended up there anyway.

It started in 1961. Didn’t look like much at first. Small-town festival stuff. A queen, a parade, some events, people figuring it out as they went.

In 1963, Gertrude—(maybe Georgene. The papers weren't sure.) Krogman—got crowned queen. A few years later, in 1966, Gertrude Lego took her turn. Same names popping up, same families, same faces. It still felt local.

But even then, they were swinging bigger than they probably should’ve.

When Elmwood Dairy In Clinton Brought The Milk To You

 

Elmwood Dairy was part of the routine in Clinton.

You didn’t think about milk. It just showed up. The truck rolled through in the early morning before sunrise. Bottles clinked. A crate hit the porch. By the time you opened the door, it was already there—cold glass, cream sitting on top, paper cap waiting to be popped.

Empty bottles went out. The driver grabbed them, dropped off full ones, and moved on. Same houses. Same route. Every day.

The milk came from farms right outside town. It got processed, bottled, and out the door fast. What you drank that morning hadn’t traveled far.

Chocolate milk tasted like a reward, not sugar water. Ice cream wasn’t mass-produced mush. And if you were a kid, that delivery box felt like a treasure chest when something extra showed up.

The milkman wasn’t a stranger. He knew which houses had kids, which ones needed an extra quart, and which porch had a loose step.

Castle At Eagle Point Park Clinton Iowa

The castle at Eagle Point Park in Clinton, Iowa, is one of the most recognizable landmarks in town. Built by WPA workers in the 1930s, it rises over the park and gives a stunning view of the Mississippi River.

Footbridge At Eagle Point Park Clinton Iowa

During the 1930s, when jobs were scarce and money tighter, Clinton turned to New Deal programs to put people to work and improve the city’s parks.

Crews funded through the Works Progress Administration carved paths into the bluffs and stacked local limestone by hand. They built walls, steps, shelters—and this bridge. Every stone was set to look like it belonged there, rising naturally out of the ravine instead of fighting it.

The footbridge stitched the park together. Trails met there. Families crossed it on Sunday walks, and kids leaned over the side to watch water trickle below after a rain. After dark, more than one teen cracked a six-pack to experience their first drink.

Decades later, it’s still here. A reminder that even during the worst years, people built things meant to carry others forward.

Lucielle And Erma Iversen Clinton Iowa Performers

Lucille and Erma Iversen, better known as "The Iversen Dolls," performed for large audiences in Clinton, Iowa, in the early 1920s. The children could sing and dance like real actors.

Lucielle, age 3, usually performs as a man, and Erma, age 4, as a woman. They have performed at Red Cross benefits, automobile shows, and numerous conventions.

Book Review: Whatever It Took by Henry Langrehr

Henry Langrehr came from Clinton, Iowa. A river town. Factories, cold winters, work that didn’t ask how you felt. That kind of place teaches you to endure before it teaches you to dream. 

On June 6, 1944, he jumped into France with the 82nd Airborne. The sky over Normandy was shredded with anti-aircraft fire. Men were hit in the air. Some never reached the ground. Langrehr crashed through the glass roof of a greenhouse in Sainte-Mère-Église and kept moving because stopping meant dying.

 

The drop was chaos. Units were scattered. Orders didn’t exist. The survivors fought German tanks with rifles and nerve. Most of the men he trained with were gone within days. On June 29, he was captured.

 

From there, the war showed its real face.

 

Langrehr was held near a death camp and saw what the Nazis called efficiency. People marched to their deaths. Bodies stacked like lumber. It wasn’t rumor or ideology. It was machinery. He watched because he had no choice.

Unstoppable: Iowa's Duke Slater And The Game He Changed

Duke Slater came out of Clinton, Iowa, like a walking thunderclap. Big shoulders, bigger presence, a man who made coaches straighten their backs when he walked past. Reporters called him “a human barricade.” Players called him worse. None of it slowed him down.

He grew up in a world that didn’t expect a Black kid to go anywhere. Slater ignored the script. He pushed through it the way he pushed through defensive lines—head down, legs driving, no apologies.

 

His high school couldn’t afford helmets. Most players hesitated. Slater didn’t. He played bare-headed and kept doing it for the rest of his life. A rival said, “Hitting him was like running into a stone wall.” Another said, “I hit him once. That was enough.”

 

When he got to the University of Iowa, everything changed. The Hawkeyes already had a team. Slater gave them a force of nature.

A Ghost Tale of Clinton Iowa

This one is just for fun. There’s not a hint of truth in it, is there?

 

Folks in Clinton don’t talk much about Silas Burdett. Not when the sun’s up, anyway. In daylight he’s a joke you toss around over burgers at Hook’s or while waiting on a latte at 392. A story. A shrug.

 

But when the Mississippi fog slides in after dark, people stop joking. Conversations dry up. Eyes slide toward the windows. And if you listen, if you really listen, you’d swear you hear crackling wood. Burning. Smoldering. Old smoke that isn’t there.

 

Silas Burdett. Yeah. Him.

 

The lumber baron who ran Clinton back when sawdust blew through town like blizzards and the mills never slept. He had a voice like grinding timber and a jaw cut from white oak. Folks say he didn’t walk so much as shove the ground out of his way. His mill squatted on the riverfront where the LumberKings ballpark stands now—back before baseball, before bleachers, before anything except heat, noise, and fear.

Actress Louise Carver: Almost Famous In Early Hollywood

Louise Carver was born in Davenport, Iowa, in 1869. By her early twenties, she was touring vaudeville circuits, singing, acting, and making audiences laugh. Variety called her early act with Tom Murry “great,” which, in 1912 theater-speak, meant the crowd didn’t throw anything.

Louise had a presence that filled a room before she even opened her mouth. She could sing, shout, and make a joke land so hard the audience forgot who else was on the bill. When silent movies came along, she jumped in. Her first film, The Goose Girl (1915), launched a screen career that ran for decades.

 

By the 1920s, she was everywhere—IMP pictures, Vitagraph reels, and Mack Sennett comedies. Variety said she “couldn’t take a beauty prize, but she was a scream,” which is probably the most honest compliment Hollywood ever printed. She knew she wasn’t an ingenue. She was a scene-stealer, the woman with the big expression and perfect timing who made the funny parts actually funny.

 

In The Extra Girl (1923) she was the sharp-tongued wardrobe mistress, in the Lizzies of the Field shorts (1925) a chaos expert, and in The Cat and the Canary (1927), critics said she brought “real humor to the horror.” United Artists’ press book for Hallelujah, I’m a Bum (1933) listed her among “the feminine side of comedy,” proof she could still steal focus long after silent film stars had vanished.

Murder in Lyons, Iowa The Death of Fritz Dolph

Irene Dolph

The morning of February 29, 1908, started cold and gray over Lyons, Iowa. By noon, seventeen-year-old Irene Dolph had killed her husband, Fritz, and was halfway to Joliet, Illinois, telling her mother she was “in trouble.” That was an understatement.

Her mother, Ella Goldsmith, didn’t blink. Trouble had been the family business for years. She bought two train tickets back to Clinton and found a lawyer before the sheriff even heard the name “Dolph.” It was the most organized thing either of them had ever done.

 

Attorney F. L. Holleran told Sheriff T. J. Burke that Fritz Dolph “either murdered himself or was murdered.” The sheriff found out quickly which one it was. The Dolph house smelled like beer and gunpowder. Fritz was on the floor in a mess of sheets, his skull blown apart. A shotgun leaned against the wall with one shell missing. The Daily Times described it as “blowing out his brains,” which was accurate but not helpful to anyone trying to eat breakfast that morning.

 

Everyone in town agreed: Irene did it.

Clinton County Courthouse

Clinton County Courthouse (circa 1910)

Construction started on the Clinton County Courthouse in 1897. The people were feeling proud. Lumber money was flowing, new businesses were opening, and they wanted a courthouse that showed the world they were here to stay. The Clinton Herald promised it would be “a structure that shall speak of the city’s permanence and progress.”

Architect G. Stanley Mansfield imagined something strong and beautiful—with thick red sandstone walls, high arches, and a copper tower that stood high above the Mississippi.

 

Then, during construction, the ground gave out. The workers hit quicksand, and the project slowed to a crawl. Arguments broke out. The costs climbed higher than anyone had expected. A county supervisor finally sighed, “Let it be finished, if only to stop the bleeding.”

DeWitt Park Clinton Iowa

DeWitt Park has been part of Clinton’s story since the mid-1800s. It was named for New York governor DeWitt Clinton—the same man who gave his name to both the city and the county. Early records from the 1850s and 1860s mention the park as a possible courthouse site.

In those early years, it was a simple square of open ground in the middle of town. As the city grew, the park gained trees, walking paths, and benches where people could rest after a long day.

By the early 1900s, DeWitt Park was one of the prettiest spots in town. The curved walkways, flower beds, and central flagpole made it a favorite stop for families and visitors. Band concerts and small community events often filled the park on warm evenings.

Wartburg College Clinton Iowa

Wartburg College (circa 1900)

Wartburg College was built by German immigrants who thought knowledge should serve both God and common sense. They weren’t wrong. In 1894 they planted their red-brick fortress on a hill in Clinton, Iowa — a solid slab of faith and discipline staring down the Mississippi like it owned the view.

It wasn’t fancy. It was tough. Classrooms, chapel, dorms, dining hall, library — all jammed into one building like the world’s most righteous machine. It smelled of chalk dust, coal smoke, and boiled potatoes. The professors ran a tight ship. Latin for the mind. Math for the soul. Theology to keep you honest. They preached that the world might hold together if everyone just studied a little harder.

The students learned, prayed, shoveled snow until their fingers cracked. They lived by the bell and the book. The streetcar clanged up from downtown, packed with frozen kids in heavy coats. They studied Scripture, philosophy, bookkeeping — whatever would keep them from going under.

Downtown Clinton Iowa (circa 1930)

 

Downtown Clinton, Iowa. (Circa 1930s, pencil drawing after a vintage postcard)

Riverview Stadium Clinton Iowa

The baseball stadium on Clinton’s riverfront from a 1940s postcard. The WPA finished building it in 1937. The Clinton Owls were the first team to play there.

Clyde Sukeforth, the man who would later scout Jackie Robinson, managed the team. His star player was Sam Nahem—an Arab-Jewish boy from Brooklyn. The reporters couldn’t figure him out. One of them said, “Nahem wears spectacles and talks less like a ballplayer than any diamond star this reporter knows.”

The Owls tore through the Three-I League that summer. Clinton beat Peoria, Springfield, and Davenport. Seventy-five wins. Thirty-six losses. It was a record that made old men start believing in luck again.

Clinton baseball fans wouldn’t soon forget that magic season in 1937.

Clinton Iowa Boy Scout Expedition to the Yellowstone 1921

 

Stopped along the road, waiting for stragglers to catch up

They left town on June 26, 1921. One hundred ninety-one Boy Scouts, forty-one cars, five trucks, and a whole lot of optimism pointed west toward Yellowstone National Park. Somebody said it was educational. Somebody else said it was brave. It was probably both, though bravery looks a lot like boredom from the backseat of a Ford.

Over two thousand boys had signed up. The chosen few were declared “fit, alert, and morally sound.” That last one was important. Nobody wanted immoral children running loose in Wyoming.