An Artist's Walk Through Clinton, Iowa

 

I took a swing through Clinton, Iowa, today. Here’s what I saw . . .

 

A courthouse built like the county expected it to last forever. A department store with fancy trim that deserves more than a passing glance. A mansion built by a man who sold woodwork and figured his house ought to show people what they could get.

 

There’s a school that became apartments, a towboat that became a theater, and a stone castle tucked into a city park. Then there are the giant wooden trolls. They’re new around here, but they’ve already found their way into a town that’s been making things out of wood for as long as it can remember.

 

Clinton’s got more going on than you’d guess. Some of it stands right beside the street, waiting for you to look up. Some take a turn off the main road and a little wandering.

 

This was a lumber town, and the money showed. It went into houses, stores, public buildings, and woodwork people don’t casually tear out and replace. You can still follow that money around town by looking at what it left behind.

 

But this isn’t a collection of buildings that spent their whole lives under glass. They’ve been worked in, added onto, patched up, and put to different uses. A store needs customers, a school needs students, and an old building needs somebody willing to pay for the roof.

 

That’s where some of Clinton’s better stories turn up. The old Roosevelt School still stands because someone put homes inside it. The Van Allen Building got apartments above its storefronts, and the Curtis Mansion found a second life with the Clinton Women’s Club.

 

The showboat might have the strangest resume of the bunch. It pushed barges before anybody put a theater inside it, traveled through West Virginia, and eventually wound up beside the Mississippi in Clinton.

 

And the castle at Eagle Point? It wasn’t built it to defend the river from an invading army. It came out of a Depression-era work program, when putting people to work could also mean giving a town something worth keeping.

 

You see this a lot in old Iowa towns. The buildings are still there, but they’ve got a different use now. The buildings often outlast the businesses that built them. The old store name might still be above the door, even though the upstairs is now somebody’s apartment.

 

I enjoy looking at places like these because the history hasn’t been reduced to one date on a plaque. It’s in the changes, too: the classroom that became a living room, the boat that traded barge work for stage work, the old boards that became a troll.

1932 Robbery Of The City National Bank In Clinton

 

Lobby of the City National Bank shortly after the robbery

Clyde Willard, janitor at the City National Bank in Clinton, showed up for work at around 6:30 on the morning of March 15, 1932. At that hour, he probably expected to have the place to himself.

Instead, he walked into a bank robbery.

Four men had gotten there ahead of him. Clifford Edwards, 22; Earl Jeffries, 28; Lester Stanley, 22; and Eddie Morris, 19, came armed and wearing hoods.

Willard became their first prisoner.

The problem was the vault. It was protected by a time lock and wouldn’t open until 8:30, no matter how many guns they had. That left them with two hours to kill and a bank that would soon start filling with people.

Around 7 a.m., one of the gang took a position near the front door. When an employee walked in, he ordered them to put their hands up, then passed them off to another robber. Their hands were tied, and they were taken to the directors’ room.

Clinton’s $20 Million Data Center Deal: Gift, Bribe, or Just Business?

 

Twenty million dollars.

That’s the number getting everyone’s attention in Clinton.

A company wants to explore building a massive data center outside of town. In the middle of all the talk about electricity, farmland, noise, and water comes the sweetener: $20 million for a new athletic complex.

Basketball courts. Ball fields. Exercise facilities. Community rooms.

Clinton has talked about this project since 2017.

Just a few months ago, city leaders were discussing a $10 million to $16 million facility. Mayor Scott Maddasion said taxpayers might have to vote on a referendum to help pay for it.

Then QTS entered the picture. Suddenly, Clinton wasn’t talking about asking taxpayers for the money. Someone else might write the check.

Sounds pretty good. Maybe too good. Because companies don’t hand cities $20 million for the fun of it. QTS isn’t sitting around worrying about where Clinton kids are going to play basketball next winter.

They want something. The question is what?

Some Clinton residents are calling the $20 million a bribe. That’s a loaded word. Legally, there’s no evidence it’s a bribe. But you can understand why people say it.

Imagine your neighbor wants to build a giant factory next to your house. You complain about the noise, traffic, and what it might do to your property value. Then he says, “By the way, I’ll build the neighborhood a new swimming pool.” You might really want the pool. But you’d probably ask a few more questions before grabbing your swimsuit.

That’s where Clinton is right now.

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.