Speed Boat Races at Campbell's Island Davenport 1921

 

This advertisement for Campbell's Island appeared in the Davenport Democrat and Leader on August 10, 1921.

Grace McDaniels The Mule Faced Lady

Grace McDaniels and her son, Elmer

They say every carnival needs a monster. Iowa built one on a farm.

Grace McDaniels was born near Villisca in 1888— a cold little dot of America where even the cows look bored. She came into the world with a red mark running down her face, the kind of thing that makes old women cross themselves and whisper about God’s unfinished business. The doctors didn’t have a clue. They called it a “port-wine stain” because it sounded classier than “weird, red mistake.”

 

Grace grew up hiding behind scarves and hand-me-down shame. She tried powder, veils, anything short of duct tape. Iowa is an awful place to look different — too flat, nowhere to hide. She probably spent half her childhood dreaming about disappearing into the corn.

 

At some point, she stopped fighting it. That’s the thing about humiliation — it either kills you or makes you bulletproof. Grace figured if the entire world was going to gawk, she might as well sell tickets.

 

So she packed up her pain and took it to Chicago in 1933. The World’s Fair — a temple of progress powered by electricity, gasoline, and cruelty. For a dime, you could see the future, or a human being in a cage. Grace joined the sideshow under a hand-painted banner: THE MULE-FACED WOMAN.

Stone City Art Colony

Instructors at the Stone City Art Colony. (left to right) Grant Wood,
Dave McCosh, Edward B. Rowan, Arnold Pyle, Adrian Dornbush,
and Marvin Cone. Not pictured Florence Sprague Smith

The road to Stone City curved through corn and limestone, pale as bone. The air buzzed with heat. You could smell the river before you saw it.

Then — laughter. Wild, unfiltered laughter bouncing off the quarry walls. That’s how you knew you’d found it.

It was 1932. The country was broke. So were most of the people who came here. They brought brushes, bedrolls, debts. Hope too, the kind that doesn’t last long but burns bright.

Grant Wood was on the porch when they arrived. Round glasses, overalls, a grin that could mean anything. “Don’t just stand there,” he shouted. “Grab a brush or grab a beer!”

Someone did both. Someone else tripped on a paint bucket. It began like that.

The Stone City Art Colony. Fifty bucks for the summer — if you had it. If you didn’t, nobody asked.

Loose Ankles, A Charity Performance in Des Moines

On October 30, 1928, Des Moines theatergoers packed the house for Loose Ankles, a lively comedy starring William Walsh and Dora Clement of the President Players. Walsh called it a “jolly, peppy comedy,” the kind of fast-talking, flirtatious romp that kept audiences grinning through the curtain call.

The performance wasn’t just another night of stage lights and laughter—it had a mission. The show was staged to raise money for the Sally Joy Brown Milk Fund, a charitable drive organized by The Tribune-Capital. The fund helped struggling families, especially mothers with small children who couldn’t afford milk, a daily necessity many took for granted.

So, while Loose Ankles brought laughs to the crowd, it also brought hope to hungry homes across Des Moines. It was a night when the city’s actors proved that even a bit of Broadway-style comedy could make a difference in the lives of those who needed it most.