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.
Ozzy Osbourne is onstage. Lights slicing through smoke; guitars loud enough to rearrange your organs. The crowd is packed in tight. Denim and teenage adrenaline fill the auditorium.
Then something comes flying onto the stage. Small.
Dark. Flopping wings.
A bat.
Depending on who you ask, it was a rubber toy or
the real deal—a dead bat someone had brought like a twisted party favor. Either
way, it lands near Ozzy’s boots, and that’s when reality shifted.
Ozzy picks it up. And bites it. The crowd watches,
unsure how to react. They aren’t horrified. Just stunned. Like their brains
need a second to catch up and decide—is it part of the show or some new-fangled
Ozzy Voodoo ritual?
Then it hits. Screams. Cheers. Confused people,
unsure how to react.
Afterward, Ozzy said he thought it was rubber.
Maybe, but— There’s something unsettling about it. Grabbing something off the
ground and biting it.
The moment lives on, one of those stories
that’s too ridiculous to die. Forty years later, the legend persists. And the
question—reality or sideshow.
The contest drew twelve professional riders from different parts
of the country, along with over 30 riders from Iowa and neighboring states.
Several well-known hill climb riders entered the contest.
Petrali of Chicago was listed as a national hill climb champion. Reiber of
Milwaukee entered as the runner-up from the previous year’s championship climb.
Art Erlenbaugh of Milwaukee also competed. He was reported to hold a hill climb
record of 6.25 seconds.
 |
| David Morrell |
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.
Alcoholism, disregard for the rules, and
incompetence played into a double murder at the Kirkwood Hotel early in the
morning on March 25, 1911.
Officer Clarence Woolman
Officer Clarence Woolman was assigned to take his best friend and prisoner, Dr. Harry Kelly, to the State Inebriate Hospital at Knoxville. They stopped for the night at the Kirkwood Hotel in Des Moines and had a few drinks. The next morning, one man lay dead with a bullet in his brain, and the other on the floor in a nearby saloon shot full of holes.
The men checked into the Kirkwood at 9:30
p.m. By rights, Woolman should have taken Kelly to the county jail—standard
operating procedure was to lock up prisoners when traveling overnight. Woolman
disregarded it because he didn’t want to hurt his friend’s feelings.
Kelly wasn’t the person you’d expect to be
an alcoholic or a murderer. He grew up in an excellent family. His father
managed the Standard Oil office in Council Bluffs. He was a “crack athlete” who
played halfback for the University of Nebraska football team. Before his
drinking got out of hand, he was considered the top doctor in Council Bluffs,
maybe in the entire state.
Iowa City looks harmless. Bookstores.
Brick streets. Workshop gossip. Then John Irving shows up and says, “Sure, but
what if we make it weird?”
John Irving
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.
Someone crept into Edith and Helen Kuhl’s
bedroom overnight on March 20, 1935, and bludgeoned them nearly to death. 
Helen Kuhl
The girls were taken to Mercy Hospital at Council Bluffs. Helen had a fractured skull and cuts and bruises on the right side of her head. Edith’s injuries were so severe, doctors didn’t expect her to pull through.
Both
girls remained unconscious late into the afternoon, so the police had very few
clues to work on. Edith died the following day. Helen remained unconscious for
nearly five days, and when she came to, she could shed no light on the
attack.
The
girls roomed at the home of their aunt Ritta Graham in Pacific Junction. Their
uncle, Clarence Price, also boarded in the house. Ritta was away attending a
funeral in Omaha.
Price
told authorities he rapped on George Durkee’s door at about 11 p.m. Wednesday.
“Come quick!” he shouted. “Something terrible has happened.”
They
found the girls on the bed. The glass had been broken out of their bedroom
window, and the screen pulled off. Durkee told police there were signs of a
struggle.
 |
| James Gallagher |
October 30, 1915. Second and Fillmore Streets.
Davenport, Iowa, after dark. A street corner that feels normal in daylight and
ugly at night. Quiet. Empty. A little too much shadow.
James Gallagher came in from Ottumwa and ended up
on that corner at the wrong time. Two men stepped out of the dark and closed
the space between them fast. They weren’t there to talk.
There’d been two holdups in the past two days.
Quick stickups. A hard voice, a gun in your ribs, a pocket turned inside out.
The same story stayed the same: two men. One taller. One shorter. The short one
with the nerve.
That night they picked Gallagher.
The smaller man pulled a .38. There was a flash, a
crack, and it turned from robbery to murder in a heartbeat. Gallagher took a
bullet through the right lung. He lurched forward.
He made it a few steps. Then he folded and hit the
pavement.
 |
| Walter "Dusty" Rhodes |
He had a wife, a steady job, and a home. People like that don’t get whispered about or watched. They move through life under a blanket of normal, and normal is the best hiding place.
The
morning his wife died, he leaned on normal like it could hold him up.
Down
in the basement, the shotgun went off with the force of a bomb.
Dusty
ran upstairs and told the maid to call a doctor and the sheriff. It was an
accident. His voice was fast, controlled, almost businesslike. Myrtle
remembered that calm later.
When
the officers arrived, Dusty said he was preparing to go hunting. His wife
handed him the shotgun, and it accidentally discharged. It was tragic, but
nobody’s fault.
London had Jack the Ripper. Muscatine had Jack
the Hugger. He appeared out of nowhere the day after Valentine’s Day in 1904,
randomly grabbing and hugging women on the street.
Jack the Hugger would sneak out from the shadows,
hug a woman, and disappear
The Muscatine Journal was at a loss to
explain the strange phenomenon and dubbed the perpetrator “Jack the Hugger.”
The story quickly went viral, appearing in newspapers throughout the Midwest,
and eventually spawned a slew of imitators.
The Hugger assaulted three women on the evening
of February 15. The first attack occurred on East Seventh Street. The man
jumped out of the shadows and embraced the girl, almost suffocating her in a
giant bear hug. He grabbed his second victim as she walked through the cut on
East Second Street. The Hugger leaped out and grabbed her tight.
The third assault occurred on the high bridge
near Walnut Street. The Hugger was a little more daring this time. He threw his
arms around the girl and planted a wet, juicy kiss on her lips. Then, when she
screamed, he bit her under the eye and hurried off down the alley.
 |
| Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show |
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.
