Steamboat Muscatine

The Davenport Democrat and Leader published this image of the Steamer Muscatine on August 25, 1929. The paper said the boat began service on the Mississippi River in 1864.

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. 

Murder at the Kirkwood Hotel in Des Moines

Officer Clarence Woolman

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 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.

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.

The Pacific Junction Horror: Murder in Small Town Iowa

Helen Kuhl

Someone crept into Edith and Helen Kuhl’s bedroom overnight on March 20, 1935, and bludgeoned them nearly to death. 

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.

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.

A Midnight Murder in Davenport

James Gallagher

He didn’t see them coming until they were right on top of him.

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.