Accidentally Historic

When General Grenville Dodge passed away, tens of thousands braved a blustery winter day to turn out and pay their respects.  When Ruth Anne Dodge died a couple of years later the Dodge daughters wanted their mother to be remembered at that same level, so nationally known sculptor Daniel Chester French was commissioned to create a memorial.  The planned dedication was to be grand affair, with prom...

Men may have done the survey work and laid the track, but there's a lot more to a railroad than steel rails and flanged wheels.  In this episode, author and western researcher Chris Enss and Union Pacific Railroad Museum curator Patricia LaBounty describe the role women have played in railroading, dating from the industry's earliest times. Women were among the first telegraphers, as well as invent...

The West intrigued many artists.  The challenge for those seeking to use their work as a historical record 150 years later is differentiating between what was artistic license versus reality.  Thanks to the cook hired for the railroad surveying party of Grenville Dodge, Council Bluffs and Omaha are extremely fortunate.  George Simons was a self-taught artist, thus not influenced by the artist meth...

Seeking a safer occupation following an rail yard accident that cost him the tip of a finger, John G. Woodward began work at a Council Bluffs candy store. He eventually bought it, and grew the company into the largest candy manufacturing operation in the West.  In this podcast, Richard Warner of the Historical Society of Pottawattamie County, traces the history of the company, including the claim...

Perched atop one of the highest hills, Council Bluffs' first high school building in 1870 reflected the city’s optimism as much as it did society’s expectations of education. The towering building had a chapel, but no facilities for practical training; there was no sports equipment, yet ample rifles and live ammunition to arm all students. In this episode Historical Society member Michael Winchest...

The “squirrel cage” jail in Council Bluffs, Iowa is unique in many ways. The largest of a rare 19th century design that featured a cell block that rotated, the 1885 former Pottawattamie County jail has increasingly come under scrutiny as a site of robust paranormal activity. Occurrences that were difficult to explain date to its early days as a jail.  In modern times, teams of paranormal investiga...

As one of the earliest and largest railroad centers of the Midwest, it’s not surprising Council Bluffs would right at at the forefront of train robberies as well. The first moving train to ever be robbed West of the Mississippi left from Council Bluffs. Another train robbery in a Bluffs rail yard netted over $3,500,000; a tidy sum in 1920, and triggered copycat deeds all across the country. Not al...

It has to be one of the Omaha area’s greatest “rags-to-riches” stories. Radio station Sweet 98 (KQKQ-FM) became hugely popular, for 25 years dominating the Omaha metro ratings as the area’s first personality-driven FM music station, kicking off with “Breakfast Flakes” Mark Evans and Dick Warner in the summer of 1980. Known for its nonstop promotions, high dollar giveaways, and colorful, opulent st...

Young ladies find love at Lake Manawa— an upscale resort with dance pavilions, an amusement park, galas and entertainment.  It's a romantic and beautiful place; but how much of that setting for the Lake Manawa series novels actually ever existed?  Author Lorna Seilstad explains her characters and their adventures may be fiction, but the setting for the adventures is very much real.   Making Waves,...

    Buildings that revolve or that have portions that do have been a dream for centuries, but generally never moved past the design stage.  The rotary cell jail was very real.  Touted as cost effective, modern, and escape-proof the concept spread quickly throughout the Midwest. Mechanization was coming of age; invention of the telephone and building of the transcontinental railroad fostered the no...

Find more information about Council Bluffs and Pottawattamie County history on our website at www. TheHistoricalSociety.org and on our Facebook page, Council Bluffs Revealed. Questions, comments and suggestions for podcast guests or topics are always welcome!  You can contact us at information@TheHistoricalSociety.org.  The Society also has a YouTube channel you may enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/...