116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Hidden Iowa gems? There’s an app for that
Mitchell Schmidt
Aug. 15, 2015 6:00 am
From Terrace Hill in Des Moines, population more than 200,000, to the Villages of Van Buren in Keosauqua, population less than 1,000, Iowa has plenty of hidden gems of history, arts and culture.
How many? Try several thousand.
With the launch of a new mobile app, created by the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs, users will have access to 3,500 sites that showcase Iowa's arts, history and cultural destinations.
DCA Director Mary Cownie said the app, which took almost two years and $103,000 to create, is an example of the department's increased focus on digital to reach a changing audience. She said the app represents the state's first comprehensive database of arts, history and culture.
'I think we all know we've got to move into the digital age, that's the direction our society is going and we need to keep up. People want information on their fingertips and they want it right away,” she said.
On Monday at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Gov. Terry Branstad will formally unveil the new app, which is compatible with Apple and Android devices and will continue to grow as new locations are identified.
Users can use the app to set up personal tours to visit art centers, museums, historic sites, public art pieces, television and movie sites and locales unique to Iowa.
To test out the new app, I decided to set up a local tour to visit a few Iowa sites focused on arts, history and culture to learn a little more about these hidden gems.
Legion Arts, CSPS Hall:
The perfect mix of arts and history, the CSPS Hall, a late Victorian Romanesque-style Cedar Rapids structure built in 1981, is home to the artist-run non-profit Legion Arts, which presents modern art, music, dance and theater.
Created by the Czecho-Slovak Protective Soceity, CSPS Hall, 1103 Third St. SE, became a place for entertainment and social gatherings such as weddings and labor meetings.
Today, Legion Arts carries on that tradition: Modern art adorns the upstairs gallery; retail space still exists on the ground floor, the bar named Carlo honors Cedar Rapids native and renown photographer, critic and novelist Carl Van Vechten; and the original raked stage, built with s slope so performers further from the audience are higher than those closer, still hosts live shows.
'The building itself kept reminding us of the functions that it had in the past,” said Mel Andringa, producing director Legion Arts. 'So in many ways we tailored it with our programs to what the building was telling us it had always been.”
Indian Creek Bridge:
The next stop on the tour was a piece of unique Iowa history that countless Linn County motorists probably miss. The 191-foot long, 15.7-foot wide Indian Creek Bridge carries travelers on Bertram Road across Indian Creek less than two miles east of Cedar Rapids.
Erected in 1880 by Ohio's Wrought Iron Bridge Company, which was absorbed into the American Bridge Company only 20 years later in 1900, the through truss structure was crafted with a Whipple truss configuration using a rare double-intersection Pratt design, according to the Iowa Department of Transportation website.
There have been no notable alterations to the 135-year-old bridge and it remains in use today.
Iowa Portraits:
Heading to Iowa City's University of Iowa campus, at the College of Public Health building, 145 N. Riverside Drive, art created by UI graduate Peter Feldstein adorns a dozen large glass panes. Maybe most commonly known for The Oxford Project, Feldstein's ability to capture everyday Iowans, their emotions, their lives and their diversity, in a single photograph is nothing short of amazing.
Images of men, women, adults and children stand silently in the quiet atrium, depicting Iowa's diversity. Installed in 2012, the $220,000 Iowa Portraits project includes a 12 of the more than 300 portraits etched into 4 feet by 10 and a half feet panes.
A description of the project on the Commissioned Art Economy's CODAworx website indicates that glass was specifically chosen as the project's medium to ensure a life span longer than the building itself, which has a relevant life expectancy of 75-100 years, meaning Feldstein's images should live on for decades, outlasting the building itself. Future Birthplace of Capt. James T. Kirk: Roughly 20 miles south of Iowa City, in Washington County's Riverside, hidden behind a small hair salon, sits a stone marker predicting a birth that won't take place for another 213 years.
The stone is dedicated to the future March 22, 2228 birth of James Tiberius Kirk, the fictional captain of the USS Enterprise in the Star Trek series.
Aside from the dull hum of an air conditioner unit nearby, the monument, invisible from the street, was peaceful and
A few blocks to the east, Wanda Blakley attends the counter of Voyage Home Museum, a place dedicated to Star Trek lore and Riverside history.
It was quiet on a Thursday morning, but two maps on the wall - one for the U.S. and another for the globe - was covered in yellow pins, each identifying a visitor - many of them Trekkies, or friends and family of Trekkies - from another state, country or continent.
'People are just amazed when they come in and see the people from all over the world that have come here,” Blakely said.