During a trip to Eldon, Iowa, in 1930, Grant Wood was being driven around town by local artist, John Sharp when he spotted the house with the church window that would someday be part of “American Gothic.” He got out of the car, pulled out an envelope and began sketching the house. Wood said he wanted to paint the people he imagined lived in a house with such a window.

Wood used the sketch from the house as the background for the painting and later painted his sister Nan and his dentist, Dr. B. H. McKeeby, as the stand-ins for the home’s owners.

It is unknown why the gothic window, a fixture most appropriate for a church, was put in the house. Some speculate that the family saw the window as a small luxury to add to their decor.

As a longtime Eldon resident, Donna Jeffrey grew up near the American Gothic House, which had no formal marking until the Center was built. She assisted with fundraising projects and grant writing. Jeffrey volunteers at the Center on a regular basis.

“When I was a kid, my grandmother lived down the lane behind the house, and we would walk from our home to my grandma’s, and my mom and dad would always say, ‘that house is in the background of a famous painting’,” Jeffrey said. “People here in Eldon just grew up knowing that.”

The house is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Dibble House, named after the first owners who built it in 1881. Carl Smith later owned the home when it was placed on the Register in 1974.

Smith rented the house to different tenants until he donated it to the State Historical Society of Iowa in 1991 with the requirement that the home still be rented. Since then, the home has been occupied off and on to local residents such as postmasters and a school teacher. The home is currently empty.

Former tenant Bruce Thiher shared the hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with Wood and chose to live in the house when his job as a postmaster sent him to Eldon. Thiher attended McKinley Middle School, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where Wood taught art until he died in 1942. Many of Wood’s pieces remained throughout the school when Thiher attended junior high in the late 1950s. Those pieces now reside in the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art.

Grinnell, Iowa

At the Carriage House Bed and Breakfast, a relaxing stay in the dollhouse-like home is served with a warm cup of Irish hospitality.

Victorian architecture epitomized by a sweeping veranda conjures images of the 1890s upper-crust of Grinnell, Iowa — mingling, waltzing house-guests in prim dresses and suits. Almost unnoticed on the side of the house, a small covered entryway evokes images of gussied-up Victorian women stepping out of their carriages and onto the shielded area so as not to muddy their fine footwear.

Dorothy Spriggs, manager and co-owner of the Carriage House with her husband Ray, said running a bed and breakfast was always in the back of her mind while growing up.

Urbandale, Iowa

The smells of sweet homemade apple pie, harsh print shop ink and woodsy, smoky campfires greet guests as they take a walking tour through Iowa’s history.

Living History Farms is a 500-acre outdoor museum in Urbandale, Iowa. Visitors progress through four time periods in Iowa’s history, including a 1700 Ioway Indian tribe site, an 1850 pioneer farm, a 1900 farm and an 1875 town.

Former Iowa State University professor William Murray created the living museum in 1970 after two unsuccessful runs for Iowa governor. Jennie Derr, marketing and public relations director, said Murray decided to give back to Iowa in a different way.

Council Bluffs, Iowa

From the outside, the museum looks like an average brick building. There is only one peculiarity — bars over the windows.

Built during the 19th century in Council Bluffs, Iowa, the Squirrel Cage Jail housed local criminals in addition to the jailer’s family. Today, the jail is preserved as a museum.

HISTORY AND EXPLANATION OF THE JAIL

In 1884, Cottonwood Jail burned down and the county was forced to house prisoners in a single room in the courthouse basement. The “Squirrel Cage,” as locals know it, is a rotary or “lazy-Susan” style jailhouse, built in 1885.

The rotary design of the jail was chosen for the Pottawattamie County Jail because the facility was designed to hold about 60 prisoners with only one jailer. However, there are accounts of as many as five men being put in each two-man cell. Each cell consisted of two bunks and a small privy, or primitive toilet system, in the inner part of the cell.

Knoxville Raceway, Knoxville, Iowa

The sharp smell of gasoline and a sound like rumbling thunder fill the air.

It is a Saturday night at Iowa’s Knoxville Raceway and everyone is either in the stands or listening as the race’s soundtrack echoes across the small town. Sprint cars race by, one after another.

“Anyone who lives here knows that the track was here first,” said Lori DeMoss, a resident of the city of Knoxville.  “So when it’s loud on the weekends, you just accept it because it is a way of life around here.”

The racetrack can hold up to 24,000 spectators despite Knoxville’s population of only 7,536. Visitors come from as far away as Australia. Because the small town does not have enough hotels and campgrounds for all of the visitors, the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce initiated a housing program. The chamber compiled a list of residents that were willing to host families during the races. Some people host families for a fee, and some end up housing visitors for free.

“You end up making friends with the people that you host and they end up returning year after year to stay with you,” DeMoss said. “Knoxville has proved that not only are they all about the races, but they are all about the friends and people.”

Hotel Pattee, Perry, Iowa 

A suave young man in a uniform holds the door, inviting visitors to step from rural Iowa into a secret, plush utopia.

Inside the two sets of ornate double doors, a visitor may choose to relax by the roaring double-hearth fireplace or take time for brunch at David’s Milwaukee Diner. A little wandering leads to high-ceilinged ballrooms, elegant meeting chambers and even a fully furnished library. Visitors who choose to explore the basement will discover a bowling alley, a recreational center and a spa.

The experience will not be complete, however, until those visitors have checked into one of the 40 themed rooms on the upper floors of this establishment.
Welcome to the Hotel Pattee.

“It’s an unusual hotel,” said Phil Stone, a resident of Perry, Iowa, the hometown of the Hotel Pattee. “As you travel around the state of Iowa and you say you’re from Perry, people say, ‘Oh, the hotel.’”

Stone and his wife, Cathy, are frequent guests to David’s Milwaukee Diner on the Hotel Pattee’s main floor.

“It’s a really classy place,” Cathy Stone said.

Instead of France, Spain or Egypt, try Missouri, Iowa and Illinois. There’s a plethora of towns in these states that chose to identify with world-renowned cities by picking distinctively cosmopolitan monikers. For whatever reason, the founders of these towns decided against assigning them more destination-appropriate names like Cornville or Hogtopia, perhaps thinking ahead to possible tourist implications. After all, wouldn’t you jump at the chance to hit up historic Brooklyn? Iowa, that is. No skyscrapers in this little corner of the Corn State.

It borders on ridiculous when you begin to actually compare some of these towns with their international counterparts. Take Paris, for example. The Missouri destination had a whopping population of an estimated 1,458 in 2006, not quite the millions you would find in France. I should probably give up on strolling to the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame, at least on this continent. Paris does have a church, St. Francis Cabrini, but that sounds more Italian than French to me.

Can’t get into Cuba? Neither can anyone else, unless you’d like to visit the lovely hamlet of Cuba, Illinois instead. There are many fabulous tourist spots to check out, including the Spoon River Public Library, where many valuable books wait to be checked out. Not exactly on par with Guantanamo Bay, but at least they aren’t ruled by a dictator.

Iowa Sheep and Wool Festival, Adel, Iowa

Although many people only turn to sheep as a last resort on a sleepless night, at the Iowa Sheep and Wool Festival in Adel, sheep — and the people who devote their lives to them — are given the chance to shine.

Walking into the Dallas County Fairgrounds on a Saturday morning in early June, the scene is quiet enough to distinguish individual ‘baas’ from barns around the property and the patter of little hooves in the sandy arenas. Visitors soon discover that what at first appears to be a festival in distress is actually an intimate, low-key family affair on the verge of an afternoon explosion of patrons, most of them eager sheep enthusiasts.

Hamburg Inn No. 2, Iowa City, Iowa 

Hidden in the depths of downtown Iowa City, the Hamburg Inn No. 2 looked like most other diners – but when Ronald Reagan stopped in for the meatloaf special, everything changed.

“He had been an announcer for sports radio in Des Moines, so there was a history there,” said Dave Panther, owner of the Hamburg Inn. “Unfortunately I wasn’t here when he stopped in – I was out making a balloon delivery as a court jester. By the time I came in, he was out.”

That’s right, Panther also works part-time as a professional clown.

His restaurant started out modestly enough, but it has grown into something of an exception in the world of family-owned, mom-and-pop-type establishments. Its reputation was built by countless appearances in travel magazines, newspapers, even a TV show or two and as local destinations go, it’s a little slice of Midwestern Americana with a twist – part of it due to political star power.

Despite the 20-degree weather, Kate Fuller and Kevin Michael couldn’t wait to get their hands on the ice.

As students at the Kirkwood Culinary Arts School at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Fuller and Michael took instructions from Dave Dettman on how to make snowflake ice sculptures as part of the Winterfest in Amana, Iowa.

One of four major festivals at Amana, Winterfest began only three years ago, said Brenda Koehler, co-chair of the festival and manager of the Amana Society Main Street Complex.

“Winterfest really grew out of the hopes to create something to promote the Amana Colonies in the winter months and to let people know there are more things than shopping,” she said.