This is a tug-of-war of epic proportions.

The contest between LeClaire, Iowa, and Port Byron, Ill., spans the Mississippi River. The tug is the culminating event of Tug Fest, a three-day festival in mid-August that takes place in each town. The competition began 24 years ago when someone from Port Byron challenged someone from LeClaire to a tugging contest. Since then, the tug and the festival have grown in size and popularity. Going into this year’s competition, Illinois led the rivalry 13-10, and Iowa hadn’t won the contest since 2006.

“The camaraderie of all the people, the enjoyment that they have, the competition across the_––– river. … It just brings the whole area together better,” said Tom Tomlinson, who was enjoying his third Tug Fest in LeClaire.

During Tug Fest, 35,000 visitors swoop down upon LeClaire, a town with a population of 2,700. The festival takes place on the town’s riverfront, where colorful carnival rides and games line the levee. Families and children enjoy attractions such as a Ferris wheel, bumper cars, ring tosses and a carousel. Further along the levee, the scent of tenderloins and popcorn wafts through the summer heat while country music resounds from speakers.

In addition to carnival rides and food vendors, LeClaire’s festival features a parade, a 5K run, live music and entertainment, a children’s tug and fireworks that are shot off from a barge situated in the river between the two towns.

Port Byron offers a separate festival with food and craft vendors, a motorcycle show, children’s games, live entertainment and inflatable rides. Tony DeCap, president of Port Byron’s Tug Fest, said the town doesn’t have room for the type of carnival LeClaire hosts, but that their festival still draws between 20,000 and 25,000 visitors.

Despite the numerous activities at the festivals, the tug is the main event. Training for the competition begins months before the contest because, as LeClaire tugger Sara Griffin from Davenport, Iowa, said, it’s much harder than it looks.

“It is pretty intense,” Griffin said. “We start practicing in May and we go all the way up to the Wednesday before the tug.”

In an effort to improve their performance from the past few years, the LeClaire teams started training earlier this year and held practices twice a week. Griffin said she made close friends during the training process and that her fellow tuggers came to feel like a family.

There are ten male teams with 20 members each, and one female team with 25 members. Sometimes one or two women pull for a men’s team. The Iowa teams are coached by three tug masters.Tug Master Matt Thoene said practices consist of tugging on ropes with weights attached to the end or pulling on a rope that is tied to a tree. He said there aren’t tryouts or requirements to be on the teams but that most participants are at least 16 years old.

Thoene said practices are important because there is a definite technique and form to tugging, especially since the rope is 2,700 feet long and weighs 750 pounds.

“It’s 90 percent about technique and 10 percent about strength,” he said. “It’s the longest three minutes of your life.”

As the time of the big event neared on the Saturday of Tug Fest, the entire crowd on the LeClaire riverfront migrated toward the tug pit, an elevated strip of the riverbank held up by a retaining wall.

The contest is comprised of 11 three-minute rounds, and the winner of each round is determined by how much rope the respective sides pulled. Whichever side wins the majority of the rounds is the overall winner.

LeClaire won the first round of the contest by a 25-foot margin, and then the two towns alternated wins for the next five rounds. The Iowa fans erupted into cheers and waved pom-poms in the air each time their tuggers gained more rope. During the tugs, Thoene paced around the pit, enthusiastically coaching and encouraging his teams.

The teams stepped and pulled back in rhythm as the rope skimmed across the surface of the river. The clock ticked down each round and the crowd counted down the final seconds. Illinois gained momentum during the second half of the contest and, in the end, Iowa had won only four of the eleven rounds. After 24 years of tugs, the score stands Illinois: 14, Iowa: 10.

Scott Stubblefield, another Iowa tug master, said he wasn’t disappointed with Iowa’s loss because this year was a definite improvement over the past few years.

“I think with a little bit more work and a little bit more effort next year from our guys, we’ll be able to bring the trophy back,” Stubblefield said. Iowa hasn’t possessed the traveling trophy since LeClaire’s last win in 2006.

Stubblefield said the mechanics of the renovated tug pit, which added stability to the tugging, made a huge difference in the outcome of this year’s contest. Similar to Port Byron’s, the new LeClaire pit runs parallel to the river instead of perpendicularly, and the rope is fed through a pulley system at a 90-degree angle. Also, the surface of the tug pit was a changed from a clay base to a sand and dirt mixture.

Another major reason LeClaire won more tugs this year, Stubblefield said, was the amount of practice they put in. As a tug master, he organizes the practices and trains tuggers on technique. This was Stubblefield’s second year as a tug master but his seventh year attending the festival as a tugger.

“You come out and try it once and it really hooks you in, and it gets in your blood,” Stubblefield said. “You’ll be back every year.”

Angela Mapes, president and events coordinator of LeClaire’s Tug Fest, said that after two years of losing 11-0, she also was happy with this year’s tug results.

Mapes has been president of LeClaire’s Tug Fest for thirteen years, and she said planning for next year started soon after this year’s festival ended. CNN and ESPN are planning on covering the tug in 2011, in celebration of its 25th year.

Mapes said she thinks next year’s festival will be another highly celebrated event.

“Tug Fest is a one-of-a-kind, unique family festival that’s the only human tug-of-war across a body [of water] like the Mississippi River,” she said.

With a rope spanning the widest river in the country and two small towns pulling with all their pride and strength, this is one of the only occasions that warrants shutting down the Mississippi River to boat traffic.

Anyone in attendance would say there’s nothing small about it.