Donald Kaul: Iowa Time Machine December 25,

Iowa Time Machine ⏰: On December 25, 1934, RAGBRAI cofounder and Des Moines Register journalist Donald Kaul was born. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1987 and 1999, Kaul left a long legacy of influencing how Iowans viewed their home state.

A graduate of the University of Michigan, Kaul started appearing occasionally in the Register’s “Over the Coffee” column before taking it over full-time from Harlan Miller in 1965. In 1970, the paper moved Kaul to its bureau in Washington, D.C. In 1983, he fell from grace with the paper's editor, James Gannon, and was fired. Kaul was picked up by the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette, and his columns also were syndicated nationally. When Geneva Overholser became The Register’s editor, one of her first changes was to bring Kaul back in 1989.

Kaul and Register coworker John Karras started the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) in 1973. Karras and Kaul started with a simple idea: create a column chronicling a bicycle ride across Iowa. With a rough route laid out and an invitation to the public printed in the newspaper, the first route started at Sioux City before overnight stops in Storm Lake, Fort Dodge, Ames, Des Moines, and Williamsburg before terminating at the Mississippi River in Davenport. The columns by Kaul and Karras proved popular, and the ride soon grew into a beloved annual Iowa tradition.

Kaul’s satirical style and liberal views made him a household name in Iowa. He retired from the Register in 2001 but soon started writing for another publication called “OtherWords.” His final column appeared in 2017. #IowaOTD #IowaHistoryDaily #IowaHistoryCalendar