Iowa Time Machine ⏰: On January 12, 1936, the freighter SS Iowa crashed at Peacock Spit near Cape Disappointment in the Columbia River of Washington state, sinking and taking the lives of all 36 people aboard. The tragic wreck of a seabound ship named for a landlocked state, the sinking of the SS Iowa, stands as one of the worst domestic maritime disasters of the 20th century. The SS Iowa rolled off the line as one of 18 standard ‘type 1019’ steel-hulled cargo ships built between 1919 and...

Iowa Time Machine ⏰: On January 12, two important pieces of Iowa weather history occurred. In 1888, the “Children’s Blizzard” claimed the lives of at least 235 across the Midwest. In 1912, the town of Washta, Iowa, set the state’s all-time record for low temperature when thermometers reached -47 Fahrenheit. The “Children’s Blizzard” arrived unexpectedly after unseasonably warm weather greeted Midwesterners following a few snowy days earlier in the month. As the storm raced eastward across the...

Iowa Time Machine ⏰: On January 12, 1888, a faithful dog saved Gerritt Draayom of Hospers during a blizzard. Draayom, a native of the Netherlands, immigrated to America shortly after turning 18. After first settling in Alto, Wisconsin, he later moved on to start a farm on a watering stop for the Sioux City and St. Paul Railroad in northwestern Iowa called Hospers. Married in 1874 and widowed just a year later after the birth of the union’s only son, Draayom attempted to scratch a living off...