Describing Des Moines, Iowa (by Disciple contributor Delores H.)

“I was honestly expecting to see cornfields when I landed,” said a college freshman from New York, as he flew into Des Moines.  “I mean…I knew it was only a stereotype, but yeah…I kinda thought there would be hog lots and cornfields right next to the airport.”

Downtown Des Moines, 1950s

Situated between wild rivers, the soldiers of Fort Des Moines were employed to control two devastated tribes of Native Americans that had been transplanted from their native homes in the east.  After only three years, the Sauk and Meskwaki tribes had dwindled into such disrepair, fueled primarily by racism and illegal whiskey trade, that the unnecessary Fort was abandoned.

Much to the chagrin of eastern Iowans, Des Moines was quickly chosen as location for the state capital, only having been incorporated five years after the territory was admitted into the Union.  Whereas the previous capitol location in the eastern Iowa City was refined, scholarly, clean and livable, downtown Des Moines was defined by its scummy boardwalks, muddy streets, cheap brothels, rough saloons, open pool halls, rowdy union halls, lumberyards, machine shops and immigrant houses.  Des Moines was as blue-collared as they came.

5th and Mulberry, looking northeast, 1873

Pleasant St, Sherman Hill Area, 1890s

With the rise of American rail, the landscape became littered with lines stretching from east to west, north to south, leaving Iowa the fourth most covered state in rail road history.  Des Moines also adopted an electric street car line in 1888, right at the forefront of the industry.  In essence, the city of Des Moines became connected to the rest of the United States like no other city could.  Hauling steel from Pittsburgh to build the cities of the west; hauling the cattle from Texas to the slaughterhouses in Chicago; hauling the wheat from Kansas to the mills in Minneapolis; sending merchandise from warehouses in St. Louis to warehouses in Omaha; the centrally located city of Des Moines was integral to the development of the entire Midwest.

Rock Island Railroad Depot, 4th St, approx 1900

Union Station Depot, 5th and Cherry, approx 1910; currently a parking lot south of the Court House

To assist in the WWI effort, the United States government created the only African American officers training camp at Fort Des Moines in 1917, located on the south end of town along Army Post Road.  The US government had chosen the Des Moines location, instead of the all-black Howard University in Washington DC, because cynical politicians feared the east coast press would uncover this “blight” on the war effort.

Farther northwest, white troops were being trained at Camp Dodge, a massive military city which soon sported the largest outdoor filtered pool in the world.  The first American casualty of WWI brought about the death of Merle Hay, to whom a street was named.

As if having the first and only African American officers unit within its gates wasn’t enough, WWII brought WAAC (Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps) to Fort Des Moines, being the only military location for women across the country to serve in the WWII effort.

WAAC 16th Co, 3rd Regiment, Fort Des Moines, Apr 25 1944

With this kind of forward thinking attitude, the city of Des Moines should have been more than just a cornfield and hog lot in the center of the country.

However, like Washington Irving’s story of Sleep Hollow, the city of Des Moines is a strange and sleepy place, with a lull that hangs in residents’ minds like a fog.  The city’s geographical expanse has been quite stunted, and the downtown area is the same general size and shape since the city’s founding.  The population of Des Moines peaked in the early 1960’s around 209,000 residents, and has not risen above those numbers since.  Fifty years later, in 2010, Des Moines was still at least 6,000 residents shy of their 1960 maximum.

Rail lines have all but evaporated throughout the city, leaving naught but a single line of Union Pacific freight that runs through the heart of downtown.  Nearly all of Des Moines industry has vanished, and with it, much of the downtown businesses.  What once was a vibrant automobile community along Grand and Locust avenues was stripped out and replaced with insurance companies.  The Walnut St shopping area, which was at least comparable to outdoor malls in larger cities like Nicollet Ave in Minneapolis, began quickly vanishing to be replaced by generic office blocks that, to this day, can’t keep stable tenants.  A bustling downtown theater district has entirely vanished, and with it The Paramount Theater, The Des Moines Theater, The KRNT Radio Theater, Berchel Theater, Lyric Theater, The Majestic Theater, The RKO Orpheum Theater, The Garden Theater, The Princess Theater, The River Hills and Riviera Theaters, The Onyx, The Lincoln, The Strand, The Casino and The Unique Theater.

KRNT Radio Theater, 10th and Pleasant, approx 1940s; currently a "green space"

Paramount Theater, 6th and Grand, 1930; currently Polk County Convention Complex

Princess Theater on left, Berchel Theater on right, 4th and Walnut, approx 1900s; currently Capital Square and Nollen Plaza

River Hills and Riviera Theaters, 2nd Ave, November 2000; currently Wells Fargo Arena

Another interesting aspect of Des Moines is slowly vanishing at the inept hands of a national corporation (Gannett) that couldn’t sell a newspaper if it was free.  The Des Moines Register, has left the hallowed confines of the Register building and moved into a few floors of Capital Square – itself, an ugly mass of poorly designed and corrupted architecture that was built in place of useful, older buildings.

Other sad excuses for architecture include the empty Des Moines Convention Center at 6th and Grand, which never housed a single event anyone cared to see; the Des Moines Civic Center showing the least acclaimed shows in the country at twice the going rates; the empty Kaleidoscope Mall featuring products you can ignore at any real airport (not including Des Moines unInternational Airport, a scheme in and of itself); the godawful Nollen Plaza (recently renamed Cowles Commons) featuring homeless bathing and birdshit benches; The Des Moines Science Center, which allows people of all ages to pay exorbitant fees in order to see rudimentary (often dilapidated) exhibits on uninspired topics; The Des Moines Central Public Library, featuring the finest creaky plastic floors, busted copper windows, state-of-the art-but-constantly-broken-money-sinkhole-boiler, and reduced operational hours; the Des Moines Sculpture Garden, featuring special Boner sculptures; and Wells Fargo Arena, which has seen (maybe) a half dozen Z-List acts, and includes at least three failed semi-pro teams.

Gymnast III at Des Moines Sculpture Garden - aka Giant Metal Boner with Rusty Scrotum

On a side note, it’s interesting to consider that the state of Iowa has had the same governor, Terry “The Mustache” Branstad for the last 18 years.  Terry is the 2^nd longest serving governor in US history, and will soon surpass the 18^th century record holder (George Clinton of NY) if he wins his next term.  Terry has never really liked Des Moines much, instead favoring giant-agri-business industrial farm companies, corporate hog confinements and Chinese espionage expats.  When Terry took the helm, an already struggling city was reborn into Corporate Republican Wet Dream Land full of postcard generic Ten-Years-Behind-the-Rest wholesale history destroyers.

Terry Branstad, Governor of Iowa - hates Des Moines, love pigs.

So what’s this all about?  Why the rant?  Who cares about Des Moines (except maybe a few people in the city itself)?

Des Moines, Iowa was once a pretty decent place.  We stood on the forefront of history – often.  Our newspaper, the Des Moines Register and Tribune, was once only rivaled by the New York Times for total Pulitzers won.  We lead the nation in education.  Our Iowa State Fair was, and still is, one of the biggest and best.  Des Moines was even scheduled to be the first ever city to host a night time baseball game with permanent electric lights (there's a little historical wrinkle to that title). Aside from having tons of freight and passenger rail spanning from coast to coast, aside from leading the country in Gay rights, aside from being the only home to both African American officers and a women’s auxiliary corps, Des Moines used to be a place you could be proud of.  Now, it’s a joke.  It’s a laughing stock.  Idiots from New York to Seattle heap on the chuckles when Des Moines is at the butt.

Between a senile governor simpering and rude, a city council bent on demolition, and corporate overlords who twist the titties of any politician that so much as suggests “guidelines”, our town was dismantled one dream at a time.  Now, Des Moines is the ugly eunuch at the back of the harem, bitterly itching its bulbous flesh stump where sex organs once resided.  And buddy let me tell you, it ain’t much fun.

The Disciples of Des Moines will light the torches once more.  Hovering in the shadows of demolished buildings, or standing at the skirts of empty rail yards, we’re the picture takers, the poem writers, the novelists.  We will dip our brushes into the ether and reawaken the spirit of creativity in this town.