Built in 1872,Fort Seward military post at Jamestown (pop. 15,527) provided protection for 500 railroad workers and helped stabilize the region for settlement. Regular archaeological digs turn up clues about the fort's role.
The state's longest natural beach on Lake Erie is the mile long Headlands Beach State Park in Mentor (pop.50,278). The sandy beach is home to a lighthouse and plant species typically found along the Atlantic Coast
Housed at Sioux Valley Hospital in Sioux Falls,the Sioux Empire Medical Museum offers visitors a dose of medical history beginging with the early 1900s.Nursing uniforms,equipment and photographs depict changes and medical advancements.
Grocery tins,apothecary items and an old-fashion candy counter offer a taste of early 1900s shopping at the Cedarburg (pop. 10,908) General Store Museum,home to the Roger C. Christensen collection of antique packaging and advertising art.
Making light and flaky biscuits is not the goal of Mechanical Baking Co. in Pekin (pop. 33,857.) The company bakes a Civil War-era hardtack biscuit that must be broken up with a rock or rifle butt,and is popular fare for Civil War re-enactors
Designer Bill Blass (1922-2002) was born in Fort Wayne and helped pioneer elegant,yet comfortable clothing styles popular in the late 20th century.Blass expanded his brand with products as diverse as chocolates and sunglasses.
The last steam engine built by Datong Locomotives Works in China chugs at the Boone and Scenic Valley Raiload in Boone (pop. 12,803).Railroad enthusiasts bought the stream locomotive and shipped it to Iowa in 1989.
A 1960s desk at the Kansas Museum of History in Topeka may look ho-hum,but it was a prop in the 1970s television comedy The Mary Tyler Moore Show.Actor Ed Asner,who portrayed newsman Lou Grant,gave his desk to a friend who donated it to the museum.
A 50-foot-tall fiberglass statue of Chief Hiawatha towers in Ironwood (6,293) near the former Norrie Mine.The 16,000-pound statue of the legendary American Indian chief has attracted sightseers since the iron mine closed in the 1960s.
Built in 1883,the Stone Arch Bridge spans the Mississippi River below St. Anthony Falls in Minneapolis.The beloved landmark,with its 23 graceful arches,was a railroad bridge until 1965 and today serves pedestrians and bicyclists.
Childhood treasures can be revisted at the Toy and Miniature Museum in Kansas City, a restored mansion brimming with antique dolls,dollhouses,cast-iron toys,trains, scale miniatures and one of the world's largest antique-marble collections.
Occupied by the U.S. Army in the 1820s Fort Atkinson at Fort Calhoun (pop. 856) was the first military post established west of the Missouri River.Ongoing archaeological excavations have yielded clues to the location of several origenal post buildings.
In 1909,silent movie-star cowboy Tom Mix took Olive Stokes to a surprise wedding party--her own--at the Cowboy Hotel in Medora (pop. 100).Stokes said " I do" and was married to Mix until their divorce in 1917.
In the late 1940s,World War II buddies Claud Dry and Dale Orcutt began manufacturing an ultra-compact and single-cylinder King Midget car in Athens(pop. 21,342).Various models were manufactured for more than 20 years,and today's collectors gather for annual jamborees.
The Black Hills playhouse in Custer State Park near Custer (pop. 1,860) is located at a 1930s Civilan Conservation Corps camp.The camp was converted to a playhouse in the 1940s and a theater was built in 1955.
In 1932,Albert Dremel founded the Dremel Co. in Racine.Among his more than 50 patents was a compact and lightweight high-speed rotary tool that appealed to hobbyists and craftspeople.Today, the versatile tool has 150 bits and attachments.
The contributions of "man's best friend" during the Vietam War are honored with a bronze statue of a military dog and his soldier-handler at the War Dog Memorial at Wildlife Prairie State Park in Peoria.
Renowned architect Michael Graves,who was born in 1934 in Indianapolis,has created diverse designs including whimsical teakettles,the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Hotels in Florida,and scaffolding for the restoration of the Washington Monument.
Harry Lloyd Hopkins (1890-1946), the principal architect of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs in the 1930s,was born in Sioux City.Hopkins also served as a liaison between Roosevelt and Britain's Winston Churchill and the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin.
Poet Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) was the first African-American writer to win a Pulitzer Price. Born in Topeka,Brooks published more than 20 books and was awarded a Pulitzer in 1950 for her second book of poetry,Annie Allen.
