Iowa
State of the midwest USA; nicknamed Hawkeye State
Area:
145,800 sq km/56,279 sq mi
Capital:
Des Moines
Towns and Cities: Cedar Rapids, Davenport, Sioux City Physical: Mississippi
River; prairies; Iowa Lakes
Features:
90% of land farmed; Effigy Mounds National Monument, with prehistoric
Native American burial ground; the Amana colonies, seven villages founded
by German- Swiss immigrants in the 19th century as a Utopian religious
community (ended in 1932); Herbert Hoover birthplace, library, and museum
near West Branch; Czech Village, museum, and immigrant home, Cedar Rapids;
Des Moines, with postmodern state building of Iowa, Court Avenue District
with 19th- century commercial buildings and warehouses, Sherman Hill
historic district with Victorian houses, and Living History Farms; Victorian
river merchants' houses at Dubuque; Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids, with
a collection of paintings by Grant Wood; Grant Wood Gallery, Davenport;
casino riverboat gambling, including the President Riverboat Casino,
Davenport; the US presidential race starts at Des Moines with the Iowa
Caucuses
Industries:
Cereals, soya beans, pigs and cattle, chemicals, farm machinery, electrical
goods, hardwood lumber, minerals
Population:
(1995) 2,841,800
Famous People:
Bix Beiderbecke, Buffalo Bill, Herbert Hoover, Glenn Miller, Lillian
Russell, Grant Wood
History:
Iowa was part of the Louisiana Purchase (1803). Native Americans of
the Sauk and Fox peoples were forced to cede their lands 1832
in what is now E Iowa. Because of its rich topsoil, Iowa quickly
attracted settlers, and it became a state in 1846. The economy
remains based on agriculture; the state usually leads all others
in the production of corn, soybeans, and pigs.
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