Category: Iowa
The Composer Comes to Spillville
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2023/02/06Feb23-Bily-Clocks-3.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)In the summer of 1893 a unique visitor arrived in Spillville, Iowa. He loved the place so much that he…
Ford’s One Million Dollar Offer
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2023/01/03Feb23-Bily-Clocks-2.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)In 1928 the Bily brothers received quite an offer from Henry Ford. He offered them one million dollars for something…
The Amazing Bily Clocks
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2023/01/02Feb23-Bily-Clocks-1.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)The Bily brothers were farmers near Spillville, Iowa. But it’s what the brothers did when they weren’t farming that has…
Work That Saved the Lives of Millions
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/12/07Dec22-Norman-Borlaug-Home-2.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)In an era when most farm boys completed eighth grade at most, this family saw something in their son that…
The Old Farmhouse That Impacted the World
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/12/06Dec22-Norman-Borlaug-Home-1.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)The old farmhouse that sits about a dozen miles south of Cresco, Iowa that probably appears a lot like other…
Get Your Picture Taken Here
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/09/19Sep22-American-Gothic-House-2.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)Just about every day there are people driving to this small Iowa town to get their picture taken. It’s not…
A Picture of a Sister and Dentist
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/09/16Sep22-American-Gothic-House-1.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)If an artist painted a picture of his sister and his dentist, you’d probably doubt it would be anything special. …
Escape from the Squirrel Cage Jail
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/07/02Aug22-Squirrel-Cage-Jail-2.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)Prisoners have used many different methods to escape from their cells. A man in this jail crawled through pipes of…
Hamsters in a Prison Wheel
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/07/01Aug22-Squirrel-Cage-Jail-1.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)If you seem to be busy, but going nowhere in life, you might be said to be a “hamster in…
Coming Home to the Place That Held You Captive
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/05/13May22-Camp-Algona-Iowa-2.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)It’s hard to imagine being held as a prisoner of war and then, after the war, immigrating to the country…
Camp Algona Iowa
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/05/12May22-Camp-Algona-Iowa-1.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)Over the years you’ve heard us feature some towns in the heartland of America that served as POW camps during…
Jubilee Days in Shenandoah, Iowa
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/05/11May22-KMA-Radio-History.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)Imagine hosting a breakfast so large that you needed to buy pancake flour by the boxcar. That’s exactly what happened…
Small Town, Big Impact
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/04/20Apr22-Perry-Iowa-100-Plus-2.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)Four times each year a group of people in Perry, Iowa are writing $100 checks to an important local cause…
One Hundred Plus for Perry
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/04/19Apr22-Perry-Iowa-100-Plus-1.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)It’s called One Hundred Plus for Perry. Although local residents can’t take credit for the idea, they adapted in from…
Grotto of the Redemption
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/04/18Apr22-Grotto-of-the-Redemption-2.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)It took 80 years to build this structure in West Bend, IA and today it is valued in the millions…
A Story for Good Friday
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/04/15Apr22-Grotto-of-the-Redemption-1.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)It is a story fitting for the message of Good Friday – the story of a priest who recovered from…
The Work of the Wallace Family
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/01/28Jan22-Henry-Wallace.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)This father and son pair both served as the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. The son even became vice president of…
The First Great Train Robbery
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/01/27Jan22-Jesse-James-Train-Robbery.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)Great train robberies are the stuff of wild west movies. In real life though, the first such event occurred here. …
From Car Trunks to Airplanes
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/01/26Jan22-Iowa-Aviation-Museum-3.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)For the past few days we’ve taken a look back at a stop I made in Greenfield, Iowa, home to…
He Could Have Beaten Lindbergh
http://americancountryside.com/wp-content/gems/2022/01/25Jan22-Iowa-Aviation-Museum-2.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.1MB)Charles Lindbergh was the first person to fly an airplane across the Atlantic Ocean. But lost in our history books…
