Iowa Historical Building

Today I went to the Iowa Historical Museum in Des Moines. It is a nice, newer building - a far cry from the building I went to as a child. That was pretty much like an overstuffed attic.



You notice this airplane in the atrium.



Here's another one. They remind you of an ultra light airplane. Notice the frame and even the propellers are made of wood.



You have to have a stage coach. I looked at this pretty closely and determined it would be a hard way to go across country.



But it was probably a lot faster and more comfortable that the Conestoga wagon -- the schooner of the prairie. I was surprised at how tall these wagons are - the back wheels are about six feet high.



Okay. These buffalo are not real, are they? They are ... big.



Des Moines does not have Sue the Tyrannosaurus Rex at the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History, but it does have this 14-tall skeleton of a woolly mammoth.



These animals were similar to elephants and were huge.



Fast forwarding in time, I liked this old pay phone.



This gas pump was interesting -- and the price of gasoline was 17.6 cents a gallon.



Here's a cartoon drawn by Ding Darling, a famous political cartoonist for the Des Moines Register for many years.



Looking out the window you could see the top of the Iowa Capitol Building. There was a large rally gathering to protest something or other.



As I was looking at history, there were people across the street making it.

Take care and thanks for stopping by.