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Council Bluffs’ location has put the town into contact with a lot of history. Lewis and Clark and the Mormon pilgrims came through, as did the westbound pioneers on the Oregon and California Trails. Abraham Lincoln designated the town as milepost zero for the transcontinental railroad. The first coast-to-coast automobile trip passed through and later the first transcontinental highway. Council Bluffs was the birthplace of Omaha and first war-time mobile hospital. It also boasted the state’s ...
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In this episode podcast host Richard Warner looks at the distribution of Council Bluffs' squirrel population, why they are black, how rare they are, some of the local traditions and laws regarding them, and how the Pottawattamie County jail ended up with that name.By Historical Society of Pottawattamie County
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Questions and comments are always welcome. Here’s link: https://www.thehistoricalsociety.org/contact-us.htmlBy Darcy Malsby, Richard Warner
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Things out of history aren’t always what they appear. Historic figures that seem good or bad were actually every bit as complicated as we are. Even statues and monuments may have been designed to send messages other than what seems apparent. Historic General Dodge House director Tom Emmett tackles these complicated issues head on by using an incide…
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This episode was recorded March 5, 2023 at Prairie Crossing Winery https://www.prairiecrossingwine.com. The winery is located near Treynor, Iowa, just south of state highway 92. In the episode Mr. Gray makes reference to the Grape Growers Association and its role in making southwest Iowa a strong force in in the grape industry. You can find some ph…
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Comments and questions are always welcome. Contact the Historical Society at information@TheHistoricalSociety.org. If you are interested in Council Bluffs history be sure to check our our local history videos. Search for Council Bluffs Revealed in the YouTube search bar. The Society also hosts a Facebook page called Council Bluffs Revealed.…
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Kat Slaughter is Museums Director for the Historical Society of Pottawattamie County. She studied at the University of Wyoming, graduating in 2016 with a Bachelor's degree of History and Anthropology with an emphasis in museum studies. Troy Stolp holds a BA from Iowa State University in Anthropology and Religious Studies, a BA from Buena Vista Univ…
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The book "Lost Restaurants of Omaha" is available at The Bookworm at 2501 S. 90th in Omaha as well as Barnes & Noble at Oak View. Stay up-to-date on restaurants and things to do in the area by following Kim Reiner: Founder and owner of Oh My! Omaha - Exploring Omaha & Beyond and Let's Go Iowa Follow me on Facebook, Twitter and see the pretty pictur…
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Kanesville Kollectibles is located at 530 South 4th Street in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Website: kanesvillekollectibles.comBy Tim Behrens, Trudy Beno, Richard Warner
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If getting there is good, getting there faster is even better, right? That seems to be the conventional wisdom, as machines are pushed to and nudged beyond their limits. It takes some brave people to test those machines, and at least on a couple of occasions Council Bluffs men were ready to accept the challenge. This podcast tells the tale of O.J. …
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Patrick Toscano grew up in Council Bluffs and made law enforcement his career. In this podcast he explains how things have changed during his decades of police work and shares some of the interesting incidents he encountered. The podcast title is taken from the open of the old "Adam 12" television show in which the dispatcher informs the officers t…
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In this episode Kelli Bello, production manager of Council Bluffs' Firehouse Letterpress, explains how Omaha became the center of movie marketing and distribution, how film advertising and the technology used to create it changed over time, and how a good amount of the printing and cinematic archival material found its way to Council Bluffs. Fireho…
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John G. Woodward wasn't the first to use little people in advertising, but may well have contributed to what became a popular trend for the next couple of decades. Buster Brown shoes had adopted a comic strip character as their advertising image a few years earlier and hired little people to play Buster in tours around the country. This came at the…
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This episode looks at some Council Bluffs mysteries that have lingered through the years, yet remain unexplained. Included are the 1977 UFO Crash at Big Lake Park, the gruesome 1926 Keeline murders at the site of today's St. Paul's Lutheran Church, the 1970 Cadillac S&S Medic Mark 1 ambulance in which 495 people died, the librarians' perpetual siti…
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This episode was shared from the On First podcast series, which details the plans and progress of the FIRST AVE project by talking with planners, historians, and civic leaders. Other episodes include information about the Great American Rail Trail and how the corridor will once again be part of a transcontinental route, the railroad history of Firs…
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Nishnabotna's Forgotten Tragedy: 1958 Flood Disaster
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Those living near the Missouri River are accustomed to periodic devastating floods, but neighbors to the normally docile Nishnabotna River were caught unawares in 1958. One woman was swept away in her front yard, but was able to grab onto a tree trunk being swept down with her. She passed to two more trees, and ended up nearly forty miles away from…
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When General Grenville Dodge passed away, tens of thousands braved a blustery winter day to turn out and pay their respects. When Ruth Anne Dodge died a couple of years later the Dodge daughters wanted their mother to be remembered at that same level, so nationally known sculptor Daniel Chester French was commissioned to create a memorial. The plan…
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Men may have done the survey work and laid the track, but there's a lot more to a railroad than steel rails and flanged wheels. In this episode, author and western researcher Chris Enss and Union Pacific Railroad Museum curator Patricia LaBounty describe the role women have played in railroading, dating from the industry's earliest times. Women wer…
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Council Bluffs and Omaha's First Artist- George Simons
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The West intrigued many artists. The challenge for those seeking to use their work as a historical record 150 years later is differentiating between what was artistic license versus reality. Thanks to the cook hired for the railroad surveying party of Grenville Dodge, Council Bluffs and Omaha are extremely fortunate. George Simons was a self-taught…
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Seeking a safer occupation following an rail yard accident that cost him the tip of a finger, John G. Woodward began work at a Council Bluffs candy store. He eventually bought it, and grew the company into the largest candy manufacturing operation in the West. In this podcast, Richard Warner of the Historical Society of Pottawattamie County, traces…
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Fright for a Fee- Fifty Years of Omaha Council Bluffs Haunted Houses
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Seasonal haunted houses appeared on the local scene about fifty years ago, initially fund raisers for a variety of groups and causes. Youth For Christ, Campus Life, March of Dimes, the Jaycees, and the Historical Society were early participants. From church basements and abandoned buildings to semi truck trailers in parking lots, haunted houses pro…
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150 Years of CB High: Guns, Tunnels, and Triva
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Perched atop one of the highest hills, Council Bluffs' first high school building in 1870 reflected the city’s optimism as much as it did society’s expectations of education. The towering building had a chapel, but no facilities for practical training; there was no sports equipment, yet ample rifles and live ammunition to arm all students. In this …
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The “squirrel cage” jail in Council Bluffs, Iowa is unique in many ways. The largest of a rare 19th century design that featured a cell block that rotated, the 1885 former Pottawattamie County jail has increasingly come under scrutiny as a site of robust paranormal activity. Occurrences that were difficult to explain date to its early days as a jai…
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As one of the earliest and largest railroad centers of the Midwest, it’s not surprising Council Bluffs would right at at the forefront of train robberies as well. The first moving train to ever be robbed West of the Mississippi left from Council Bluffs. Another train robbery in a Bluffs rail yard netted over $3,500,000; a tidy sum in 1920, and trig…
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Omaha Council Bluffs' Sweet 98 Rocked the Metro
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It has to be one of the Omaha area’s greatest “rags-to-riches” stories. Radio station Sweet 98 (KQKQ-FM) became hugely popular, for 25 years dominating the Omaha metro ratings as the area’s first personality-driven FM music station, kicking off with “Breakfast Flakes” Mark Evans and Dick Warner in the summer of 1980. Known for its nonstop promotion…
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Young ladies find love at Lake Manawa— an upscale resort with dance pavilions, an amusement park, galas and entertainment. It's a romantic and beautiful place; but how much of that setting for the Lake Manawa series novels actually ever existed? Author Lorna Seilstad explains her characters and their adventures may be fiction, but the setting for t…
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Buildings that revolve or that have portions that do have been a dream for centuries, but generally never moved past the design stage. The rotary cell jail was very real. Touted as cost effective, modern, and escape-proof the concept spread quickly throughout the Midwest. Mechanization was coming of age; invention of the telephone and building of t…
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Introducing the Accidentally Historic podcast
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Find more information about Council Bluffs and Pottawattamie County history on our website at www.TheHistoricalSociety.org and on our Facebook page, Council Bluffs Revealed. Questions, comments and suggestions for podcast guests or topics are always welcome! You can contact us at information@TheHistoricalSociety.org. The Society also has a YouTube …
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