Mercy Hospital

From The Midwestern, September 1907.

Mercy Hospital was founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1893.  According to the 1907 Des Moines City Directory, Mercy Hospital was located on the northwest corner of 4th and Ascension.   This is the same property where Mercy Hospital is currently located, but it looks quite a bit different.  In 1907, it could accommodate 125 patients.  Today, Mercy has 802 beds and more the 6,600 employees.

State Capitol Fire of 1904

On January 4, 1904 the Capitol Building caught fire. According to an article in the Des Moines Register and Leader the House Legislative Chamber and adjacent rooms were gutted by the fire. The cause of the fire was unknown at the time the article was written. The total loss from the fire was estimated at between $300,000 and $500,000.

The following timeline of the fire appeared in the Des Moines Register and Leader on January 5, 1904.

January 4, 1904

11:00 AM
First fire alarm.

11:10 AM
Call for more hose.

11:40 AM
General alarm.

1:00 PM
Fire had reached extreme south end of chamber roof
and Chief Burnett said the building was doomed.

1:15 PM
Fire broke through the partition separating main gallery
from dome passage.

1:45 PM
Fire reached the partition separating the main hall
from library and orders given by Governor Cummins
to have books removed.

2:00 PM
Sky lights began to fall and chandeliers with great crash.

2:15 PM
Orders given to keep people from under dome for fear fire
had eaten into it and would cause it to fall.

2:30 PM
Third line of hose laid to upper south gallery and communication
cut off from dome.

2:45 PM
Chief Burnett said danger was over if the fire
did not eat through the holes in partitions on south side.

3:00 PM
Chief Burnett and Assistant Chief Taylor agree that the
blaze is under control.

6:00 PM
Executive council met to consider plan as to session of legislature.

“Iowa State House on Fire Yesterday; the Loss was Between $300,000 and $500,000.” Des Moines Register and Leader, January 5, 1904, p.1

Iowa Caucuses

Prior to 1972 the Iowa caucuses were not the presidential testing ground they are today. The caucuses moved to the forefront as a result of legislation passed by the General Assembly which dictated the latest date caucuses could be held (the second Monday in May) but did not limit how early they could be held. In addition to this legislation, the Democratic party of Iowa “added a clause to their party constitution requiring thirty days between party functions,” (Winebrenner 1987). This resulted in January 24 as the latest possible date for the democratic caucuses in 1972, moving Iowa ahead of the New Hampshire primaries.

Iowa’s role in presidential politics is often seen as controversial. The question of why such a small, homogenous state has so much influence is debated every four years. While the caucuses don’t always choose a party’s nominee, they often add momentum to the front runners and weed out the candidates with weaker showings. The democratic party embraced Iowa as an early testing ground with George McGovern’s strong showing in 1972 and Jimmy Carter spending a large amount of time in Iowa to claim an early win in 1976. More recently, Howard Dean’s campaign began to fail after a weak showing in the 2004 caucuses and Barack Obama surprised everyone with an early Iowa win in 2008, which many believe gave him the momentum to win the party’s nomination and eventually the presidency. Republicans were to slower use Iowa as an early testing ground, but George Bush surprised future president Ronald Reagan with a strong showing in 1980, and dark horse candidate Mike Huckabee’s win in 2008 substantially extended the life of his campaign.

View caucus results from 1972-present »

Republished from the DMPL local history pages.

Holidays in Des Moines, 1911

One hundred years ago, holidays in Des Moines apparently involved as much shopping as it does today. Advertisements in the Des Moines Tribune for holiday gifts were plentiful, a couple from stores with names we still recognize.  Younker Brothers had hand bags for $1.29 and wallets for 23 to 69 cents.   At S. Joseph and Sons, “reliable watches can be purchased as low as $10.”  You could buy a “quarter sawed oak finely finished rocker” for $6.45 at Bard & Hammer, and Harger & Blish was your “headquarters for Victrolas and Edisons.”  The Grand was giving “S&H double stamps” all week.  ”Children’s Wash Dresses” were as low as 69 cents at J. Mandelbaum & Sons, and at the Iowa Seed Company you could purchase a Christmas tree holder for 25 cents.  And, as if plucked straight from today’s newspaper, one story’s headline read “Slippers will be popular presents.”

There were pictures of the “new municipal building soon to be occupied.” The Knights Templar ball was held at the Shrine Temple and was “a brilliant affair and one of the notable events of the holiday season,” and there was an abundance of Christmas parties on the Society Calendar. At the same time, the Men’s League for Woman Suffrage started a campaign to organize the state efforts to “grant political rights to women.”

Seven inches of snow covered the city the day after Christmas.  Roads were then unpaved, but if you could get to the Rock Island station, you could travel to Chicago on one of five trains leaving daily.  On the way to the station in your motorcar, you would have to adhere, of course, to the ten miles-per-hour speed limit.

And don’t get the idea that after-holiday clearance sales are anything new.

Des Moines and Polk County City Directories – Online

Checkout our online city directory collection. We’ve uploaded Des Moines and Polk County City Directories from 1866-1922 to Archive.org.

I’ve embedded instructions for optimal online viewing below (you may want to click the fullscreen view button to make the instructions easier to read). Here is a link directly to our City Directory collection on Archive.org.

Enjoy!

View this document on Scribd