Newsletter

By Vance Polton Since the Oscars were just last weekend I thought it was appropriate to talk about “Iowa Fisheries on Film”.  As early as 1915 and probably even a little earlier than that...

By Vance Polton Today’s Jaunt back through time really isn’t that far back. Heck, it’s just back around the corner. Of course it was back in the last century if you want to look at it that way. But let’s not. We’re headed back to...

By Vance Polton Yeah, You read that right. Back in 2018 I came across the following newspaper article in the March 23, 1939 edition of the Pella Chronicle, page 6: And so the hunt was...

By Vance Polton Well, it’s Wednesday and it’s time to hit the road again. We’ll head back in time to around 1916 and head east over to the town of Fairport in Muscatine county to visit the Fairport...

By Vance Polton Eighty- two years ago back on February 15,1942 the Iowa Conservation Commission published the first edition of the “Iowa Conservationist”.  The Conservation Commission’s purpose for creating this monthly publication or as they called...

By Vance Polton Today, I thought we would take note of the anniversary of the passing of John Boepple. On January 30, 1912 John Boepple, founder of the pearl button industry in Muscatine and...

By Vance Polton I thought, today, we would head on up to Dickinson County and back to 1916 and take a look at the new fish hatchery under construction there. It’s just about finished...

By Vance Polton Today we are headed back to January of 1897 and the opening of the Manchester National Fish Hatchery.  While for the most part the construction of the hatchery was completed in 1896, it...