60 Fun Facts About Des Moines

The name Des Moines comes from French and most likely means 'River of the' what?

One popular theory ties it to French Trappist monks who lived in huts on Monks Mound at Cahokia, far downstream in Illinois.

Which river merges with the Des Moines River at the spot where the city was founded?

Captain James Allen supervised the building of a fort at the confluence in May 1843.

In which year was Des Moines incorporated as a city, still under the name Fort Des Moines?

Much of the town had been wiped out by a flood that May, so the new city started rebuilding from scratch.

Which town was the state capital before the seat of government moved to Des Moines in 1857?

The same year the town dropped the 'Fort' from its name.

Fort Des Moines was built in 1843 to control which Native peoples, moved there from eastern Iowa?

The fort was abandoned in 1846 once they were pushed on to Indian Territory, though the Meskwaki kept returning until around 1857.

What was Des Moines' population at the 2020 census?

The six-county metro is around 750,000, the largest metropolitan area lying entirely inside Iowa.

Fort Des Moines was designated the seat of which county in 1846?

A small part of the city south of County Line Road actually spills into Warren County.

Which Des Moines facility was submerged in the 1993 flood, cutting off taps for 250,000 people?

Residents went 20 days without drinkable tap water; the river flooded badly again in 2008.

Which reservoir controls the Des Moines River upstream of the city?

In both 1993 and 2008 the swollen river overtopped the reservoir's spillway anyway.

Iowa's tallest building, 801 Grand in downtown Des Moines, has how many stories?

Finished in 1991, it was briefly the tallest building between Chicago and Denver until Omaha's First National Bank Tower topped it in 2002.

Which Des Moines-based company owns 801 Grand and is one of only two Fortune 500 firms in Iowa?

The other Iowa Fortune 500 company is a convenience-store chain famous for its pizza.

What sits on top of the 801 Grand tower?

Designers expected the copper to turn green, but Des Moines' air has so little sulfur that it oxidized deep brown instead.

Des Moines has been nicknamed the 'Hartford of the West' because of which industry?

Iowa's 1% premium tax, one of the lowest in the country, helped lure the insurers.

Which magazine did Des Moines-based Meredith Corporation publish before merging with Dotdash?

It was one of the most widely circulated publications in the United States.

Which future US president worked as a sportscaster at Des Moines radio station WHO?

WHO 1040 AM is a 50,000-watt station that is still the highest-rated in the market.

Which masked heavy metal band was formed in Des Moines in 1995?

Their second album, released in 2001, was simply titled Iowa.

Bill Bryson's memoir about growing up in 1950s Des Moines is The Life and Times of the what?

The mayor gave Bryson the key to the city in 2006 and declared October 21 'Bill Bryson, The Thunderbolt Kid, Day.'

Both of Bill Bryson's parents worked for which local institution?

His father was a sportswriter there for 50 years and his mother was the home furnishings editor.

Which Des Moines-born actress won an Oscar for The Last Picture Show and played Frau Blücher?

She attended Roosevelt High School and competed in the 1946 Miss America pageant as Miss Chicago.

Edna Griffin's 1948 sit-ins and landmark Iowa Supreme Court case targeted which Des Moines business?

She was refused ice cream there with her one-year-old daughter; the manager was convicted under an 1884 Iowa civil rights law and fined $50.

The Iowa State Capitol in Des Moines is the only US statehouse with how many domes?

Rhode Island's State House is sometimes cited as the other five-domed capitol.

The Capitol's central dome is covered in what?

Inside are a multi-storey law library, a scale model of the USS Iowa and a collection of first lady dolls.

The Iowa State Fair has been held at its current Des Moines fairgrounds since which year?

Before settling in Des Moines the fair wandered between towns including Muscatine, Oskaloosa, Dubuque and Keokuk.

The very first Iowa State Fair, in 1854, was held in which town?

It ran three days on a budget of $323 and drew a crowd of up to 10,000.

The Iowa State Fair's most famous sculpture is a life-size animal carved from butter. Which animal?

The fair also skipped 1898 for the Omaha World's Fair and 1942-45 when the grounds became a military supply depot.

Which act drew the biggest grandstand crowd in Iowa State Fair history, 26,200 people?

Johnny Cash pulled 23,500 across two shows in 1970 and the Beach Boys 25,402 in 1975.

Which year set the Iowa State Fair's all-time attendance record of 1,182,682 visitors?

That August 10, 128,732 people came through the gates, the most ever in a single day.

Which Triple-A baseball team plays at Principal Park near the confluence of the two rivers?

The Capitol dome is visible beyond the center-field wall.

Future Super Bowl MVP Kurt Warner played arena football in the 1990s for which Des Moines team?

The original Barnstormers played in the Arena Football League from 1994 to 2000 before relocating to New York.

The Iowa Wolves of the NBA G League took that name in 2017 after being bought by which NBA franchise?

They had played as the Iowa Energy since 2007.

The Drake Relays, 'America's Athletic Classic', were first held in which year?

The first meet drew 100 spectators and 82 athletes, all from Des Moines-area schools.

Drake Relays week includes a 'Beautiful ___ Contest' honoring Drake University's mascot. Which breed?

The week also features the Grand Blue Mile road race through downtown.

Which Midwest grocer became presenting sponsor of the Drake Relays in 2013?

The deal funded a $50,000 purse for running events and $25,000 for field events.

Which architect designed one of the wings of the Des Moines Art Center?

Richard Meier designed another wing, making the museum a small architecture pilgrimage.

Des Moines' central library, opened in 2006, was designed by which English architect?

It sits beside the Pappajohn Sculpture Park in Western Gateway Park.

Salisbury House, the 1920s mansion of Carl Weeks, was paid for by his fortune in what business?

It contains 16th-century English oak salvaged from historic English homes and has featured on Antiques Roadshow.

Terrace Hill, built in 1869 by Benjamin F. Allen, was the home of Iowa's first what?

The Hubbell family bought it in 1884 for $60,000 and later gave it to the state, which made it the Governor's residence.

Which governor became the first to live at Terrace Hill when he moved in during 1976?

He is also honored by the Asian Gardens downtown for helping resettle Southeast Asian refugees.

Des Moines' enclosed downtown skywalk system stretches roughly how many miles?

It is one of the largest in the US, and has been blamed for hurting street-level shops.

The World Food Prize, awarded at the Iowa State Capitol, was conceived by which Nobel Peace laureate?

The Nobel Foundation turned down his request for a food prize, so General Foods sponsored one in 1986 instead.

The World Food Prize Hall of Laureates occupies which restored Des Moines building?

It is one of the Beaux Arts riverfront buildings from the city's early-1900s 'City Beautiful' project.

Which convenience-store chain took naming rights to the downtown Des Moines arena in 2023?

The arena opened in 2005 as part of the Iowa Events Center, and was renamed Casey's Center in 2023.

Living History Farms, with its 1700 Ioway village and 1875 frontier town, is in which Des Moines suburb?

Interpreters in period costume recreate everything from a horse-powered 1900 farm to a modern crop center.

Adventureland and the Prairie Meadows racetrack-casino are both in which town northeast of Des Moines?

Prairie Meadows hosts two Grade III horse races a year, the Iowa Oaks and the Cornhusker Handicap.

The 1850 Jordan House in West Des Moines, said to be haunted, was a stop on what?

Eda Jordan died in 1893 after falling off the banister she was sliding down.

Des Moines' oldest sister-city relationship, dating to 1958, is with Kōfu in which country?

Later partners include Saint-Étienne, Shijiazhuang, Kuala Terengganu and Pristina.

Which country opened a consulate in downtown Des Moines in 2015?

Its capital, Pristina, became a Des Moines sister city three years later.

Des Moines has no passenger rail; the nearest Amtrak stop, on the California Zephyr, is in which town?

The stop is about 40 miles south of the city, with no connecting Amtrak Thruway bus.

Iowa first held the nation's opening Democratic presidential caucus in which year?

Republicans followed suit in the next cycle, cementing Des Moines as a campaign-headquarters town.

The commission-style city government adopted here in 1907, and copied by other cities, was known as what?

Considered progressive at the time, its at-large elections diluted minority votes and it was scrapped in 1950.

Hoyt Sherman Place, built in 1877, was Des Moines' first public what?

Its restored 1,250-seat theater has an ornate rococo plaster ceiling.

The Iowa Primate Learning Sanctuary in Des Moines was set up to study the communication of which apes?

It was built as a research campus for noninvasive study of their cognitive abilities.

Which company was Des Moines' largest non-government employer in 2021, with about 13,500 workers?

UnityPoint Health was second with just over 8,000.

Which Chicago architect designed Terrace Hill for Benjamin F. Allen in the 1860s?

The house cost $250,000 including furnishings and had running water, indoor toilets and an elevator.

The 'Palace', a prehistoric site found in southeast Des Moines in 2010, is roughly how old?

It turned up during excavations for a new wastewater plant and yielded more than 6,000 artefacts plus well-preserved house deposits and graves.

In which year did Des Moines record a population of 208,982, its 20th-century peak?

Highway construction then pulled residents out to new suburbs; by 2020 the metro area held more than 700,000 people.

Who built the ornate balustrades along the city's two riverfronts in the mid-1930s?

The riverbank's ornamental fountains were buried in the 1950s as the city slid into a postindustrial decline that lasted until the late 1980s.

Iowa's premium tax on insurers, one of the lowest in the US, is what percentage?

The state also charges no premium tax on qualified life insurance plans, which helps explain the cluster of insurers in Des Moines.

Which magazine about a club-and-ball sport was once headquartered in Des Moines?

Meredith Corporation, another publisher, was based in the city until its 2021 merger with Dotdash.

In which year did the last passenger train serve Des Moines?

The final service was an unnamed run to Council Bluffs; the Rock Island's Corn Belt Rocket had once linked the city to Omaha and Chicago.