Iowa Almanac
Iowa Almanac -- Thursday, June 27, 2024
A town on fire. More from the Iowa Almanac in a moment. Stay up to date on the latest news impacting the soybean industry by attending the Iowa Soybean Association's summer soy series coming to a community near you. Here are the latest insights on issues directly impacting farmer profitability, productivity, and sustainability, including soybean demand, research, policy, and more. Register today at iasoybeans.com/events. The Iowa Soybean Association driven to deliver for Iowa's 37,000 soybean farmers. Recent independence days have been a bit different in our state because for the first time in almost 80 years fireworks were again legal in Iowa starting in 2017. Fireworks had been legal in many neighboring states but were not here, and that's in large part because of something that happened on June 27, 1931. The weather was hot, even for an Iowa summer. The temperature in Spencer in northwest Iowa topped off at 97 degrees, and lack of recent rain made things dry as well. There was a large fireworks display in the front window of Bjornstad's drugstore at the corner of Fourth and Main downtown. A little boy took an interest in the display, which was not uncommon. What happened next, though, was quite uncommon. No one to this day is sure what happened, but somehow a lit sparkler was dropped on the fireworks display. That led to an explosion that literally set downtown Spencer on fire. The heat, drought, and high winds that day fanned the flames that consumed two and a half blocks of the business district. More than 50 buildings were soon reduced to rubble, with damage estimated at $1.2 million. Amazingly, no lives were lost. A few years later in 1938, the Iowa legislature banned the sale and private use of fireworks, a ban that remained in place until 2017. When Spencer's business owners decided to rebuild, they opted for a theme of art deco and mission revival styles for most of the new buildings. As a result, Miami, Florida is the only city in the country with a larger art deco presence in its commercial buildings. But it was hard to consider that when Spencer's downtown business district went up in flames due to fireworks, on this date, in 1931. And that's Iowa Almanac for June 27th. Follow us on Twitter @IowaAlmanac. Until tomorrow, I'm Jeff Stein.