116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
History Happenings: History via social media
You can find interesting tidbits on Instagram, Facebook
Do you follow The History Center on social media? If not, we encourage you to follow it on Instagram — instagram.com/historylinncoia — or on Facebook — facebook.com/HistoryLinnCoIA.
We acknowledge that social media has more than its fair share of issues, but when it comes to sharing snippets of Linn County history, it is a wonderful resource and allows The History Center to fulfill its mission of preserving and sharing our community’s stories well beyond the confines of the Douglas Mansion.
Here are just a few examples of the kinds of content The History Center shares.
‘Did You Know?’ posts
William Hutchason Beshears was born in St. Joseph, Mo., on Oct. 27, 1897. He attended the University of Iowa and completed his degree in dentistry in 1917. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa. He was a Kappa Alpha Psi member in 1915-16 in Iowa City.
Dr. Beshears enlisted in the Army in 1917 shortly after college. He served in World War I and was a first lieutenant in the Army. He returned home in July 1919 to Iowa City.
He said he "traveled as far as he could with the money he had," which landed him in Cedar Rapids, where he was a dentist for approximately 41 years. He was the first African American dentist in Cedar Rapids and most of the time he was the only African American dentist in Cedar Rapids.
His office was upstairs on the east side of the Paramount Theatre. He was a member of and a superintendent at Bethel AME Church. He was the first African American Boy Scout leader in Cedar Rapids. He was a member of Mount Olive Lodge No. 17 in Cedar Rapids and attained the 32nd Degree Mason degree.
During his lifetime he served as president of the NAACP circa 1926. He continued to practice dentistry until his death in 1958.
‘On This Day’ posts
The Duane Arnold Energy Center was Iowa's only nuclear power plant. It is located on 500 acres on the west bank of the Cedar River, 2 miles north-northeast of Palo, 8 miles northwest of Cedar Rapids.
In the late 1960s, Iowa Electric Light & Power Co. (now Alliant Energy), Central Iowa Power Cooperative and Corn Belt Power Cooperative applied for a nuclear plant license with the Atomic Energy Commission. On June 17, 1970, a construction permit was granted and work began. The original plan was to complete construction in 40 months at an estimated cost of $250 million.
The energy center was named after Duane Arnold, who grew up in Sanborn in northwest Iowa. Arnold went to Grinnell College and went to work for Iowa Electric Light and Power Co. in 1946. At the time of his death in 1983, at the age of 65, he was chairman of the board and CEO of that company, marrying along the way the daughter, Henrietta, of the previous chairman, Sutherland Dows.
Arnold was committed to nuclear energy despite the controversy surrounding that source of energy and oversaw the construction and opening in 1974 of the plant that bears his name.
“In my opinion, nuclear power is the most beneficial method of anything we could possibly do to provide energy to our customers in the future,” Arnold stated in a 1979 interview with the Des Moines Register.
Construction was completed and the reactor reached initial criticality on March 23, 1974. The cost was $50 million over budget. Commercial operations began Feb. 1, 1975.
Popcorn Day
You’ll also find posts connecting local history to larger themes, as in:
Today is National Popcorn Day!
From The History Center archives is a pamphlet advertising the world's largest box of popcorn, an official Guinness Book Record attempt, sponsored by National Oats and its Pops-Rite Popcorn.
Individuals were asked to bring popped popcorn to the Cedar Rapids Reds vs. Burlington game at the Veterans Memorial Stadium on July 7, 1991, to attempt to set a record for the world’s largest box of popcorn.
Historic photos
Posts also feature photos of places and people from The History Center’s collection. For example:
- The De Var Restaurant operated at 312 Second Ave. SE in Cedar Rapids from 1947 to 1960. The site was previously home to a cigar store and then the 312 Grill from 1936 to 1945.
- Greene’s Opera House Baseball Team sitting in a long, open air automobile. Photographed by William Baylis, circa 1915.
For more posts that are likely to become among your favorite things in your feed, follow The History Center on your social media channel of choice.
Jessica Cline is a Leadership & Character Scholar at Wake Forest University. Her dad, Rob Cline, is not a scholar of any kind. They write this monthly column for The History Center. Comments: HistoricalClines@gmail.com
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