The Elbert Files

For most of the first half of the 20th century, the Des Moines Coliseum occupied the downtown site where a federal courthouse is now being built.  

Although the Coliseum burned down in 1949, it remains …

Many of the environmental problems associated with farming, including flooded fields and polluted waterways, can be traced to land management, soil expert Doug Peterson told a group recently at Plymouth Church in Des Moines.

Land …

The U.S. government and the state of Iowa are headed in opposite directions on debt accumulation. While federal officials pile it on, Iowa leaders shun it.

Both are wrong. 

The federal deficit totals more than …

Decades ago when I was a political reporter, I thought there was no way Iowa’s Democratic presidential caucuses could get more arcane or convoluted.

Boy, was I wrong.

I never thought the Iowa caucuses were …

February is Black History Month, which makes this is a good time to recall one of Iowa’s most successful, if least known, civil rights heroes.

Alexander Clark was a black man who lived in Muscatine …

“Are you going to caucus?” 

The question came from deep inside a fur-lined parka. 

“You know better than to ask me that,” I said to my friend K.C. when our paths crossed on Grand Avenue …

A friend asked a question recently about Des Moines University, the osteopathic medical school at 3200 Grand Ave. that will spend up to $200 million in the next three years to build a new 88-acre …

When I moved to Des Moines in 1975, there weren’t a lot of lunch places downtown beyond the three established dining clubs. 

Each club had a niche. 

The Des Moines Club, organized in the late …

A long-forgotten piece of Des Moines history is retold on Pages 811-812 of Ron Chernow’s biography about Civil War General and 18th president of the United States Ulysses S. Grant. 

Chernow’s 1,074-page “Grant” was published …