Iowa's Renaissance — the Pappajohn Sculpture Park puts Jaume Plensa and Claes Oldenburg in the middle of the prairie, the farmers' market is the largest in the Midwest, and Des Moines has quietly become one of America's most livable and most surprising mid-size cities
Des Moines is the capital and largest city of Iowa — a city that has surprised visitors for the past decade with an art and food scene disproportionate to its size and a genuinely walkable downtown anchored by the Pappajohn Sculpture Park. The park's collection (26 major sculptures by Jaume Plensa, Louise Bourgeois, Claes Oldenburg, and others) sits in a 4.4-acre urban park on the edge of downtown — entirely free and accessible at all hours. The Des Moines Art Center (free admission) is one of America's finest mid-size art museums, with a building sequence by Eliel Saarinen, I.M. Pei, and Ric…
The Des Moines River valley was the home of the Ioway, Meskwaki, and Sauk peoples for centuries before Fort Des Moines was established as an US Army dragoon post in 1843, a year before Iowa became a state. The city grew as a centre of Iowa's agricultural insurance industry — companies like Principal, Nationwide, and Meredith Corporation made Des Moines a major insurance and publishing capital in the 20th century. The city's Cowles family (publishers of the Des Moines Register, for decades the most influential newspaper in American agriculture) made Des Moines a significant force in national p…