HERE FOR THE DRAMA.

amenities like a nine-hole golf course and a peeled log-style lodge, representative of park development in the 1920s. Much of the park’s development resulted from work agreements with the Anamosa State Penitentiary. Inmates toiled to develop the amenities familiar to visitors today.

Pilot Knob State Park towers above the Algona end moraine in far north-central Iowa. The park is capped by a stone tower constructed to offer a commanding view of the bottomless sphagnum bog known as Dead Man’s Lake. The park is a love story of sorts: 162 locals each chipped in $70 to purchase the land, and gifted the site to the state during the early 1920s, hoping to secure a state park. Similar stories abound in state parks throughout Iowa. Local communities have often taken initiative to preserve lands too precious to surrender to the plow.

Today, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources officially administers 72 parks throughout the state, and many other sites now under county or federal control have once been a part of the state park system.

Pammel State Park, managed by Madison County Conservation, is tucked among the famous covered bridges southwest of Des Moines. It has Iowa’s only automotive tunnel and a “Devil’s Backbone” of its own. State officials determined Madison County could better maintain the park and officially transferred duties in 1989.

A similar story played out for Echo Valley State Park in Fayette County. The state owns the park, but the Fayette County Conservation Board manages it, after disrepair and other issues plagued the park’s enticing escarpments.

Echo Valley visitors can drive 30 minutes south to Brush Creek Canyon State Preserve and inadvertently land in the distant past. The state refused to transfer the park to local control, in favor of creating a biological preserve. Hikers might feel like prehistoric explorers as they bushwhack through this largely unmaintained park and see the sharp canyon that descends to a meandering trout stream. Or as they encounter the decaying Civilian Conservation Corps picnic shelter in the depths of the forest.

For those more interested in a well-maintained and informative journey into Iowa’s history, the partially reconstructed military fort at Fort Atkinson State Preserve hosts interpretive panels, yearly programming and other features friendly to the faint of heart.

Further to the east on the Mississippi River is Pikes Peak State Park, which showcases the past, present and future of Iowa’s public lands. The park was originally part of a federal plan to create a national park in the early 20th century, but it was eventually adopted into the state system. The nearby McGregor Heights State Park, however, only temporarily stayed in state control before federal officials reclaimed the land to create Effigy Mounds National Monument.

Both sites feature mounds tied to Iowa’s Woodland Era Indigenous inhabitants. Pike’s Peak also holds other treasures: the gentle water of Bridal Veil Falls, prominent views at Point Ann and Pike’s Peak, and an active hummingbird population drawn by the sweet sugar of feeders near the Civilian Conservation Corps lodge building.

From the northeastern Pikes Peak, to the southwestern Waubonsie State Park, and from the northwestern Gitchie Manitou State Preserve to the southeastern Shimek State Forest, there are still beautiful lands for Iowans to explore.

No matter where you are in the state, tucked between where the tall corn grows, you aren’t far from the public lands which lets you glimpse Iowa’s natural and historic past.

Kevin T. Mason, Ph.D., serves as an Assistant Professor of History at Waldorf University in Forest City, and created ‘Notes on Iowa,’ a publicly oriented history project currently exploring the history of Iowa’s public in videos and short-essays available at notesoniowa.com.