Kohlsdorf: On this episode of "Road Trip Iowa," we're traveling the Covered Bridges Scenic Byway.

We journey into quintessential America...

This is a very Instagrammable spot, isn't it?

...where the famed covered bridges of Madison County dot the landscape.

We step into the stories of movie legends...

The boys wanted to be him.

The women wanted to be with him.

Kohlsdorf: ...and folk art, with many stops along the way.

Next on "Road Trip Iowa."

Woman: Kwik Star is proud to be a part of Iowa communities across the state.

Family owned for over 50 years, we're dedicated to treating our guests, employees, and communities as we would like to be treated.

Man: Musco Lighting is an Iowa company that travels across the U.S. and to more than 125 countries to light community recreation fields, stadiums, airports, monuments, and more.

While our reach is global, we're committed to our local communities.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ The Covered Bridges Scenic Byway spans 82 miles of rolling hills through beautiful Madison County.

Anchored by the town of Winterset, this route is just 30 minutes southwest of Des Moines, right in the heart of Iowa.

Here, visitors can discover local treasures with national appeal.

Let's take a look at our itinerary.

We'll take a drive to the historic covered bridges, explore natural wonders along the Middle River Valley, stop in a museum that's a stitch above the rest, and learn a new skill at a vibrant flower farm.

But first, we head into town to visit the birthplace of a Hollywood legend, whose name became synonymous with the cowboy and the spirit of the American West.

♪♪ ♪♪ [ Gunfire ] ♪♪ ♪♪ Downes: There's no greater figure in our culture, a lasting figure, than John Wayne.

The boys wanted to be him.

The women wanted to be with him.

He was just an appealing guy.

Kohlsdorf: Born in Winterset on May 26, 1907, Marion Robert Morrison became known around the world by another name -- John Wayne.

He was one of the most famous film actors of all time, and his roots began in Iowa.

Today, the Duke's hometown remains a steward of his legacy through the John Wayne Birthplace Museum.

Downes: A great writer from The Chicago Tribune described this once as a fan's museum, and I don't disagree with that at all.

Some forward-looking members of our community realized that his birthplace home -- they identified it by talking to neighbors and going through historical records and thought this might be a great idea to establish it as John Wayne birthplace and open it for tours.

We estimate that it was built in the early 1880s.

It was no doubt a kit house that you would order from a catalog.

That particular house might have cost $1,000 brand new in 1880.

People are surprised at the size of it and that it's preserved.

Originally, it was just a house.

And that was quite moving for a lot of people.

Occasionally, some people came in crying because of their love for John Wayne, and it was love.

There's no other word for it.

They often complained that the facility was too small, that they wished there was more to see.

In 2008, we launched a campaign to build the museum that we're sitting in today.

Inside the museum, you're going to see items like John Wayne's personal automobile, a 1972 Pontiac station wagon.

Not a movie star car at all, but it's built for comfort and safety.

People are moved by that.

You'll find movie wardrobes, scripts, artwork, posters.

They're going to see artworks that reflect how he's remembered and revered so many years, decades after his passing, aside from the artifacts that they're going to see that they maybe have never seen before.

They will get a sense of him.

We don't do a lot of interpreting here.

I think we let John Wayne interpret himself.

We don't have to tell our visitors what you're supposed to think.

Just give it to them.

Since they're here, they probably already know what they think of John Wayne.

The fact that they made the effort to be here from around the world.

Kohlsdorf: Although Wayne and his family left Winterset when he was only 3 years old, the city continues to celebrate the life and legacy of this Western icon.

His modest first home, seated next to the idyllic Town Square embodies the classically American personality the Duke was known for.

Downes: You can only be born in one place, and I think it tells a great story that sometimes the most influential and memorable people can come from the smallest places in the middle of the country.

♪♪ Kohlsdorf: Before cars and concrete paved roads, horses carried travelers down dirt paths over the rolling hills and river valleys of Madison County.

The county's earliest bridges deteriorated quickly, due to Iowa's unrelenting winter weather.

Beginning in the 1870s, the Madison County Board of Supervisors commissioned stronger, longer lasting lattice truss bridges with protective coverings.

Lair: Our ancestors were pretty smart.

And when you build a bridge and 5 or 10 years later, you're going through the floorboards, that's not a nice way to end your trip.

And so, by covering them, they know that they would keep the floorboards much stronger and safer.

Instead of lasting 5 or 10 years, it might last 30 or 40 years.

So, the roof is a cheap insurance for the floorboards and the rest of the interior structure.

Kohlsdorf: 19 total covered bridges were constructed over the next 20 years.

More than a century later, six remain in Madison County.

Lair: Imes and Cutler-Donahoe, Roseman Bridge, Cedar Bridge, and the Holliwell Bridge.

The bridges were named after the people who live next to the bridge, and sometimes after a geographic feature, like the Hogback Bridge has the arched hill behind it.

Kohlsdorf: Over time, some bridges were relocated, while others were relieved of duty by modern counterparts.

The distinctive red and white wooden structures sat quietly, tucked into the southern Iowa farmland until 1992, when a novel written by a little-known writer from Iowa brought the bridges and the town of Winterset into the spotlight.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Beyond Madison County's celebrated bridges, The Covered Bridges Byway takes travelers through two parks with a story of their own.

Pammel State Park was one of Iowa's first state parks.

Its distinctive natural features have drawn in visitors for nearly 100 years.

Lowry: This is a historic park with acres and acres of beautiful hickory and walnut woodlands, prairies.

Middle River goes through it.

The main feature of the park is the devil's backbone, which is a ridge that goes through the park that in some places is over a hundred feet tall.

The Harmon Tunnel, which is Iowa's only tunnel that a highway goes through, was carved out originally in 1858.

Kohlsdorf: Also centered around the water, Middle River Park provides opportunities for fishing and kayaking.

Or take a relaxing stroll along the serene Middle River.

Lowry: Middle River Park is another really special park that we maintain at the Madison County Conservation.

It's right south of Winterset, and it's about 70 acres nestled right in the woodlands.

We've got a wooden boardwalk that is handicap accessible for hiking, a shelter that you can rent.

Kohlsdorf: Clark Tower sits just north of the park.

Hike or drive through the dense woods to the limestone structure.

Climb to the top for a bird's eye view of the surrounding countryside.

Lowry: Next time you're in Madison County and you're driving around, looking at all of our historic covered bridges, you want to make sure that you get the entire Madison County experience.

These are gems of southern Iowa.

The rough, rugged topography just makes these parks very, very special.

You do not want to miss Pammel Park and Middle River Park.

If you're a road tripper who loves a charming town square and quaint storefronts, Winterset is the place for you.

One local woman has worked hard to preserve the history and culture and keep it at the center of this community, from folk art to the silver screen.

♪♪ ♪♪ Fons: A lot of people want to credit me with the existence of the Iowa Quilt Museum because I was involved with quilting at the national level.

But it actually was not my idea, and I always like to clarify that.

A couple in our town, they approached me about a quilt museum, and at that time, my focus was really on the national quilting scene, and I wasn't really looking for a local project.

But they planted the seed, and the next thing I knew I was inviting people to be on a board of directors for the Iowa Quilt Museum.

Kohlsdorf: Seated on the City square, the Iowa Quilt Museum creates a cozy home base for Winterset's quilting fame.

As many people know, I hosted with Liz Porter "Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting" on public television nationwide for 20 years with Liz and then also with my daughter.

Viewers' favorite segment is the tips segment.

And for all those episodes, I always said...

If you have a tip to send to us, you can mail it to...

So, millions of people heard of Winterset.

Now that the Quilt Museum is here, I think we're even more focused in people's minds as a place where quilters thrive.

Kohlsdorf: Opened in a former JC Penney store in 2016, the renovated space provides the perfect backdrop for quilts of all patterns.

The museum threads together America's quilting culture and heritage, displaying traditional and contemporary patchwork.

Thanks to a rotating collection, visitors will often find something new.

Our exhibition committee makes a real effort to have the exhibits be quite different, one to the next.

We have people that will pop in and go through the gallery in 15 or 20 minutes, and we have people that will spend two hours.

It's the type of museum where a person can gain something regardless of how much time they have.

My vision for the Iowa Quilt Museum, really from the get go, was to make it so that it would sort of hold up no matter who visited here.

Kohlsdorf: Down the street, another Winterset institution lights up the block as a result of Marianne's work in the community.

Fons: I don't think I would have gotten involved with the Iowa Theater had it not been for the Iowa Quilt Museum.

Here you are.

Thank you.

One thing sort of leads to another.

You're all set.

As we were about to open the Iowa Quilt Museum, our movie theater in Winterset, the theater where my children grew up going to movies, watching movies, where I watched movies, closed.

And I'm like, "Someone in the community needs to take the lead, and that person is me."

We purchased the building.

It was a two-year full gut and rehab.

This place was the biggest mess you ever saw.

Kohlsdorf: Madison County is a town steeped in movie magic, and The Iowa has captured that spirit since reopening in 2017.

The second-run theater shows films new and old.

It also hosts live performances and community events.

Even the city's beloved cowboy, John Wayne, with his Western adventures, gets time on the big screen.

Fons: When I'm at a movie night and I am sitting and watching as a shared experience with people that I know in my community, I just get the greatest feeling of joy on those nights.

♪♪ ♪♪ Kohlsdorf: For generations, the covered bridges of Madison County were a quaint symbol of local pride and unique engineering.

Then, in an instant, the small cluster of river crossings captivated readers across the country in the 1992 romance novel, "Bridges of Madison County," written by Robert James Waller.

Lair: Well, the Roseman Bridge, of course, played the major role, and I think one of the reasons that the author really liked that is because its name is kind of romantic.

Kohlsdorf: Oprah Winfrey loved the book so much that in 1993, she brought her television show to Winterset, broadcasting on location from the Cedar Bridge.

I was so moved by this sensuous story that today, we brought our entire show to the place where this romantic affair began.

Kohlsdorf: Waller's work became one of the most popular titles of the 20th century, with 60 million copies sold.

The following year, Clint Eastwood, Meryl Streep, and a Hollywood film crew arrived to capture the famous love story for the big screen.

Lair: The Cedar Bridge was in the book, but Clint Eastwood liked the Holliwell bridge.

So, he switched out and put in the Holliwell Bridge.

So, those two covered bridges plus one of the old stone bridges were in the movie.

Kohlsdorf: The film adaptation premiered in 1995, further catapulting Winterset and its bridges into national acclaim.

I would say it was an explosion of tourists coming to the county, and kind of it's a little nostalgic about it a little romantic.

There's all sorts of feelings about the bridges.

Kohlsdorf: These cultural icons are not without controversy.

The Cedar Bridge was destroyed by arson and rebuilt twice, most recently re-opening in 2019.

Today, the bridges rarely sit empty, drawing admirers from around the world to their hallowed grounds.

The walls of each are filled with names of couples circled in hearts, as Sharpied signatures from road trippers fade into carved memorials for lost friends.

Lair: I don't think there's any other place I could be in Central Iowa and meet people from many different countries, from all over the United States.

Just last week, I had a tourist from Mexico, from Canada, from Holland.

I even had a gal fly in from Brazil because she had seen the movie, and she called her son in California and said, "I have to see the bridges."

I'm here at the picturesque PepperHarrow Farm, located just south of Winterset on the bluffs above the Middle River Valley.

This 20-acre oasis offers farm-fresh flowers and also unique classes and events, the perfect destination for travelers.

♪♪ Adam, Jenn, thanks for having us at PepperHarrow Farm.

This place is beautiful.

You're from Iowa.

You're not from Iowa.

You grew up in the South.

Tell us how you got here and how this place was started.

Well, we'd like to say Adam made me move back to my hometown or he likes to tell people that.

It started with a dream.

Adam had a dream that he wanted to grow our own food and be self-sustaining and really do a farmstead somewhere.

We didn't know where that was going to be.

I brought Adam back, one Covered Bridge Festival, back to Winterset.

And it was the most beautiful fall day you could possibly imagine, and he's like, "I think we should move back to Winterset."

And here we are.

The rest is history.

Kohlsdorf: Where did this dream or love of flowers come from?

For me, a lot of my love for flowers came from my grandma and my mom.

I grew up gardening, and that's how I learned a lot about what I know how to do today and how I know how to grow flowers because I spent a lot of time in the garden with both of them.

Adam: Just this path leading towards having this farm, we just started to take steps in educating ourselves.

So, I became a master gardener and ended up working as a gardener professionally in Nashville for a time.

But when we came here, I came here with the intent of growing vegetables and getting some animals and planting some fruit trees.

But Jenn was the one who's like, "I'm going to grow a garden of flowers."

♪♪ Kohlsdorf: So, Adam, tell us a little bit about PepperHarrow Farm.

Give us the lay of the land here.

We grow flowers on about 8.5 of the 20 acres.

Lavender and dahlias are our biggest things that we grow here, but we grow all sorts of cut flowers and different things.

People are remarking all the time how amazing it smells out here.

This is just stunning.

It's beautiful.

Where we're standing now is a great vantage point of the property in general.

This is a very Instagrammable spot, isn't it?

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

[ Laughs ] And we Instagram the heck out of it.

So, yeah, we're not shy about sharing the beauty.

Kohlsdorf: There are many ways to experience PepperHarrow, from glamping to instructional classes.

Let's catch up with Jenn for a quick lesson on designing a bouquet of farm-fresh flowers.

Jenn, tell us about this beautiful space.

What is it?

This is our little event barn area.

We teach classes, and we hold events in this space.

This is where most of our bouquet-making happens, which is why we have these flowers here today.

So, a few of the little suggestions we have for putting together a bouquet is we like to start with the greenery.

Alright, well, should we get started?

So, you kind of lead me here.

Okay.

Absolutely.

I'm a novice at this.

So, let's start by grabbing three pieces of the greenery.

Okay.

So, we're going to grab that beau-- The spearmint?

Yep, grab that beautiful spearmint, and it's nice and full.

Let's pull off a few of these side branches.

So, if it does get a little too bushy, we can just pull off a few of the little sides.

Really, with the greenery, we're just building a little greenery nest for our bouquet.

Okay.

And then the next thing we'll do is pop in some focal flowers, and that is going to be these beautiful, large flowers over here and whichever ones really speak to you.

Okay, so, there's no, like, color combination that you necessarily have to worry about or think about.

I say you don't have to really worry about it.

If we do specific color combinations, we like to stick with three different colors.

And then we're going to fill in with some conical flowers, and some of those are over here.

It's just such a beautiful contrast, that purple with that orange.

And from there, we're going to fill in with a few little what we call sparkly elements.

Let's go ahead and put some of those conical flowers in there and kind of fill in a little bit.

I love those.

♪♪ This is really coming together.

Yeah.

And so when people come, they get to take this home, which is kind of nice -- they get to put it together, and then this is their keepsake.

What we have here is a bouquet bar experience.

We'll usually have a full bar of flowers set up on this table behind us.

So, there's a lot of opportunities to come out here and visit the farm, to put a bouquet together just like this.

And lastly, we're going to tuck in this beautiful celosia.

These are gorgeous.

Yeah.

And I just -- this orange color.

It looks so incredible.

It really is very eye-catching.

And that will be the last thing that will kind of finish off this beautiful bouquet.

Okay.

That looks perfect.

This is beautiful.

Jenn, thanks so much for having us out and showing us how to assemble a bouquet and showing off all the beautiful flowers that you have here.

Voila!

It's beautiful.

Thanks, Jenn.

You did a beautiful job.

Thank you.

♪♪ Kohlsdorf: The bridges of Madison County continue to endure as nostalgic landmarks and idyllic emblems of romance.

Travelers from around the world have made pilgrimages to this pastoral countryside to see these architectural relics up close.

The messages carved into the walls of each structure tell the stories of generations of visitors.

As the dust has settled on years gone by, the bridges are no longer asked to carry the weight of passing cars.

The shingled roofs have a new task -- now protecting the bonds of lovers, families, and friends that have left their mark on these symbolic structures.

Lair: I think there's a real romantic aura about the bridges.

A lot of second weddings or being proposed to.

There's just something romantic about that, and you look at most buildings, I mean, what's romantic about them?

But the covered bridges, I look at them, and I think they give you shelter in a blizzard, in a storm.

There's a warmth to them.

It's a safe place.

I just -- I just love them.

The Covered Bridges Scenic Byway is filled with quintessential American folklore, and it's still thriving today.

We celebrated an American icon at the John Wayne Birthplace Museum, explored revitalized attractions on Winterset's City Square, got an up-close look at the famed bridges of Madison County, and toured PepperHarrow, a flower farm that's bringing color to the community.

The Bridges of Madison County are some of the most iconic structures in our state.

So, make your own itinerary and come see them for yourself.

For more on the history, culture, and landscapes along Iowa's scenic byways, join us next time on "Road Trip Iowa."

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Woman: Kwik Star is proud to be a part of Iowa communities across the state.

Family owned for over 50 years, we're dedicated to treating our guests, employees, and communities as we would like to be treated.

Man: Musco Lighting is an Iowa company that travels across the U.S. and to more than 125 countries to light community recreation fields, stadiums, airports, monuments, and more.

While our reach is global, we're committed to our local communities.