Yeah!

[ Mid-tempo music plays ] Kohlsdorf: On this episode of "Road Trip Iowa," we travel down the northern portion of Iowa's picturesque Jefferson Highway... You've got the goats -- who are hungry.

...beginning near Mason City and ending north of Des Moines.

Tjarks: The boat is my happy place.

Really, in May, I start to get excited.

Kohlsdorf: This stretch of highway takes visitors on a cameraworthy drive past man-made and natural wonders of the Midwest.

Next on "Road Trip Iowa."

[ Vehicle passing ] 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.

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.

[ Up-tempo music plays ] [ Music continues ] Making a path through the center of the United States, the Jefferson Highway was born right here in the Hawkeye State when Iowa native Edwin Thomas Meredith pitched the idea in 1915.

In northern Iowa, the Jefferson Highway Heritage Byway highlights hidden treasures and distinctive scenery, from roadside diners to riverside bluffs.

Let's take a look at today's itinerary.

[ Mid-tempo music plays ] We'll visit a serene state park surrounded by farmland, float down the Iowa River in a double-decker pontoon, explore a section of Iowa's remnant prairie, and visit a café at the intersection of two famous highways.

But first we arrive in Mason City, home to a collection of Prairie School architecture, including the last remaining hotel designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

[ Mid-tempo music plays ] How did a town in northern Iowa become a Midwestern architectural mecca?

It began in the early 1900s, when the pioneering Prairie School architect Frank Lloyd Wright brought his distinct building style to Iowa.

Years before creating some of his most famous works, such as Fallingwater and the Guggenheim Museum, Wright was brought to Mason City to design a bank, law office, and hotel in the city square.

He is internationally recognized as one of the best American architects of the 20th century.

You don't have to live in Chicago to have a Wright building.

You can live in Mason City and see Wright buildings and experience his architecture.

And Iowa has, I think, eight or nine Wright structures around the state.

That's kind of exciting.

Kohlsdorf: In 1908, the Wright-designed Stockman House was built for Dr. George and Eleanor Stockman.

It tells us a lot about the early founders of our city.

Not only did they want to have structures, you know, environments to live in, but they wanted them to be beautiful.

They wanted them to say something about our community.

Kohlsdorf: The Park Inn Hotel and City National Bank was completed and opened to guests in 1910.

After years of disrepair and changes in ownership, the Park Inn was restored to its original design and now stands as the only hotel in operation designed by the iconic American architect.

[ Music continues ] While Wright's name may be familiar to road trippers, lesser-known designers followed him to Mason City to carry the torch of the Prairie School style in the first half of the 20th century.

Architects Walter Burley Griffin, Marion Mahony Griffin, and Barry Byrne contributed to what is now known as the Rock Crest-Rock Glen Historic District.

Centered around Mason City's Willow Creek, it is the largest collection of Prairie School-style homes in a single neighborhood, making it the perfect place to pull off the highway and take a look around.

Because it's around the creek, nature is encouraged to thrive here.

[ Music continues ] And it's amazing.

100 years later, it's still that way.

So people have respected that idea.

And it's visionary.

[ Music ends ] [ Mid-tempo music plays ] Kohlsdorf: Mason City's place in American culture is not only defined by architectural giant Frank Lloyd Wright.

The seat of Cerro Gordo County found its way onto radios and televisions across the country through the musical works of Meredith Willson.

Meredith Willson, who wrote "The Music Man," was born right here in Mason City.

This is his home.

This is the place where he based River City.

In the early 1900s, a lot of those references he made in "The Music Man" come straight from here, which is why we also celebrate him so much.

Kohlsdorf: Music Man Square was completed in 2002, honoring Willson's accomplishments.

The facility is home to a community center, rehearsal space, and museum.

Visitors step back in time to the 1912 streetscape, complete with storefronts from the musical.

[ Music continues ] Next door to Music Man Square sits Willson's boyhood home.

Meticulously restored to its original condition, it paints a picture of the musical prodigy's upbringing in Iowa.

In the very first parlor that you walk into, that's actually where Rosalie Willson taught piano.

She was the basis for Marian the Librarian.

We have some photos there of, actually, the boys, as I always refer to them when I give my tours, learning piano.

Music Man Square has always been here to celebrate Meredith and music.

It is a tribute to everything he has done.

[ Music ends ] [ Mid-tempo music plays ] Kohlsdorf: Thirty miles south of Mason City, Hampton is home to two plots of rural history -- the REA Power Plant Museum and the Franklin County Courthouse.

[ Music continues ] The Rural Electric Administration Power Plant Museum was the first plant west of the Mississippi River to generate electricity for rural areas, bringing power to the homes and barns of northern Iowa, beginning in 1938.

This was one of the first plants that was financed by the Rural Electric Administration.

In fact, it was the third one built.

Well, inside we've got the original motor and generator still installed.

We've got a bunch of appliances and stuff that was used before electricity, just to show people what life was like.

[ Music continues ] The Rural Electrification Administration totally revolutionized living out in the country.

Now they could get power.

Kohlsdorf: The Franklin County Courthouse, built in 1891, sits tall in the center of the city.

It's capped with a domed clock tower and statue of Lady Justice.

It's definitely iconic to Franklin County.

Kohlsdorf: If you stop in, county auditor Katie Flint will give you a tour.

The rotunda is the number-one thing that people like to see, with the Italian marble floor and the super-high ceilings.

I typically also take them up to the second floor, because in the '70s, when it was renovated, the third floor was added for the magistrate court.

[ Music continues ] You can still see the original woodwork of the super-tall windows and things like that.

This is actually the third courthouse that Franklin County has had.

The original one was on the southeast corner of the same property.

The second one was built in the exact same spot.

It was a two-story courthouse, but it was condemned after only 23 years.

And then this one was built, and it's been the courthouse ever since.

[ Music ends ] [ Down-tempo music plays ] Kohlsdorf: Surrounded by farmland, this unassuming state park in Franklin County offers an outdoor oasis for visitors to camp, fish, and hike.

Beeds Lake State Park actually is kind of a little hidden gem.

It's a little bit farther out, in more of an agricultural area.

If you want to just stop in and have a picnic or go for a walk around the lake on our trails, it's usually not very busy.

Kohlsdorf: The park was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s and opened in 1938.

The hand-built limestone dam is an often-photographed centerpiece of the park.

A trail leads hikers from the spillway to the base of the dam, where visitors can get an up-close look at the structure.

Doescher: We've got a 90-plus-acre lake that has really pretty good fishing.

People can almost always come and catch a crappie or bluegill or bass or catfish.

It's just a really nice, quiet little park to just decompress, especially after a long drive.

[ Music ends ] Nestled on the banks of the Iowa River, Iowa Falls lives up to its nickname as the Scenic City.

The Scenic City Empress Riverboat takes travelers deep into the river valley's natural beauty for some surprising views of north central Iowa.

[ Engine humming ] [ Down-tempo music plays ] Tjarks: The boat is my happy place.

Really, in May, I start to get excited.

I get to be on the water all day.

It looks different every day.

The trees are changing or there's more animals.

I have people ask me all the time if I ever get bored doing this.

There's no way you could.

[ Music continues ] The Empress, she was brought here in 1991 and sold to our board of directors.

So, we are a nonprofit -- 501(c)(3).

We can fit 50 total passengers.

Tjarks: Once we're away from the shore, you can go upstairs, downstairs, wherever you want, as long as you stay in the boat.

'Cause I'm wearing a white shirt and I don't want to go swimming.

Tjarks: Anyone is welcome to sit down below or up top.

Up top is open.

It's a double-decker pontoon boat.

Carpenter: Good morning, everybody.

Welcome aboard the Scenic City Empress.

My name is Mark.

I'll be your captain today.

We're gonna take you about a mile and a half up the beautiful Iowa River here in Iowa Falls, Iowa, and let you see the sights and sounds of the river and let you enjoy the beautiful foliage at this time of the year.

Carpenter: I would say it's our show boat of Iowa Falls.

This is the TMC boat.

It was built in 1987 in Poskin, Wisconsin.

It's 55 feet long, about 14 1/2 feet wide.

It does weigh in at 38,000 pounds, so it is very heavy.

Tjarks: I try to get the boat in by Memorial Day.

We say we can cruise from June to mid-October.

Carpenter: We do public cruises at 2:00 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

That's open to the general public.

We also have dinner cruises, and we actually have lunch cruises that are open to the public twice a month, sometimes three times.

Carpenter: We're currently on the Iowa River in Iowa Falls.

It starts near the Britt-Garner area and continues through Iowa Falls through Marshalltown, and eventually meets up with the Mississippi River.

Tjarks: People like the boat.

We have a lot of people that come back, even from out of town.

They'll come back, and next year they'll bring more family members or friends.

Everybody just thinks it's a neat, different thing to do in the middle of Iowa.

You can go to Dubuque and ride the riverboat there, or Clear Lake, and you've got the lake boat.

But here, it's different.

Carpenter: Kids love it 'cause they love to be on the water, love to be on the boat.

Some of the people that were formerly from Iowa Falls get on the boat and like to relive a little history and how much it's changed.

People from out of town can't believe where they're at.

And that's the neatest part.

We're supposed to be in the plains of Iowa, and they come out here with the trees and the bluffs and the cliffs and the waterfalls, and that's one thing that they really are kind of amazed.

Tjarks: We have a waterfall.

We have our swinging bridge.

There's a lot of different little things to see.

Carpenter: One of our unique features are limestone bluffs.

We're built on limestone here, which is a natural resource, and it's a river cut down through limestone.

It left these gorgeous bluffs with the trees that actually grow out of the limestone.

The foliage is amazing.

What you see as you progress upstream and back downstream completely changes from what you see from one end to the other.

[ Engine humming, water splashing ] Carpenter: Thank you for coming along and helping us keep our boat afloat and help us with our children's river education.

I hope you enjoyed your trip, and have a great day and safe travels and come back and see us again.

Carpenter: Iowa Falls has a lot to offer.

It's very beautiful.

It's very scenic.

It's kind of a hidden gem.

We love to get people on the boat because they can't believe what they see.

Tjarks: If you drive down the river road that goes right next to the river, it's not the same as seeing it from the boat and on the river.

[ Down-tempo music plays ] It's a whole different experience.

[ Birds chirping ] [ Mid-tempo music plays ] Bahr: The bridge is just beautiful.

The view is probably one of the best views in town.

I've had people that grew up here that are in their 80s bring their grandkids back and say, "This is where it all began."

[ Music continues ] Kohlsdorf: Swaying over the Iowa River, the Iowa Falls Swinging Bridge was first built in 1897.

For generations, locals have maintained and rebuilt the attraction as needed, including a full reconstruction in 1989.

From the end of Rocksylvania Avenue to Assembly Park, the suspension bridge provides a walking path with a view.

Visitors can watch birds and boats drift by the limestone bluffs lining the waterway's banks.

[ Music continues ] [ Birds chirping, squawking ] Bahr: We have pelicans come through, tons of geese.

The baby geese are just hatching right now.

People will go up and down the river on their pontoons.

It takes about an hour, hour and a half to go up and down if you're just kind of poking along.

What makes it unique is that we've had this walking bridge over 100 years.

It's just one of the nicest things in town.

[ Music ends ] [ Birds chirping ] Kohlsdorf: Further down the Jefferson Highway, west of Hubbard, tucked between the corn and beans, are two Hardin County parks preserving the natural beauty of Iowa.

Hubbard Prairie is a 48-acre native prairie.

[ Down-tempo music plays ] It's very unique in the diversity of prairie plants.

It's one of the best and last remnant prairies in Hardin County.

It has over 100 types of flowers.

Kohlsdorf: Visitors can wade through the prairie grass on a gravel trail that extends from Hubbard and comes to an end at the Meier Wildlife Refuge a little over a mile outside the city.

You can go out and stretch your legs, get a little walk in, and enjoy the wildflowers.

Kohlsdorf: The refuge sits on nearly 24 acres of land.

[ Birds chirping ] Carr: It's extremely peaceful.

You can see a lot of wildlife.

Even coming here this morning, it was just like... a breath of fresh air.

[ Music ends ] [ Birds chirping, insects buzzing ] Kohlsdorf: After a long day on the road, pull off in Colo for a century's worth of sustenance.

[ Mid-tempo music plays ] This spot in the center of Iowa... All right.

Got a tenderloin with applesauce.

Kohlsdorf: ...at the intersection of two transcontinental highways has greeted hungry commuters with a hot meal... ...for nearly 100 years.

Niland's Cafe serves café classics to road trippers and regulars alike.

Rich in history and flavor, there's something on the menu for everyone.

We do, like, hot beef, hot tenderloins, Phillies, of course cheeseburgers.

We do have steak on the menu -- ribeye, sirloin.

A lot of mashed potatoes and gravy.

A lot of pasta salad.

Just the local regular café stuff.

Kohlsdorf: The restaurant's walls are lined with photos and memorabilia telling the story of the classic roadside diner.

I've had people say they like the style of the, you know, '50s, '60s style that's still here.

And it hasn't been updated.

[ Laughs ] What can I grab you guys to drink?

Kohlsdorf: Home to more than just a lunch stop, the café sits on the Reed-Niland Corner between the Colo Motel... and Reed's Station.

This corner has served as an outpost for travelers since the creation of the Jefferson and Lincoln Highways in the early 1900s.

To the side is a gas station that they just recently redid and a museum that they've updated and cleaned up.

Then the motel is part of what I run on the other side of the buildings here.

There's six rooms there that are pretty much full all the time.

Kohlsdorf: Whether traveling coast to coast, north to south, or to the next town over, Niland's Cafe gives diners a taste of tradition out on the open road.

It's not like going to Des Moines, where you have all the traffic.

It's simple to get to.

It's quiet.

It's peaceful.

It's cute.

It's just kind of your own little slice of heaven, I guess.

[ Music ends ] We're just outside Cambridge at Center Grove Orchard, where they are in the business of fall fun.

In fact, it's so much fun, visitors might forget this is a working farm.

Let's go explore.

[ Mid-tempo music plays ] Operated by siblings Steven and Deanna Black, what started as an apple orchard has grown into something much bigger.

To really get to know this place, we have to go back to where it all began -- the apples.

All right, Deanna, we're here at your orchard, your family's orchard, which is massive.

This is part of -- one of the older trees, right?

It is.

When we first started planting trees in 1986, this is what it looked like.

This started as a smaller operation.

Can you tell us a little bit about the history?

We planted the trees in 1986.

In 1994, then we opened to the public, and my mom would be out there giving school tours with a small little hayrack and the kids.

She would leave a note on the table to customers coming up, saying, "Here's some apples.

Here's some jam.

Please make your own change."

And she had a bucket of change right there on the table.

[ Music continues ] Now our hayracks, they're bigger.

They can hold closer to, you know, 60, 70 people versus 30 or 40.

[ Music continues ] Well, Deanna, this place is so big.

Let's take a look at some of your newer trees.

Absolutely.

Sound good?

Okay.

Kohlsdorf: This is the newer part of your orchard.

Tell us about this new style of farming.

Yeah.

This is more of a trellis system.

People think of grapes when they think of trellis systems, right?

So the same thing now applies for apples, which makes it easier for us to pick, for our guests or consumers to pick as well.

So, we don't just grab the apples.

We lift, twist, and pull.

Okay.

So there's a strategy.

Yeah.

See how easy it came off?

Yeah.

Then you know it's ready.

'Cause if you pull down and the branch comes off with you, then you're breaking the branch.

And the branch also has next year's bud on it for next year's apple.

So that's what you tell the people who come out here to pick their own.

Absolutely.

And what kind is this?

This is a Jonathan apple.

What's it good for?

Jonathan is one of those all-around-favorite apples that people love to bake and love to eat.

Kohlsdorf: The Black family's orchard now features 34 types of apples grown from 6,000 trees on 20 acres of land.

[ Music continues ] Visitors can pick their own apples or buy them in Center Grove's country store.

Brooke, I would like to introduce you to our most popular item in the store -- cider doughnuts.

Uh, yum.

Okay.

Should I try it?

Absolutely.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

You can taste the apple.

Mm-hmm.

It's so good.

And you have lots of apple products here.

We do.

We will have grandma's apple butter, apple preserves, our caramel apples.

We actually make the caramel for the caramel apples.

Our cider slushies, cider shake-ups, all things apple -- apple crisp, apple pie -- everything made from scratch.

Yeah.

All homemade.

That's what makes you unique.

And this place is huge.

It's like a grocery store in here.

We want to make it seem authentic, because it is home grown, but yet make it accessible so strollers can get in and out, wheelchairs can get in and out.

That way, people of all ages can come out and shop.

Kohlsdorf: Beyond the doors unfolds an agricultural playground -- a corn pool to jump in... animals to pet... and apples to hurl... from a slingshot.

Yeah!

Okay!

I got his head.

All right, Deanna.

We've got a lot more than an orchard going on here.

There's a ton of activities.

We do.

We do.

Welcome to my playground.

This was my playground growing up.

So, growing up, I had a trampoline with my siblings and my friends.

We have jumping pillows.

Growing up, we went sledding.

We have a slide.

We have numerous slides.

Growing up, we had the animals, so we have -- You've got the goats -- who are hungry.

Yeah.

This is Jimmy.

Named after Jimmy Buffett.

So, bottle feeding is one of the experiences that you can do.

And yeah, everything out here, like I said, has some sort of relation to what we did growing up as kids.

Yeah.

So there's a purpose behind the play too.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And we just want people to come out and have fun and run and play and embrace the farm life.

[ Music continues ] Kohlsdorf: Now an icon of agritainment, the Black family has grown their apple business into an experience that honors life on the farm.

Center Grove Orchard is open the first weekend in September through the first weekend of November, with special events, like strawberry picking in late spring and holiday shopping at the country store through December.

[ Music ends ] From time-honored architecture to beautiful landscapes, Iowa's northern stretch of the Jefferson Highway Heritage Byway gives travelers a lot to see.

We visited the iconic Franklin County Courthouse in Hampton, swung over the Iowa River on Iowa Falls Swinging Bridge, tasted traditional café fare at Niland's Cafe in Colo, and picked apples at Center Grove Orchard in Cambridge.

There are so many stops in north central Iowa, so grab your camera and take your own trip down the Jefferson Highway.

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

[ Laughter ] We're not making any progress here.

Ugh!

No.

Man: That was worth it.

No, it really is not.

How much does this thing weigh?

No.

[ Music continues ] [ Music ends ] 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.

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.