This episode looks at some Council Bluffs mysteries that have lingered through the years, yet remain unexplained. Included are the 1977 UFO Crash at Big Lake Park, the gruesome 1926 Keeline murders at the site of today's St. Paul's Lutheran Church, the 1970 Cadillac S&S Medic Mark 1 ambulance in which 495 people died, the librarians' perpetual sitings of Julia Officer at the Carnegie Building and the unsupported staircase, and the legends surrounding the Ruth Anne Dodge Memorial, better known locally as the Black Angel.

For a comprehensive review of the Ruth Anne Dodge Memorial, from its planning and construction to the scandal that led to the aborted dedication ceremony we recommend the podcast "The Black Angel's Secret" https://accidentally-historic.simplecast.com/episodes/the-black-angels-secret

Questions, comments and suggestions for podcast guests or topics are always welcome! You can contact us at information@TheHistoricalSociety.org. The Society also has a YouTube channel you may enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2BijwKxeirRtL7QLnyfMzg

Seasonal haunted houses appeared on the local scene about fifty years ago, initially fund raisers for a variety of groups and causes. Youth For Christ, Campus Life, March of Dimes, the Jaycees, and the Historical Society were early participants. From church basements and abandoned buildings to semi truck trailers in parking lots, haunted houses proliferated by the 1980s. Generally staffed by youthful volunteers intent on making their particular character and their venue as scary as possible, the endeavor brought together imagination, creativity and theatrics to become something of an art form in its own right.

Safety standards imposed following a 1980s tragedy in New Jersey escalated costs, forcing some small players out of the business, to be replaced by commercial operators. The better financial position of the latter allowed for investment in more elaborate displays and equipment. This, coupled with technology developments of the past decade, have made the modern haunted houses in many ways quite different from their predecessors, but some tried-and-true techniques can always be counted on for a scare.

Haunted House historians Doug Kabourek and Brian Corey reminisce about Council Bluffs and Omaha’s early haunted houses, describe what makes a haunted house work, and discuss the allure they have had for young people and why that age demographic is expanding.

Doug Kabourek also maintains a website the chronicles the haunted houses of Council Bluffs and Omaha at www.WickedPlaza.com

Brian Corey hosts a horror movie, paranormal, and spooky podcast call Necronomicast at www.necronomicast.com

This installment finds Unit K/Mobile One being stationed ever closer to the perilous European front, with its attendant danger and devastation. For example, during this episode, in two different postings, Mobile One narrowly avoided being shelled. In a third, the hospital was situated so close to a gas-shell dump that an attack would have required personnel to don their gas masks in just seconds to escape serious harm. Along the way, this innovative group devised methods for performing operations safely during the approaching colder weather; and for doing surgeries at night, while still maintaining the cover of darkness. They also reconfigured a set of train cars to function essentially as a rolling hospital, capable of rapidly transporting large numbers of recovering soldiers further from the front. And on November 12, 1918, as Mobile One began arriving at the final French station covered in this installment, its personnel learned that the WWI armistice had become effective the day before.

Is the American West a physical place or the concept of interacting with the wilderness and taming the land? Better represented by John Wayne winning the West and settling down living happily ever after, or the later Clint Eastwood version of the West as a place of drunkards and violence? Or perhaps it was as captured by Blazing Saddles and City Slickers as a wildly bigoted and backwards place that is nothing to fondly be looked back upon? And how does the Council Bluffs/Omaha Metro fit into all of this? In this episode Ardennes Stolp provides some thought-provoking reflections on how to interpret the American West.

This is episode Four of the Invisible Excellence podcast series. It takes the listener right into the operating tents of the Army’s first ever battlefield hospital that actually moved long the front lines with the action– Council Bluffs’ Unit K/Mobile #1. The group’s leader, surgeon and former Council Bluffs mayor Donald Macrae, Jr., set the tone in his notes: “The shelling was begun about midnight, and the whine and explosion of the projectiles continued until after daylight.” This episode focusses on the unit’s first camps in France, the challenges they aced, and the dogged persistence and courage they employed that redefined battlefield medicine. Guest is writer/researcher Brian Mainwaring.

The tale of the Army’s first functional MASH unit, Council Bluffs’ Mobile 1 (aka Unit K) continues in this episode as writer/researcher Brian Mainwaring delves into the details of how the camps were set up, how they moved from battle to battle near the front lines, and some of the day-to-day challenges they endured including shortages of equipment, manpower, fuel, and safe drinking water.

If you have any questions or comments please email information@TheHistoricalSociety.org

Amelia Bloomer was born in New York but spent most of her adult life in Council Bluffs. Her name is associated with a garment worn by women and women’s rights, but there’s a lot more to the story than that. Amelia Bloomer dedicated her life to righting social wrongs, and when she arrived in Council Bluffs in 1855 she found a town that could very definitely benefit from her services. In this episode Dr. Warner talks with writer and researcher Sara Catterall about Amelia Bloomer’s very significant impact on social issues that included temperance, abolition, equal rights, and the 19th Amendment.

For more information about Sara Catterall’s book, “Amelia Bloomer: Amelia Bloomer: Journalist, Suffragist, Anti-Fashion Icon” go to https://beltpublishing.com/products/amelia-bloomer-journalist-suffragist-anti-fashion-icon

Our podcast guest, Sara, Catterall, is a writer with a Drama degree from NYU and an MLIS from Syracuse University. She was born in Ankara and grew up in South Minneapolis. She has worked as a librarian at Cornell University, as a reviewer and interviewer for Shelf Awareness, and as a professional book indexer. Her work has been published in the NEH’s Humanities magazine and The Sun magazine, and she co-authored Ottoman Dress and Design in the West: A Visual History of Cultural Exchange. She lives with her family near Ithaca, New York. The podcast was recorded via Zoom.