Author: Lazette Gifford (SSC, USA)
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Photo location: Sioux City, USA
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Category: [discovery]  

Life in Siouxland (Bring your sense of humor)

Those of us who live in Siouxland might as well all face up to the truth: The Sioux City area is famous mostly because somebody died here. The only person to perish on the entire Lewis & Clark expedition chose the future site of our poor city for his final moments. I believe this careless behavior on his part has produced a negative impact on our town. Bad vibes, unfortunate karma -- something like that -- and naming half the region after him hasn't helped, either. Sgt. Floyd could have at least possessed a more interesting name. It's obvious this was entirely bad planning on his part and I hold Sgt. Floyd personally responsible for everything that's happened since.

Take, for instance, one of our most famous former buildings -- the Corn Palace. For the blissfully uninformed, the Corn Palace was a building constructed entirely of ears of corn. This innovative building style did not catch on. The constructions didn't seem to endure the ravages of Iowa weather (like a nice spring drizzle) for very long. The massive building was last rebuilt in the 1890's after which the expertise was -- thankfully -- lost.

Or we could discuss the old Combination Bridge and its stalwart replacement, the Memorial Bridge. The Combination Bridge spanned the Missouri River for nearly a hundred years, linking Sioux City and South Sioux City. Then, in the enlightened 1980's, someone decided the bridge was structurally unsound and needed replaced. Construction of the new bridge took two years. Once the Memorial Bridge was open, it took three attempts to dynamite the poor old Combination Bridge into submission.

A few weeks later officials closed the Memorial Bridge. They had found structural flaws in the metal support beams, all of which needed to be replaced. Repairs only took another nine months.

The bridge is now illuminated by bright blue lights... the locals generally call it the 'Smurf Bridge' these days. (See picture.)

I do not live in Sioux City, by the way. Sioux City is in Iowa. I live in South Sioux City, Nebraska. There is also North Sioux City, South Dakota. And not far away are Sioux Falls, Sioux Center, Sioux Valley, Sioux Rapids, The Little Sioux River, Big Sioux River...Lack of vocabulary appears to have been endemic to the area when the maps were made. This scarcity of diversification has led to understandable confusion. For instance, Iowa Beef Processors, a local meat packing plant, is located in Nebraska. We don't bother to ask why. It seems to make sense around here.

(Sgt. Floyd has a town, a stream, a road, a monument ... though he does not, apparently, have a grave. Maybe this is the problem? And possibly a first name might have helped as well...)

(He also has a boat on the river named after him -- though "on the river" isn't quite the proper description. The Sgt. Floyd is permanently docked. Well, docked isn't quite right, either. Beached seems more accurate. The boat is actually closer to the Interstate Highway than it is to the Missouri River. This can cause some consternation at 1AM.)

Ah, and let me tell you about the Missouri River. This is the longest river in the US, some 2,700 miles heading in a generally southern direction from Montana toward the Mississippi River in St. Louis. However, here, for no apparent reason, it decided to make a nice detour, west to east. So when trying to explain that South Sioux City is south of the Missouri River, people tend to think I'm nuts.

The river is also called the Muddy Mo. That should be about as much description as you need, or want, to know.

And then there's the wonderful local weather...

In January and February we have the Cold Snow Season, succeeded in March by Hey It Looks Like Spring, which is immediately followed by Late Snow Season. In April the snow gives way to Spring, which sometimes lasts as much as two or three weeks before we reach the Don't Those Clouds Look Odd Season. This one is usually overlapped with I’m Not Going Outside In That Heat And Humidity Season, and then it's October and Early Snow Season. Soon afterwards we have Winter.

The weather does not affect the most important aspects of Siouxland life. In South Sioux local customs center almost entirely around Husker Football, a cult to which I do not belong and am therefore considered a heretic. Home Games, played at the stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska, are always sell-out crowds. During such contests the stadium becomes the third largest population center in the state of Nebraska, topped only by Omaha and Lincoln itself.

There has been one attempt to guide Sioux City into a better, or at least better named, future. Our local airport changed from the Sioux City Airport to the Siouxland Gateway International Airport.

Unfortunately, this didn't help. The FAA's official designation is still SUX.

Other submissions by this author: :  Touching History  ::  When the wild things look in  ::  Winter  ::  The Amur Leopard  :

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