dsmWeekly - September 24, 2025

By Barbara Dietrich Boose

Rounding the gentle curves of Highway 141 west of Granger reveals a striking sight: a 130-foot-tall minaret and the gleaming golden dome of Es-Selam Mosque, home of the Islamic and Cultural Center Bosniak of Des Moines. The stunning structures rise from the verdant farm fields north of the highway, reflecting a growing religious community whose faith in the future is as strong as their faith in Allah. Their resilience and perseverance brought many of them from war and genocide in Bosnia to a place where they could not only find refuge but flourish.

Development of the 30-acre campus, which includes a picnic shelter, playground, soccer field, funeral home and cemetery, began more than 15 years ago and is now almost complete thanks to the hard work and contributions of mosque members, architects, contractors and Muslims from across Iowa and beyond.

This Saturday, the Islamic and Cultural Center Bosniak will celebrate its grand opening with a public event.

“Everything you see here was built out of the pockets of our members and the help of so many,” congregation president Elvedin Sivac said. “We are so grateful we received so much support to build this one-of-a-kind mosque.”

“This is our dream,” added Nermin Spahić, the center’s imam. “It has been a huge project for our small community, many of whom were fresh refugees.”

It’s a dream built on trust and collaboration. In Islamic finance, the concept of riba, often translated as “interest” or “usury,” is generally prohibited. Rather than take out loans to finance the purchase of the land and construction of the buildings, the congregation used donations of money, services and materials.

“We thought if we could collect even one dollar, that’s a step," Spahić said. "Trust was the foundation, built as people saw us invest their money in ways it’s supposed to be.”

Iowa is now home to the country's newest mosque and its oldest, which opened in Cedar Rapids in 1934.

Read the full story in the current issue of dsm magazine.

This year's Head of the Des Moines races start at 8:30 a.m. near the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden.

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Ready oar not, here comes the regatta

The Des Moines Rowing Club traces its origins to 1983, when city council member Ric Jorgensen decided the city should host a regatta. The first few events were choppy, but the annual Head of the Des Moines really took off in 1984 and 1985, when it “included a fairly rowdy kegger at the boathouse after the racing was done,” according to a colorful history posted on the club’s website.

Back then, crews charted their own route up the river, while those headed down to the starting line just tried to stay out of the way. “Those were wild and woolly days when it came to regatta safety, but no one got hurt, the crews did not crash (much) and not a single protest was filed.”

These days, the 3-mile race is a more orderly, officially sanctioned affair that draws dozens of teams from across the Midwest. This year’s HOTDM event runs from 8:30 a.m. to about 3:30 p.m. Saturday, when racers will row from the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden to Prospect Park.

The Week Ahead

Quilt Show, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, Iowa State Fairgrounds. The Des Moines Area Quilters Guild’s annual show features vendors, demonstrations and more than 700 quilts that represent a gazillion hours of creative labor.

Oktoberfest, 3 p.m.-midnight Friday and noon-midnight Saturday, at the District at Prairie Trail in Ankeny. The metro's second big celebration of all things German heads to a new spot in the 'burbs.

"Forward," 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Hoyt Sherman Place. Ballet Des Moines opens its new season with a triple bill featuring Tom Mattingly's setting of "Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini" and a pair of world premieres by Jennifer Archibald and the company's new artistic director, Eric Trope.

Latino Heritage Festival, 10:30 a.m.-11 p.m. Saturday and 10:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday, Western Gateway Park. Savor sights, sounds and flavors from Central and South America during the two-day fiesta.

Eric Church, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Casey's Center. The country star’s “Free the Machine Tour” features the Marcus King Band.

Des Moines Symphony, 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Des Moines Civic Center. The orchestra opens its 88th season (one for each key on a piano) with Tchaikovksy’s Fifth Symphony and Viet Cuong’s “Vital Sines,” featuring the Eighth Blackbird sextet.

Architecture awards: The Iowa Architectural Foundation recently bestowed its 2025 Community Enhancement Awards to EMC Insurance for it leadership in architecture and urban design, including the company's headquarters, skywalk connections and downtown pocket park; and to Mainframe Studios for transforming a once-windowless Brutalist building into the country's largest nonprofit creative workspace.

Art party: The new Revelry Room at the Renaissance Savery is hosting a reception on Oct. 2 for its first artist-in-residence, Stephanie Sieren. Her "Botanical Bloom" series of bright watercolors will remain on display through November.

Day of the Dead: The Des Moines Art Center hosts its annual Dia de los Muertos on Nov. 2, with music, dance performances, costumes, a film screening and a community ofrenda on display through Nov. 16. This year’s celebration is inspired by the concurrent exhibitions “Manuel Álvarez Bravo: Collaborations” and "Aliza Nisenbaum: Día de los Muertos.”

A related performance of the bilingual play “Sugar Skull!” is set for Nov. 8 as part of the Wellmark Family Series at the Des Moines Civic Center.

By Dave Elbert

Ulysses S. Grant was the first sitting president to visit Des Moines 150 years ago on a trip that included a controversial speech about education that some would still find contentious today.

Des Moines was barely two decades old when he arrived on Sept. 29, 1875, but the city already had a population of more than 15,000, which would more than triple in 15 years.

Grant’s train pulled in two blocks south of Iowa’s temporary, three-story brick statehouse, where lawmakers met for the first time in 1858. That building was already sinking into the soft ground, and the president probably noticed activity on a nearby hill where work on a permanent Capitol had begun two years earlier.

Grant came to town for a reunion of the Union Army of Tennessee, which he led to victory at Vicksburg in 1863, and which included many Iowa soldiers.

The president was nearing the end of his second term, and although his administration was rife with corruption, Grant remained personally popular.

During the day, he met with 2,500 children at Moore’s Opera House and was given a tour of the city, which presumably included the new three-story public school at Ninth and Mulberry streets.

His guide was judge Chester Cole, a public education advocate, and the president asked to return early to the judge’s home so he could jot down some thoughts.

“In only forty minutes, scribbling in pencil, Grant drafted a speech on the backs of envelopes and stray scraps of paper,” biographer Ron Chernow wrote in his 2017 book “Grant.” (Another Chernow biography inspired the musical “Hamilton.”)

At the time, Chernow noted, “some Protestants wanted to Christianize the country, and some Catholics lobbied for state funding for parochial schools.”

Chernow explained that Grant's speech made “a historic plea for public education and the need to save the nation’s classrooms from religious interference.”

In a published draft of the speech, Grant said: “In a Republic like ours … it is important that (the people) should possess intelligence. The free school is the promoter of that intelligence.”

The president urged Congress to “encourage free schools and resolve that not one dollar of money (be) appropriated … to the support of any sectarian school. … Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the Church and State forever separate.”

The speech sparked controversy that followed Grant, even after he left office.

After stepping down in 1877, Grant went on a world tour where he was received, for the most part, with great honors, except in Ireland where Catholic members of the Cork City Council, citing his Des Moines speech, voted to refuse to receive him as a guest of the city.

Later, when Grant arrived in Rome, Chernow wrote, Pope Leo XIII was kinder but also expressed concern that “Grant’s Des Moines speech on separating church and state had prevented Roman Catholic instruction in public schools.” The pope, however, added that he “admired the impartial way Grant applied his policy across all religious denominations.”

One footnote: Other presidents visited Iowa in its early days. Zachary Taylor and Abraham Lincoln both traveled here but did so before they were elected. Millard Fillmore visited Dubuque and Davenport in 1854, one year after he left office. Grant was the first sitting chief executive to visit Iowa and the first to set foot in Des Moines.

Dave Elbert has covered local history and Iowa business news for more than 40 years, first for the Des Moines Register and then the Business Record. Read more of Elbert's Backstories at dsmmagazine.com.