The center also puts on Burlington’s Snake Alley Art Fair every June, a Father’s Day tradition for more than half a century, with more than 80 artists, live music, kids’ activities and live music.ĭeeply involved in the community, the center organizes art classes for a wide range of skills and for all ages. This is a place to discover local and regional talent at monthly exhibitions, while the store is loaded with unique work by artists and makers from the area. Art Center of Burlington Source: guruXOX / shutterstock Art GalleryĪ fixture of the local cultural scene since 1966, the Art Center of Burlington is located in the heart of downtown. The building’s fine original interior is also part of the joy, with a stunning leaded glass skylight illuminating a rotunda with an Italian mosaic floor.ħ. The Des Moines County Heritage Center Museum moved in straight away, and has three floors of compelling exhibits detailing thousands of years of history going back to the prehistoric Clovis culture. Crapo and served as the city’s main library building until 2006. In an Eclectic style, with a design inspired by a Renaissance Italian villa, the library project was funded by Philip M. Des Moines County Heritage Center Museum Source: Ian Poellet / Wikimedia | CC BY-SA 3.0 Des Moines County Heritage Center MuseumĪnother handsome building downtown is the former Burlington Public Library (1898), composed of dressed red sandstone blocks. There’s also a monument for Zebulon Pike’s landing in 1805. The arboretum here has more than 200 varieties of shrubs and trees, complemented by lovely display gardens bright with annuals and perennials.Ĭrapo Park is for easy walks and summer picnics, and is furnished with picnic shelters, a bandshell, an ornamental lake, a fountain and a cave commemorating Chief Black Hawk. Crapo, the park opened in 1895, in time for Burlington’s semi-centennial festivities. Named for the prominent local businessman and benefactor, Philip M. Pronounced “Kray-poh”, this elegant park and arboretum is on the National Register of Historic Places and rumored to be the site where the American flag was first raised on Iowan soil, in 1805. Crapo Park Source: Kiyah / shutterstock Crapo Park Over 273 feet, Snake Alley makes five half-curves and two quarter-curves, and is one-way, with all traffic heading downhill.ĥ. Snake Alley was the work of three German immigrants who were inspired by vineyard paths in Germany and France.Īn engineering marvel, the surface still has the same curved limestone curbing and locally-fired bricks that were laid down in 1894. The natural amphitheater enclosing downtown Burlington is a physical barrier that required a creative solution in the 1890s.Ī one-block section of N 6th Street was turned into “the most crooked Street in the US” to link downtown with an upscale residential neighborhood on Heritage Hill. Snake Alley Source: formulanone / Flickr | CC BY-SA Snake Alley Snake Alley as it’s known, is an attraction in its own right, with tighter turns than Lombard Street in San Francisco, and the site of events like an art fair in June. In 1894, Burlington became the home of the “most crooked street in the US”, built to overcome the sharp gradient between a residential neighborhood and the commercial district below. Burlington has a lot of fine brick architecture from this period, in a downtown area that is now enjoying a 21st-century revival. Laid out on the bluffs by the mighty Mississippi River, Burlington is at the spot where in 1805 explorer Zebulon Pike first raised the American flag on what would become Iowan soil.Ī century later the city was flourishing as a nexus point for river and rail transport networks.
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