Podcasts about fort dodge

Send us Fan MailThe wind that sweeps across the Kansas plains in early April is sharp enough to peel paint from the clapboard facades of Dodge City's Front Street, and it carries with it the names of men who once kept order with a Colt and a badge. On the morning Ed Masterson walked his final patrol, the temperature hovered just above freezing, the kind of chill that seeps into the bones and makes a man's hand slow on the draw. We follow the faint, crumbling trail of his remains, from the military orderlies at Fort Dodge to the tangled grass of Prairie Grove Cemetery, and finally to the neat, sun-bleached stones of Maple Grove. What begins as the echo of gunfire along the city's infamous deadline becomes a meticulous search for a vanished grave—a story of how the relentless sprawl of new streets and new ambitions can erase even the memory of a lawman's last stand.We walk the sawdust-strewn floors of Dodge's saloons, where the gaslight flickers against whiskey bottles and the air is thick with the scent of cheap tobacco. In the alley beside the Lady Gay Saloon, a single shot splits the night, and history hesitates: did Ed's bullet find Jack Wagner, or did Bat Masterson's steady hand decide the outcome? The records are as thin as the paper they're written on, and the ache of uncertainty lingers like the smell of gunpowder. As we search, we hear the faint voices of others lost to time—the gambler whose grave was moved when the railroad came through, the cowboy whose name was misspelled in the city ledger, the woman whose resting place now lies beneath a schoolhouse foundation. Each story presses the same question: when progress paves over the past, what debt do we owe to those whose bones lie beneath our feet?This is a story stitched together from brittle telegrams, faded burial ledgers, and the half-remembered tales of old-timers who still recall the sound of boots on boardwalks. We sift through the evidence—maps drawn in a surveyor's careful hand, the grainy print of a newspaper obituary, the hum of ground-penetrating radar tracing what lies beneath the sod. Ed Masterson's presence lingers, not as a specter but as a question: is a headstone merely a marker, or is it a covenant to remember those who once stood watch when the night was at its darkest? If the grave of a hero can vanish, so can the memory of any life. The task falls to us, the living, to decide how we honor the names that history nearly lets slip away.Support the showIf you'd like to buy one or more of our fully illustrated dime novel publications, you can click the link I've included. 

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Send us Fan MailIn August 1874, Colonel Nelson Miles launched an expedition from Fort Dodge into the Texas Panhandle to force hostile tribes onto reservations during the Red River War. His force—comprising eight cavalry companies, four infantry companies, and 37 scouts, including notable figures Bat Masterson and Billy Dixon—moved south across the Arkansas River. An advance detachment led by Lieutenant Frank Baldwin split off to scout toward Adobe Walls, where the scouts quickly engaged in sharp skirmishes with Native warriors, drove off an attack on a party of buffalo hunters, and tracked hostile trails deeper into the Canadian River country.The campaign escalated on August 30 when Baldwin's scouts were ambushed by hundreds of warriors entrenched along steep bluffs. Miles soon brought up the main column, deploying Gatling guns, artillery, and coordinated cavalry charges led by officers like Captain Adna Chaffee and Captain Tullius Tupper to dislodge the warriors from the heights. After a grueling 20-mile pursuit across the arid Staked Plains in punishing heat, Miles bivouacked his exhausted troops to await supplies, leaving Captain Wyllys Lyman's supply train wagon guard surrounded by Comanche forces near the Washita River.Continue the journey of The German Sisters: A Story of Survival with exclusive bonus chapters, in-depth historical profiles, and special companion podcast transcripts. Grab your copy online today at https://books.by/michael-d-king to discover the full frontier saga and directly support the production of future historical storytelling.Support the showIf you'd like to buy one or more of our fully illustrated dime novel publications, you can click the link I've included. 

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Send us Fan MailLieutenant Frank D. Baldwin led a ferocious, five-hour cavalry and infantry assault against a Cheyenne camp at McClellan Creek, sending the encampment into chaos as warriors mounted a desperate rearguard defense. Amid the gunfire and smoke, soldiers shot a warrior just before he could kill seven-year-old captive Julia German, discovering her hiding beneath a buffalo robe while her five-year-old sister, Adelaide, was found unharmed in a nearby dry wash. Hardened troopers were moved to tears by the young sisters' emaciated, bruised state and bloodied feet, immediately wrapping the girls in heavy overcoats, feeding them rations, and placing them in the care of field surgeon Dr. Junius L. Powell.Dr. Powell escorted the rescued sisters north across the frontier—traveling by ambulance to Camp Supply, where officers' wives nursed their wounds, and onward by train via Fort Dodge to Fort Leavenworth. Arriving at the headquarters of General John Pope on December 1, 1874, the girls finally reached safety, only to have the tragic fate of their family confirmed. General Pope revealed that infantrymen had discovered the burned remnants of the German family wagon along the Smoky Hill River, finding the bodies of their parents and siblings alongside an untouched family Bible that identified their kin and brought a somber close to their plains ordeal.Support the showIf you'd like to buy one or more of our fully illustrated dime novel publications, you can click the link I've included. 

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Jaap Koppedrayer is a legendary bowyer with more than three decades of experience. A native of the Netherlands, he lives in Georgia in the United States and grows bamboo for bowmaking on his farm. There he also hosts international archery gatherings and is renowned for his expertise in the yumi bows of Japan. Episode Links:https://www.facebook.com/jaap.koppedrayerProject Quiver at Anchor Point ExpeditionsSummaryIn this episode, Jaap shares his extensive knowledge of traditional Japanese archery, bow making, and bamboo cultivation, highlighting the cultural and technical aspects of these ancient arts. Discover the secrets behind the craftsmanship, the history of bows, and the philosophy that guides this timeless practice.Show Notes:History and tradition of Japanese archeryThe process of making Yumi bows and arrowsCultivation and selection of bamboo for bows and arrowsTechniques for flight shooting and long-distance archeryThe cultural significance of archery in Japan and ChinaThe mental and philosophical lessons from archery practiceThe impact of historical events on archery traditionsThe tools and tools used in bow makingChapters:00:00 - How Stefan Tim connects them01:09 - Why Jaap moved to Georgia to grow bamboo for bows04:19 - Hosting Japanese and Chinese archery programs04:47 - Building a 120-meter Japanese archery corridor07:58 - Choosing bow making over greenhouse work08:27 - First trip to Japan and meeting Kanjuro Shibata10:58 - The difference between Madake and Yadake bamboo12:37 - Why bamboo must age and cure for years13:46 - Bamboo farming challenges in Georgia's climate16:25 - Why Madake is ideal for Japanese bow backs17:35 - Making many bow styles before focusing on Kyoto archery18:13 - Early international horseback archery festivals19:10 - Chinese archery revival and making bows for China22:21 - Why horn bows take 3 to 5 years to finish23:26 - Flight shooting and training for precision26:34 - The challenge of lighter Yumi and very heavy bows27:19 - Feathers, sinew, and old-school materials sourcing28:41 - Going full-time in bow making in 198731:26 - Early Mongolian-style and horse bow work32:13 - Learning from Shibata by watching, not being lectured34:36 - Learning Japanese lacquer, Uru-shi35:54 - Ongoing relationship with the Shibata dojo and Kudo36:23 - The release technique used for flight shooting38:21 - Teaching bamboo arrow making through workshops40:49 - What a Yumi bow is made of42:10 - Rope, wedges, glue, and setting the bow's curve45:15 - Possible ancient roots and shared global techniques46:27 - Thoughts on the Silk Route and the spread of techniques47:36 - Reading Zen and the Art of Archery48:07 - Visiting dojos in Japan by bicycle with Yumi bows49:12 - A modern book comparison: The Archer by Paulo Coelho50:27 - Archery as a major part of Jaap's life, not just bow making51:48 - Japan, Turkey, China, and Korea rediscovering tradition52:17 - The Fort Dodge festival and international exchange54:39 - Lessons from bow making: humility, patience, and listening57:27 - Workshop tools: planers, belt sanders, rasps, and knives59:31 - No formal farm name, just “the bamboo farm”60:03 - The kind of students who come to train60:33 - Turkish archery and flight shooting workshops61:31 - The rural Georgia community that supports the program62:19 - What archery teaches about not taking life too seriously63:26 - Improvising with what you have and sharing knowledge at shoots64:41 - A funny flight shooting story involving arrows that came back66:52 - Looking at the bows in Jaap's workshop67:29 - Kay's writing work and the kitchen table shop68:53 - A life built around craft, people, and purpose69:19 - Future idea: focused conversations on specific bow types70:09 - Lucas Novotny and the old Turkish bow story72:21 - How to reach Jaap by email or phoneNotable quotesAction items

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Send us Fan MailStep beyond official military dispatches to uncover the harrowing, forgotten world of the 19th-century frontier wife. In late 1866, Isadore Bowman Douglass journeyed 240 freezing miles across the plains to Fort Dodge with three young children, weathering the brutal winter inside a damp sod dugout carved into the Arkansas River bank. Drawing directly from author Michael D. King's groundbreaking release, Isadore Douglas: A Voice from the Kansas Frontier, this episode illuminates her intimate letters detailing frontier isolation, rising Kiowa tensions, and her courageous battle against the lethal 1867 cholera epidemic before her tragic death at age twenty-six. Discover this essential historical account today. Secure your copy of Isadore Douglas: A Voice from the Kansas Frontier by Michael D. King online at books.by/michael-d-king .Support the showIf you'd like to buy one or more of our fully illustrated dime novel publications, you can click the link I've included. 

This week we welcome in General Manager of Wrestling Operations for Pro Wrestling Frenzy Alex McCarthy. Pro Wrestling Frenzy is Iowa's newest promotion that makes their debut on Saturday Sept 5th at Fort Frenzy in Fort Dodge, IA! Alex joins us to talk all about the new promotion! Follow Pro Wrestling Frenzy Facebook: [https://www.facebook.com/pwfrenzy](https://www.facebook.com/pwfrenzy)

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Night Listeners- We are back this week and its August! We got a brand new play from The Fabulous F Bombs from Fort Dodge. We did into some old tunes from When Bitter Spring Sleeps, Idolist and Druids. Cough n Flop - "Die (If You Want To)" (Quad Cities) The Fabulous F Bombs - "This is Hallucination" (Fort Dodge) Bat Problem - "Born to Rust" / Can't Pass By (Des Moines) Catholic Werewolves - "Emotional Sharigan" / You're Gonna Miss Everything Cool and Die Angry (Davenport) Blaster - "Slowdeath" / Power Trash (Davenport) Fungal Mass - "Butchered" / Psychedelic Poison (Wilton) Abscess - "Bloated Abscess" / Political Vomit (Des Moines) Space Burial - "Radiation Savior" / Meeting the Natives (Dubuque) Nebuleth - "Clandestine Infiltration" / AstroSailors (Cedar Rapids) Bongrider - "Pakalolo" / 2012 Demo (Iowa City) Druids - "Noise Forest, Ablaze" / Pray for Water (Des Moines) Idolist - "D'aoladeeb Rises" / Idolist (Marshalltown) Closet Witch - "Tick" / Yeah Yeah It's Closet Witch (Quad Cities) When Bitter Spring Sleeps - "Coven of Wolves" / Coven of Wolves (Cedar Rapids) Follow Iowa Basement Tapes on: InstagramFollow Kristian Day on: Instagram | Twitter (not doing much with it currently)Iowa Basement Tapes has its own archive of Iowa music. Be sure to check out iowabasementtapes.bandcamp.com and download any of the releases for free. If you would like to contribute any music please send an email to kristianday@gmail.com. BROADCAST SCHEDULEThursdays at 9PM on 98.9FM KFMG - Des MoinesFridays at 7PM on 89.7FM KRUI - Iowa CityWednesdays at 11PM on 90.3FM KWIT - Sioux CityWednesdays at 11PM on 90.7FM KOJI - OkobojiIf you miss the show please subscribe to the broadcast archives: https://apple.co/2MzdH5e

Readings from the Mason City Globe Gazette and Fort Dodge Messenger. The volunteer Voices of IRIS read newspapers aloud to keep over 11,000 blind and print disabled listeners informed and connected to their communities. Learn more at IowaRadioReading.org

Send us Fan MailImagine standing atop Pawnee Rock in May of 1872, looking out over the vast, windswept plains of Kansas. As far as the eye can see, the earth itself seems to move—a living, breathing ocean of dark fur and thunder.Welcome to The Wild West Podcast. Today, we invite you to travel alongside Colonel Richard Irving Dodge: soldier, keen naturalist, and eyewitness to the final, awe-inspiring days of the American frontier.In this episode, written and produced by Mike King and narrated by Brad Smalley, Colonel Dodge takes us into the heart of the Great Plains. You'll hear his firsthand account of standing above a staggering buffalo herd—an unbelievable spectacle spanning twenty-five miles wide and fifty miles deep—and feel the pulse-pounding terror of being caught in a sudden stampede of five thousand charging bison.This remarkable chapter of history unfolds just two months before Colonel Dodge would take command of Fort Dodge on the north banks of the Arkansas River, a mere five miles from where the legendary Dodge City was about to be born. At the time, Dodge was stationed at Fort Larned—a crucial outpost serving as a disbursement point for Indian annuities and a vital shield for the workers laying track for the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad.Step back in time with us to May 1872, and experience the frontier through the eyes of the man who lived it. Tune in now to The Wild West Podcast.Support the showIf you'd like to buy one or more of our fully illustrated dime novel publications, you can click the link I've included. 

Send us Fan MailJourney into the raw, untamed frontier of June 1872 with former buffalo hunter turned saloon owner George W. Brown. In this gripping episode, Brown details the chaotic birth of Buffalo City—a bustling boomtown sparked when a strict military ban on alcohol at Fort Dodge sent thirsty soldiers, hunters, and freight drivers searching for a new watering hole just beyond government lines. From makeshift tent bars and 25-cent whiskey shots to the rapid, wild rise of a frontier outpost, listen as history comes alive through firsthand accounts of ambition, lawlessness, and the men who built the Old West one wooden plank at a time.Expect high-stakes drama, authentic period storytelling, and an unfiltered look at true frontier grit. You'll hear how a military ban on whiskey sparked an entire town, how wagonloads of gamblers and dance hall girls transformed a desolate prairie, and how an explosive, bullet-riddled saloon shootout unfolded over a midnight feud. Whether you're a history buff or just love a compelling, cinematic story filled with larger-than-life characters, this episode offers an unforgettable front-row seat to the wildest days of the American West—hit play and tune in today!Support the showIf you'd like to buy one or more of our fully illustrated dime novel publications, you can click the link I've included. 

Way back in episode 147 we spent a full night in Van Meter, Iowa, where in the autumn of 1903 a winged, horned, glowing thing walked the rooftops at 1 a.m., shrugged off the town doctor's 5 shots and the banker's buckshot, and finally backed a whole armed posse down into an abandoned coal mine before vanishing for good. If you never heard it, or you want the full nightmare start to finish, go back and pull up 147. It's one of the best-documented cryptid cases in America, and it deserves the whole hour.But the Visitor is the freak case. It's the outlier.Tonight we park in the Hawkeye State for a different reason, because the thing Iowa actually reports, quietly, all over the map, for more than 100 years, isn't a winged devil. It's big and dark and covered in hair and it walks on 2 legs, and it's been hiding in the last place anybody'd think to look for it. We dig into the Lockridge Monster and the partially eaten turkeys that started it, the Skunk River Wildmen, a 13-year-old boy who watched one drink from the river with cupped hands, a turkey hunter who locked eyes with something in the morning fog, a bow hunter with 5 separate run-ins on his own land, a viral photo out of White Water Canyon, and a string of encounters from people who never told a soul, the mushroom hunters and the night fisherman and the farmer with a clump of coarse dark hair in his kitchen drawer.Then we take the long way home through the rest of Iowa's strange country, the cursed Black Angel of Oakland Cemetery, the Fort Dodge house whose builders invited the dead in on purpose, and the phantom cougars the state swears are gone and people keep right on seeing. As always, your host walks it through an evidence-first, flesh-and-blood lens, with the eye of a former lawman who spent years learning the difference between a man telling a story and a man telling you what happened to him. Have you experienced a Bigfoot sighting, Sasquatch encounter, Dogman experience, UFO sighting, or any unexplained cryptid or paranormal event deep in the woods? We want to hear your story.Email your encounter to brian@paranormalworldproductions.com for a chance to be featured on a future episode of Backwoods Bigfoot Stories.Backwoods Bigfoot Stories is a paranormal storytelling podcast featuring real Bigfoot encounters, Sasquatch sightings, Dogman reports, cryptid experiences, and true scary stories from the backwoods.Follow the show and turn on automatic downloads so you never miss a chilling encounter from the forest. Listen with the lights off… if you dare.

Artists Tommy Riefe and Lexa Walsh join me to discuss the New Museum expansion and show, New Humans: Memories of the Future curated by Massimiliano Gioni and Gary Carrion-Murayari. We discuss the success of the building itself and then move onto the show's major themes—the history of the human body as mediated by technology.    Additional Resources:  Tommy Riefe Lexa Walsh  The New Museum, New Humans: Memories of the Future Jeffrey Deitch, Post Human, 1992   Boris Groys, Art Power, 2008 Jason Farago, The New Museum Reopens Asking: “What is Human?”, 2026, The New York Times   Artist guests:  Tommy Riefe  Riefe earned his BFA in Art History and Sculpture from the University of Northern Iowa in 2014, and later received his MFA from the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis in 2017. He has been in numerous group exhibitions and has public sculptures in the collections of Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Ashburn, VA (2022) Fort Dodge, IA (2021) Lakewood, MN (2019), Iowa State University (2018), Minnesota State University (2018), Laneken, Belgium (2018), Cedar Falls, IA (2017) Rock Island, IL (2016), and Sioux City, IA (2016).   Lexa Walsh Lexa Walsh is an artist, cultural worker and experience maker.  With a background in both sculpture and social practice, Walsh makes site specific projects, exhibitions, publications and objects, using an array of materials including ceramics and textiles, employing social engagement, institutional critique, and radical hospitality to question hierarchies, power and value.   Walsh founded the experimental music and performance venue the Heinz Afterworld Lounge, and co-founded and conceived of the all women, all toy instrument ensemble Toychestra.  Walsh worked for many years as a curator and administrator at CESTA, an international art center in Czech republic, whose team created radical curatorial projects to foster cross-cultural understanding. She founded Oakland Stock & Soup for Social & Racial Justice, and the Bay Area Contemporary Art Archive. She is a graduate of Portland State Universitys Art & Social Practice MFA program and was Social Practice Artist in Residence in Portland Art Museums Education department. She was a recipient of Southern Exposures Alternative Exposure Award, the CEC Artslink Award, the Gunk Grant and was a de Young Artist Fellow. Walsh has participated in projects, exhibitions and performances at Apexart, di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, FOR-SITE, Grand Central Art Center, Kala Art Institute, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, NIAD, Oakland Museum of California, SFMOMA, Smack Mellon, Walker Art Center, Williams College Museum of Art, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and has done several international artist residencies, tours and projects in Europe and Asia.

Send us Fan MailMud, rain, and a riverbank so soft every step sinks, that's where Fort Dodge begins. We rewind to April 10, 1865, and follow Captain Henry Pearce and a tired group of soldiers as they plant a military post on the Arkansas River while most of the country's attention is fixed on the war's end in Virginia. This is Kansas frontier history at ground level, where “progress” sounds like shovels scraping clay and feels like cold water pooling on the floor.We talk through what the earliest Fort Dodge actually looks like: no stone walls, no neat pine barracks, not even easy access to wood. Instead, survival means digging shelters into the high riverbanks, creating cramped, damp rooms that smell of wet earth and wool. With spring storms rolling in, sickness and exhaustion become part of the daily routine, yet the garrison keeps watch because the stakes are bigger than any one soldier's comfort.The real power of this story is the geography. Fort Dodge sits where the Santa Fe Trail splits, one route tracking the river and another cutting into the uplands. That crossroads turns a miserable patch of mud into a strategic gateway to the Southwest, protecting wagon trains, supporting mail routes, and giving settlers a safer shot at moving west. We also connect these early choices to the long-term arc of the Great Plains, including the transportation networks and economic forces that help fuel the American cattle industry.If you care about Kansas history, the Santa Fe Trail, frontier military posts, or how the American West was built in small, gritty steps, this one's for you. Subscribe for more, share it with a history-loving friend, and leave a review telling us what detail stuck with you most.Support the showIf you'd like to buy one or more of our fully illustrated dime novel publications, you can click the link I've included.