Anamosa, IA Summary

Anamosa lies 23 miles northeast of Cedar Rapids in Jones County, eastern Iowa, and has a population of 5,400. Known as the “Pumpkin Capital of Iowa,” it is one of 15 US sites for the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth Weigh-off. Via international conference calls to other sites throughout the US and Canada, the world’s heaviest pumpkin is selected annually. The world record is for a 923-pound beauty, in 1994. However, it is to the paintings of Iowa’s greatest artist, Grant Wood, that Anamosa and the nearby town of Stone City owe their fame. Born on a farm near Anamosa in 1891, Wood painted some of America’s most imaginative and original paintings of the 1930s, idealizing rural life in Iowa with iconic images of plain, small-town folk and conservative Midwestern values.

At the Grant Wood Tourism Center in Anamosa you can view a continuing exhibit of Grant Wood prints and photos from the original artists’ colony he founded in Stone City during the summers of 1932 and 1933.

Some original murals painted by Wood for the old Chieftain Hotel in Council Bluffs are on permanent loan. Guided bus tours of Stone City are by appointment.

The annual Grant Wood Art Festival on the second Sunday of June honors the artist and the legacy of the early Irish immigrants who settled in Stone City. Artists and entertainers from throughout the Midwest gather to exhibit their work amid replicas of the colorful wagons used as housing by some of the original 1930s students. Wood died in 1942 and he is buried at Riverside Cemetery, Anamosa.

Nearby Wapsipinicon Park was dedicated in 1923 and is one of Iowa’s oldest parks. Spectacular views can be had from its limestone bluffs that hide rocky staircases, crevices, and caves. Deer, beaver, and wild turkeys frequent the Wapsi and Dutch Creeks and surrounding forests and the park has 30 campsites.