The following article is the property of The Iowa Almanac and was posted with permission from the author, Professor Jeff Stein.
Recent Independence Days have been different in our state...because for the first time in almost 80 years, fireworks were again legal in Iowa in 2017. Fireworks had been legal in many neighboring states, but were not here. And that's in large part because of something that happened on June 27th, 1931.
The weather was hot even for an Iowa summer. The temperature in Spencer in northwest Iowa topped off at 97 degrees. And lack of recent rain made things dry, as well.
There was a large fireworks display in the front window of Bjornstad's Drugstore at the corner of Fourth and Main, downtown. A little boy took an interest in the display, which was not uncommon. What happened next was quite uncommon.
No one to this day is sure what happened, but somehow a lit sparkler was dropped on the fireworks display. That led to an explosion that literally set downtown Spencer on fire. The heat, drought, and high winds that day fanned the flames that consumed two and a half blocks of the business district. More than 50 buildings were soon reduced to rubble, with damage estimated at $1.2 million. Amazingly, no lives were lost.
A few years later, in 1938, the Iowa legislature banned the sale and private use of fireworks, a ban that remained in place until 2017.
When Spencer's business owners decided to rebuild, they opted for a theme of art deco and mission revival styles for most of the new buildings. As a result, Miami, Florida is the only city in the country with a larger art deco presence in its commercial buildings.
But it was hard to consider that when Spencer's downtown business district went up in flames due to fireworks, on this date in 1931.
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