Iowa PBS is here for you.

Be here for Iowa PBS.

Donations from neighbors like you make all the difference and ensure a bright future for more programs like this.

Thank you.

♪♪ ♪♪ In Iowa's second largest community, a collection of structures tell a story dating back more than a century.

Join Iowa PBS as we journey inside the historic buildings of the City of Five Seasons, Cedar Rapids.

Stories of culture, history and grandeur intertwined with the structures that still remain.

A towering icon honoring veterans adorned with a golden flame.

The Veterans Memorial Building rests on an island in the Cedar River, its great hall a gathering place for generations resting near a towering stained glass work of art.

An historic mansion with a multi-generational story tracing from the railroads to meatpacking to steel and iron.

Brucemore Mansion rests among 26 serene acres and houses stories stretching from lions to love to preservation.

A legendary theatre rebuilt to its original glory, even after it was ravaged by floodwaters.

The Paramount Theatre in downtown Cedar Rapids began as a 1920's showcase for traveling performers, then a grand movie theatre, before its rebirth as an ambassador for the arts.

A museum chronicling rich immigrant heritage as the community's Czech Village embraces an ethos of struggle, determination and triumph.

The hometown work of an iconic American artist as Grant Wood's legacy and workplace are embedded alongside the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art.

And an historic Louis Sullivan Bank, finding new purposes in the 21st century.

Join us for an unparalleled tour of awe-inspiring art and architecture.

Historic Buildings of Iowa: Cedar Rapids.

Funding for Historic Buildings of Iowa: Cedar Rapids is provided by Friends, the Iowa PBS Foundation, as well as generations of families and friends who feel passionate about the programs they watch on Iowa PBS.

And by OPN Architects.

There's always a discovery period.

And whether that is really trying to find the documentation of the original building or doing your investigation, every building has a story and there's always a surprise.

♪♪ ♪♪ As you drive Interstate 380 through Cedar Rapids there is one monument that immediately grabs the eye, the Veterans Memorial Building eternal flame.

As your mind ponders its origin and significance, you might miss its equally curious foundation, a massive bow art structure resting on an island in the middle of the Cedar River.

This 100-year old, 8-story goliath is more than an eye-catching wonder, with its interior as intriguing as its exterior.

The Veterans Memorial is a literal linchpin in local history.

From its origin to its indelible stories to the flame shining above, all together they unfold many chapters in Cedar Rapids history.

Teri Van Dorston: I really don't know if there is anything else like this.

In 1925, when the funds were available to build a memorial structure in the United States such as this, there were two towns separated by the river.

One was Cedar Rapids and one was Kingston.

And Kingston was being annexed into Cedar Rapids and there was some bad feelings about that.

Teri Van Dorston: So, to bring all sides together they wanted the central location for City Hall where people would come to do their business, celebrate, have a community event.

So our address, in fact, is 50 Second Avenue Bridge.

The push to erect the building began in 1920 when Civil War, Spanish-American War and World War I veterans banded together lobbying state and local officials for the structure.

With a special measure written into the Iowa Code, military memorial structures could only be established through a special election.

So in 1925, voters passed a measure issuing a bond to start the construction making it the first memorial building in the state and making Cedar Rapids just the third city in the world to have its City Hall resting on an island.

Teri Van Dorston: Such an iconic time when it was built and they certainly don't build these like this anymore.

The architecture is amazing on the inside and very striking on the outside, it's memorable.

In 1925, 1926, 1927 the flame was not there yet.

So if you can visually take the flame away and look closely down, you will see a replica of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

There are no remains atop, however it does really evoke that reverence and memorial to our veterans of the past.

The Veterans Memorial Building is massive.

Measuring 8 stories, the facility includes an iconic stained glass window, a large basement, a picturesque ballroom as well as several offices and gathering spaces where governmental services and non-profits work.

But without question, the showstopper is the two-story Coliseum Ballroom.

Teri Van Dorston: The only word I can think of is awesome.

When you walk in here the space and the acoustics and just being in such a large historical venue.

For instance, we know Johnny Cash played on that stage.

Fats Domino played on that stage.

The Byrds.

This was it, this was crème de la crème for Cedar Rapids back in the day.

It's really exciting.

The Coliseum is also lined with history from the original 1920's stadium seating to the refinished maple flooring.

Also, during federal holidays or veterans events, the rafters commonly display seven flags representing different military organizations as well as seven American flags.

An inspiring site whether in use or standing idle.

The Coliseum is but one of the historic spaces available for public use.

♪♪ Teri Van Dorston: So when I give tours of the building, especially for facility rentals, I explain our three rental spaces as small, medium and large.

Small being the ballroom which overlooks I380 and the river.

It's gorgeous and historic.

Nowadays we find our bridal parties really prefer to have the ceremony up there and have an event in either the Coliseum or the Armory.

Teri Van Dorston: So the Armory, I call that our medium space.

The soldiers who enlisted from 1927 right up until about World War II would come here, get outfitted do some drills and then they got their orders, shipped out to Fort Des Moines or Camp Dodge for further instruction.

As incredible as the spaces of the Memorial Union are, they may not even be the biggest draws for visitors.

Resting just below the Civil War song inscription on the south entrance to the building is a one-of-a-kind stained glass window created by none other than Grant Wood.

Well before he assembled the 9,000 glass pieces into a 20x24 foot mural, a call was put out in 1926 for an artist interested in creating a memorial window.

Wood knew immediately he was the only person who should create the stained glass artwork.

Teri Van Dorston: Grant Wood was a World War I veteran himself and he was part of the American Legion.

So he knew about the funds available for a memorial art piece for the veterans of Cedar Rapids.

And he wrote this really charming letter to the commission about how he is basically the best artist for the job.

He is a local man.

He is a World War I veteran.

And the latter means the most because he can depict this the best.

♪♪ Teri Van Dorston: There is a lot of symbolism in the memorial window.

The middle figure, she is to represent the republic or America.

She is floating over six soldiers from the Great Wars that America had fought in so far.

So it is the American Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish-American War and World War I.

Our republic, also referred to as the Lady of Peace, she is holding palm branch of peace and a laurel wreath of victory.

Teri Van Dorston: If you look at the horseshoe, I call it, around the window there are insignia of the branches of the military that was active at that time.

So that is not to be missed, it's very special.

Following the Grant Wood memorial window's placement in 1928, the Veterans Memorial Building was completed.

For the next 80 years, the building saw uninterrupted use for city events, concerts, galas, military usage, tours, weddings and much more.

But come the historic floods of 2008, just as the rising waters took its toll on the rest of the city, the Veterans Memorial Building incurred a great amount of damage.

Teri Van Dorston: When the river peaked June 13th, 2008, everyone had been evacuated from the building and could not get back in.

So that was all of City Hall, everyone was evacuated, and couldn't get back in so things were sitting here rotting.

With the heat and the humidity and the water it was epic.

Teri Van Dorston: All of this was under water.

Rising to more than 31 feet, the Cedar River subsumed the entire basement of the Veterans Memorial Building with 14 inches of water rushing across the Coliseum floor and into the memorial window lobby.

Eventually the water receded, but the damage was done.

Walls rotted, the maple floor was ruined, and while Grant Wood's window was untouched by water, the atmospheric changes shocked the glass, cracking more than 150 pieces in the historic artwork.

Teri Van Dorston: What we're finding out now is that the building was built to be wet.

There are certain areas that take on water, it comes up and it recedes and those are our normal water events.

In 2008, it was epic.

Like much of the city, the Veterans Building recovered and repaired.

However, the devastation of the flood gave the city pause about housing all of its offices in one flood-prone building.

Teri Van Dorston: So, think of this.

The city grew from 1925 to 2008.

The city starts to fill every nook and cranny in the building because the city is growing but the island doesn't grow, the building doesn't grow.

So we do have two city departments here right now, the Civil Rights Commission and the Veterans Memorial Commission.

All the other city departments, for now, are in new City Hall and spread out throughout Cedar Rapids, which really makes sense for all the services that we provide today.

Still, there has been one relatively new addition that has sparked interest.

Placed at the peak of the South Tower in the year 2000, the eternal flame is a recreation of the Statue of Liberty's torch.

And for years the flame had been something of a local legend, that is until it became a cherished monument.

Teri Van Dorston: It was inspired by a Boy Scout project from the 1950s.

Scouts wanted to see an eternal flame on the Veterans Memorial Building and so they rigged up a steam pipe that flickered light that looked like a flame and people in Cedar Rapids loved it.

They remembered it all through those decades up to the point in 2000 when the Commission had a permanent one installed.

While relatively new to the facility, the flame represents nearly a century of history flowing through the Veterans Memorial Building.

And many Iowans have their own memories that connect them to this historic building.

Teri Van Dorston: One time I was giving a tour and one of the visitors piped up and said, well I saw Johnny Cash here.

And then I just about fell over.

Do you have tickets?

Do you have any memorabilia?

Just her memories.

And that's really it, the memories of this building carry on.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ East of Downtown Cedar Rapids and set in one of the community's most serene neighborhoods lies a mansion of historic significance.

♪♪ A touchstone to multiple generations and multiple families that have all called Brucemore their home.

♪♪ David Janssen: The estate was the home for three generations of Eastern Iowa leaders.

It began in the 1880s with Mrs. Sinclair followed by the Douglas family at the turn of the century and then Howard and Margaret Hall from 1937 to 1981.

The history of the site really parallels the growth, the economic growth and cultural growth and social growth of Iowa throughout the previous two centuries.

♪♪ ♪♪ It is a story that begins with a meatpacking empire along the Cedar River in the late 1800s.

David Janssen: Thomas and Caroline Sinclair moved to Cedar Rapids and Thomas set up one of the largest meatpacking plants in the world here in Cedar Rapids.

♪♪ David Janssen: Tragically he died in an accident in his plant in 1881 and that left his widow Caroline with six children.

She chose to build here in Cedar Rapids and built this home to raise their young children.

♪♪ Brucemore truly began its journey in 1884 when Caroline Sinclair purchased these 10 acres of land east of Downtown Cedar Rapids.

♪♪ She desired a remote retreat for her family away from the hustle and bustle of city life.

♪♪ She conceived a grand Queen Anne style mansion at the head of a long, sweeping great lawn at a late 1800s price tag of $55,000.

♪♪ Caroline Sinclair inhabited what was then called Fairhome for the better part of two decades before changing hands for the next chapter of this estate.

♪♪ David Janssen: She traded homes in 1906 with George and Irene Douglas, a younger family, he heir to the Quaker Oats fortune and a businessman and entrepreneur in his own right.

And the estate really flourished under the ownership of the Douglas'.

♪♪ David Janssen: They turned it into a broader estate, a country estate.

They added the gardens and the landscaping by O.C.

Simonds to include duck ponds and timber.

And they used it as a place to raise their three daughters.

♪♪ ♪♪ David Janssen: Surrounding the great hall in the main entrance of the mansion, the Douglas family, Mrs. Douglas had a mural painted around the frieze of the Great Hall.

It depicts scenes from Wagner's Ring Cycle and it tells the story of that opera in little vignettes.

Next to that mural is the Skinner Player pipe organ that Mrs. Douglas installed in 1929 and it is notable that it is a Player Skinner organ.

It is a massive instrument.

It runs three floors of the house with the pipes being on the third floor.

But they had in their collection Player rolls that could play the very opera that was being illustrated in the frieze.

♪ (organ music) ♪ ♪ (organ music) ♪ The Douglas family rapidly expanded the greater estate of Brucemore -- ♪♪ -- as a large garden was established.

More than a century later, the gardens are still maintained for visitors -- ♪♪ -- complete with walking paths and the same serenity the Douglas family experienced so long ago -- ♪♪ ♪♪ -- all while resting in largely the same footprint as the original garden from the early 20th century.

♪♪ ♪♪ Throughout the Douglas' ownership, additional structures were built for staff quarters as the burgeoning estate spread throughout what would become a 26-acre property.

♪♪ The family's wealth was on full display, even as they were one of few Iowa families to be filmed with moving images in the early 1900s.

♪♪ Brucemore still owns the original film of an aristocratic family dressed up in front of one of the state's most famous homes.

♪♪ ♪♪ And more footage of friends and family gathering for a meal generations ago, when few Americans had their daily lives documented by moving images.

♪♪ ♪♪ David Janssen: And then finally when George died in 1923 and Irene died in 1937, she left the home to her eldest daughter, Margaret Douglas, who had married Howard Hall in 1924.

So Howard Hall and Margaret Hall lived here for the balance of their lives.

♪♪ The Douglas family's prized possession, Brucemore Mansion and Grounds, would stay within the family for the next generation and introduce an historic modernization of both form and fashion.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Howard Hall had married into the Douglas family and later became a full-time resident of Brucemore.

But he kept the tradition of business ownership well into the 20th century.

Hall & Partners had a controlling interest in Iowa Steel & Iron Works and later Iowa Manufacturing.

Hall's business boomed as Iowa roads required rock crushing in the 1920s, America needed steel workers during World War II and a post-war effort to expand the Federal Highway System further fattened the company's bottom line.

♪♪ But Howard Hall and his wife Margaret Douglas-Hall lived an extravagant, globetrotting life and cherished their beloved Brucemore as they filled the estate grounds with German Shepherds and a pet lion named Leo.

He was a descendent of the famed MGM roaring lion of movie opening fame, making Leo an eccentric addition to Brucemore and one of the many aspects of the Hall's life documented with 23,000 feet of home movie film.

♪♪ Their beloved pets, including the lion, were buried on the estate near statues of a German Shepherd and not far from nearby wildlife.

♪♪ Howard was known for brushes with the rich and famous, including appearing behind-the-scenes on the groundbreaking motion picture Gone with the Wind.

One of the lasting legacies at Brucemore is what would be referred to today as a mancave.

As you descend into the mansion's basement, you are enveloped by a lavish mid-century Tahitian theme, a contrast with the building's Queen Anne style.

♪♪ David Janssen: When you go into the basement you're shifted immediately into that little time capsule.

So, what is nice about that is that the house isn't frozen in any particular time, it's not frozen in one particular era.

We can see examples of this change over time and we can see evidence of the people who lived here.

And it's important to point out that it is evidence of not only the owners, but of the staff, of the workers, the people who lived in the mansion or lived on the estate and made all of this lifestyle possible.

So we spend a lot of time talking about their stories as well.

♪♪ After a life lived as an Eastern Iowa business titan, Howard Hall would pass away in 1971.

His wife, Margaret Douglas-Hall, would follow 10 years later and donate the home and surrounding grounds for historic preservation.

David Janssen: All of the families really who lived here were intense philanthropic supporters of Eastern Iowa.

They were industrial leaders, they were cultural leaders.

And Mrs. Hall and Mr. Hall didn't have any children and it was her wish that her estate, her family home, the place that she had lived since she was 11, that it be used for the benefit of Iowans.

And so in her will, she left the ownership of the property to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a non-profit organization in D.C. that owns 27 properties in the United States and we're the only one in Iowa.

David Janssen: So, Brucemore Incorporated, the non-profit local organization for which we work, operates and preserves the estate in close stewardship with the National Trust and we have been doing that since 1981.

♪♪ Brucemore's story traces the early history of Iowa within the walls of a 21-room, 4-story Queen Anne style mansion handed off between three sets of owners.

David Janssen: Mr. Sinclair, whose fortune paid for the mansion, immigrated to the United States from Ireland, came to Cedar Rapids because of the railroads finally connecting the Midwest to the East Coast.

That is what started this economic development and Brucemore is a result of that.

And every step of the way shifting from meat processing to grains and agribusiness to heavy industry with Mr. Hall, our story parallels the economic growth of the region and of the state.

♪♪ Today, Brucemore is known as a showcase for the arts, music and theatre.

And the mansion is annually decorated for the holidays both inside and out.

A celebration of history, art, architecture and sprawling beauty all dating back more than a century.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ At the southern edge of Downtown Cedar Rapids rests the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library, a local crown jewel to anyone of Czechoslovakian heritage.

But its visitors will quickly find its modern inspiration rests right outside its doors in the Czech Village.

Still, without the Czech and Slovak people immigrating to the area, carrying their history and culture with them, neither the Museum nor the Czech Village would exist.

♪♪ Cecillia Rokusek: Czechs that came to America primarily settled in the Midwest but a lot of them came to Ohio, they came to Chicago or Illinois, they came to Iowa, a lot came to Iowa.

♪♪ Cecillia Rokusek: So the Czechs really kind of settled in the Midwest and down South, a little bit to Texas, a lot of them in Texas.

The Slovaks on the other hand went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania overall, they went to Cleveland, a lot of them in Cleveland and some went to Chicago.

So you had a different sort of migration pattern.

And so we are bringing it all together here.

Like all immigrants, the Czech and Slovak people were searching for a better life.

With early 20th century Cedar Rapids offering practically boundless opportunities in farming and factory work, the Czech and Slovak people quickly recreated a bit of the old country in a young Iowa town with plenty of open space.

Cecillia Rokusek: I like to think of this part of Cedar Rapids, Iowa as a bit of Central Europe because we have Czech Village, which one could call Old Town, we call that staré námstí.

You can then go to New Town, which is NewBo or nové námstí.

And usually the museum is at the center of the town.

If you go to Prague and you're on Wenceslas Square you see the National Museum right as you look down that big square.

And when the Czech pioneers came here in the late 1800s and early 1900s they envisioned a community of Czech settlers.

(bells ringing) (bells ringing) Cecillia Rokusek: So they came to Czech Village and they had their own businesses, they had their own bank, they had everything.

And because almost 30% of the population in Cedar Rapids in the early 1900s was Czech, they came together and said, we need a place that will preserve the past, celebrate the present and create the future.

And thus we have our museum that we have today.

After two decades of grassroots organizing and volunteer efforts, the Museum and Library was opened and dedicated in 1995 with a ceremony featuring the sitting Presidents of Czechia, Slovakia and the United States.

With visitors from across the nation, more than 10,000 people watched history be made as the museum opened its doors.

Cecillia Rokusek: I always say we have three periods.

We have our founding, we have our dedication, which was a joyous time and we had this national phenomenon here in Cedar Rapids, but then the flood of 2008 came and we found ourselves with 10 feet of water in the museum down below us here.

And now we're on this what I call 2020 phase, which is really expanding more nationally and internationally.

Following a long recovery effort, the museum was able to rebuild and prosper.

But the immediate effects of the historic flood were devastating to the entire city.

Cecillia Rokusek: It was really I call it a three-phased disaster.

The building was affected, our artifacts were affected and people's spirits were challenged because not only did they have to deal with this museum, but when I spoke about the Czech Village and Newbo area that was all under water and many buildings were lost and many buildings were destroyed and businesses.

David Muhlena: We had a couple of days lead time fortunately.

So we were able to act.

We had a disaster plan and so we used it.

Cecillia Rokusek: As you walked into our Grand Hall you saw the chandelier.

The water was up to the chandelier.

They were able to move out some materials, but everything else was pretty much under water.

David Muhlena: At that point the museum was in the river, it was part of the river.

So when we were able to get into it many of the materials were caked in mud and rendered unusable.

Cecillia Rokusek: So, not only did we have to rebuild the museum and move it to higher ground, but the whole community had to rebound.

And actually it has I think become even bigger and stronger.

What began as a humble volunteer effort in the 1970s has blossomed into an internationally respected and professionally curated museum.

While the nations of Czechia and Slovakia may have dissolved their joint boundary of Czechoslovakia in 1993, the culture of their people is still very much woven together.

Their collective story and the journey to bring it to America is actually the first thing visitors encounter in the museum's permanent gallery.

Cecillia Rokusek: As you walk in, the first thing you hear in our permanent gallery is the voices of freedom, which are the immigrant stories, the voice about their struggles, about their challenges and about their successes of coming from either the Czech or Slovak Republic to America.

And we have over 200 different recordings that you can hear throughout that exhibit.

From there visitors can go as deep as they want into Czechoslovakian history from the country's inception in World War I to its mutual separation with the Velvet Revolution in the 1980s and '90s.

Beyond history, the gallery is home to some priceless artifacts, including a rare Tatra car, displays on traditional food and music and an interactive immigrant experience where visitors are only allowed to pack a single suitcase before boarding an ocean liner to the United States.

But perhaps the most celebrated exhibit is the showcase of traditional Czech and Slovak kroje.

Cecillia Rokusek: We have probably one of the largest artifact collections of kroje in the country.

Kroje is what we traditionally wear for celebrations and in the olden days they wore it to church.

And so we have a revolving exhibit of kroje, which changes throughout the year.

And we really encourage people to make sure if they are cleaning out their parents' or grandparents' or great-grandparents' homes, we want you to contact us so that we can continue to build our collection.

♪♪ In total, the museum has four galleries with three rotating exhibits throughout the year.

But for serious historians and students, the library may be the facility's main draw.

Since the Czech Heritage Foundation formed in 1974, the library has been considered paramount to its mission.

David Muhlena: Those founders believe that not only culture and history is maintained in the form of artifacts and such, but also in the materials that they read and produced.

So very early on we have been collecting library type materials in the form of books, periodicals and non-book materials like photographs and letters, also phonograph records and sheet music and that sort of thing.

The Museum and Library is designed to give guests a full picture of Czech and Slovak history and heritage, be it in the galleries or library and even the building itself.

Cecillia Rokusek: The building was designed to be reminiscent really of Prague.

When you go to Prague and stand on Charles Bridge you look around the city and you see all of these red roofs.

We have a red roof.

And if you go outside you'll see we have the clock tower and that clock tower is very reminiscent of Prague.

♪♪ Cecillia Rokusek: And with the steeples and then the peaks.

♪♪ Cecillia Rokusek: Certainly we added the steps after the flood.

But very reminiscent of what you would see in Prague.

♪♪ From the two neighborhoods to the building to all of the materials available in the museum and library, people of Czech and Slovak descent will find affinity the moment they set foot in any part of the area.

However, the museum and library curators are proud of how easily their content crosses over into general interest, enriching the lives of anyone who comes to visit.

David Muhlena: We tend to offer exhibits that certainly have Czech or Slovak content, but are more universal in their themes.

We do have a very specific Czech and Slovak focus though there are topics that are broader such as World War I or World War II, the Communist era.

Cecillia Rokusek: I see a lot of younger generations that forget their culture.

And it's so important that we connect no matter what your culture is and that is what we hope happens here, that you don't have to be Czech or Slovak to come here, but we hope that by coming here it will connect you to your culture.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Tucked into the streets of downtown Cedar Rapids rests a hall of extravagance, history and cultural significance.

The Paramount Theatre, one of Iowa's grandest halls, has been a gathering spot for nearly a century.

♪♪ Jason Anderson: It was the grandest of them all.

It was the biggest house in Cedar Rapids.

And it was meant for just that elegance, the colors throughout the theatre, those golds and those reds, those vibrant colors.

♪♪ ♪♪ Jason Anderson: Paramount Theatre opened on September 1st of 1928 as the Capital Theatre.

It was the host to even back then all of the road shows, the comedians or the traveling performers.

The Paramount has always been kind of more of what we consider the road show house.

♪♪ The grandiose hall was built in a 1920s era of extravagant buildings and to showcase arts and entertainment to a growing citizenry, including the burgeoning industry of motion pictures.

Jason Anderson: Just over a year later, Paramount Pictures actually came in and purchased the building.

So it has been the Paramount Theatre since 1929.

Obviously with Paramount Pictures the focus changed very much into a movie theatre.

It was the main focus for the building through the '70s was to play motion pictures.

♪♪ Today, the Paramount is one of only 300 movie palaces left in the United States.

And the Cedar Rapids locale is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Jason Anderson: I always joke with kind of the kids groups that come in because for 50 years this is where you came to just watch a movie.

And when I think of the kids going to a movie now, you know, they're going to the latest Trolls movie or whatever it might be, and they are in their t-shirts and dirty shorts, where people would come to a movie here and it was top hats and ball gowns and just a completely different atmosphere and feeling that you would come for date night at the Paramount back in the '50s and '60s even.

In the 1970's, the aging theatre was gifted to the city of Cedar Rapids and fund drives were started to renovate the structure.

♪♪ Jason Anderson: And then roughly in the mid-'70s the building was purchased by the city, essentially kind of gifted to the city.

And then it became the home of Orchestra Iowa and kind of turned it back into its original concept where we are hosting Broadway productions.

More renovations were undertaken in the early 2000s.

But nothing would compare to the challenges that came next, the historic Iowa floods of 2008.

The nearby Cedar River crested well over flood stage in summer of 2008, overwhelming levees and flowing into Downtown Cedar Rapids.

Only blocks from the Cedar River, the Paramount Theatre was inundated by flood water, its main hall filled with muck and debris, with water damage seeping into the historic architecture.

♪♪ Jason Anderson: The 2008 flood completely devastated this building.

We are sitting on the stage here.

We had 10 foot of flood water where we sit, 8 foot of flood water on the main floor, the main entrance, the Hall of Mirrors.

These first rows of seats behind me you're talking 13 feet of flood water.

So it really completely devastated the building.

♪♪ All told, repairs would cost more than $16 million dollars at Paramount Theatre alone.

The City of Cedar Rapids assembled a dedicated team to start a litany of objectives, restore the facility to operational condition, enhance the patron experience and the stage house function, minimize impact of future flooding on the structure and respect the Paramount's historic integrity, a tall task for city decision makers that could have opted to tear down the 1920s building and start fresh.

♪♪ Jason Anderson: If you walked in today it really doesn't look any different than it did in the 60s and the 70s.

And the city I absolutely commend what they did to not just abandon the Paramount, go build a super fancy, modern -- because what they spent on the Paramount you probably could build a pretty fancy modern theatre.

But you could never rebuild the Paramount Theatre like this, that grandeur.

♪♪ During the repairs, experts analyzed the color and composition of historic paint and plaster to formulate new finishes utilizing an original color scheme.

After discovering small sections of the Paramount's 1920's carpet, designers crafted new material to mimic the pattern and color scheme of the original.

♪♪ Jason Anderson: They found a piece of carpet that was wrapped around a steel beam up in the attic.

And they took that carpet and they cleaned it up and they analyzed it to get the exact pattern that was on there.

It is essentially a cream colored carpet that they dye and stain in that fabric.

The seats, there was a lady that had a pillow that was made out of the original seat fabric.

So they were able to take that and get that exact same leafing.

So tons of different little components that they went into to rebuild the Paramount.

♪♪ Jason Anderson: We have all new seats and the seat configuration is completely different.

There's more hip room and more leg room.

So all of the seats on the main floor have come up to modern day standards.

In the 1920s we were all much smaller folk.

Today, the Paramount is better than ever before.

Its back hallway filled with the signatures of touring acts that have visited the renovated structure.

Some passageways still contain the historic artifacts and equipment from the early 20th century that brought life and movies to Cedar Rapids for the first time.

♪♪ The main entrance of Paramount is the Hall of Mirrors modeled after a famous French icon and restored since the historic floods.

Jason Anderson: So, the Hall of Mirrors is modeled after the Palace of Versailles in France.

That is kind of what their inspiration was.

From my understanding, the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles is massive, it's just huge, so this is a much smaller scale.

But it is essentially half a block long and it's just a really cool concept.

There's four main chandeliers, three main chandeliers kind of in that mirrored space.

When you look in the mirrors yourself you see about 20 of yourself.

So when you have the larger stained glass chandeliers up there you just see hundreds of chandeliers that you kind of see the reflections of.

Just a really cool space.

Take a closer look at the smaller details of Paramount and you may discover a Midwestern, farm country touch.

♪♪ Jason Anderson: Kind of the theme of the Paramount, if you zoom in on the seat fabrics or a lot of the details on the wall it is very harvest themed, it's very Midwest.

It couldn't be better suited.

You'll see the faces.

It's kind of the theme through the Paramount too.

And we have come to learn that that is Ceres, the Goddess of Harvest.

♪♪ As it nears its 100-year anniversary, the Paramount continues to draw from and entertain Iowa's second largest community.

Jason Anderson: We've got 250,000 people kind of in our metro, which is not a big town at all.

It's probably the biggest small town that I've been a part of.

But there's, because there's so many I know this person, that person, that small town kind of feeling we are able to bring a lot of artists to Cedar Rapids because of our strong support that we have with people buying tickets and coming back to the Paramount.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ In Downtown Cedar Rapids rests the artistic embodiment of the city's past and present.

A museum of art honoring contemporary ideas alongside work from hometown icon Grant Wood.

♪♪ Fused together much like the structure's original library was melded with a more modern wing.

It all began with the Cedar Rapids Library and funds from the enormous wealth of American steel industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.

Sean Ulmer: The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art traces its origin back to 1895 when a group of civically-minded individuals who had been to the Fine Arts Pavilion at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893 decided that Cedar Rapids needed an arts organization.

It didn't have a home.

They met in individual members' living rooms and they discussed the various artists and architects of the day and previous.

It didn't really have a home until 1905 when the Carnegie Library was built in town and there was this space set aside for the Cedar Rapids Art Association as we were then known.

Sean Ulmer: The Carnegie was occupied by the library until 1985 and so it was in continuous use from the time it was built in 1905 to 1985 and then it sat vacant for just a couple of years, maybe even not that long before discussion began about what to do with it.

And people loved the building, it was a part of everyone's collective history, it was a place where you would get books but it was also sort of a community center at the same time.

And so having been a resident of the Carnegie Library it made sense that the city leaders decided to approach the Cedar Rapids Art Museum to see if we would move back into the facility.

Sean Ulmer: It is one of the larger Carnegie libraries in the country and this was due in part to some negotiations that early city leaders had with Andrew Carnegie.

Andrew Carnegie was building libraries all over the country and for many people who know Carnegie libraries they tend to be on the small cozy side.

And so when we agreed with, struck a deal with Carnegie for the library here in Cedar Rapids the city leaders decided that they wanted to have a grand Carnegie library.

If they were going to do a library they were going to do it right.

So they actually went back to Andrew Carnegie, asked if he would double his commitment, because whatever Carnegie gave had to be matched by the city.

So the city was flush, this was sort of a heyday of some of our early agriprocessing years here in Cedar Rapids and so there was plenty of money to go around and they had great civic pride.

♪♪ When the Cedar Rapids Library moved to a new building in the 1980s, the Museum of Art continued to fill the structure, utilizing a combination of renovation and expansion with a new 42,000 square foot addition designed by Charles Moore.

Sean Ulmer: And he creates a space in between the two buildings, which is our atrium which is the place where you enter from both 2nd Avenue or 3rd Avenue and it is a zone that links the new building to the old building.

And in that zone you will see all kinds of modern references to classical architecture that you find in the Carnegie Library.

The works of famed Iowan and Cedar Rapids native Grant Wood are featured prominently inside the museum's more modern wing, blazing a path through Woods' early career into more iconic pieces.

Sean Ulmer: In the one gallery display that we have on view we do have work from all different moments in his history.

And the gallery is fairly porous, meaning that there are several entry and exit ways, so telling a linear story is a little bit difficult.

But yeah, we work with the building, with Charles Moore's design to try to tell that linear story so that visitors can see the progression of work.

We don't have any of the very, very early works, the things that he did as a child or that he did in high school, on view currently because those are mostly works on paper and they can only be out for a limited period of time.

Grant Wood would garner international fame for works such as American Gothic.

But the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art showcases his journey through early paintings of homes to the portraits of close friends and family.

Sean Ulmer: A work that he worked on both in 1928 and again in 1930 is a portraiture with very, very firm edges.

The older gentlemen is sitting in front of a map of Linn County, an attribute really of his dominion, if you will.

He was very influential.

He was the father of his patron David Turner, who the Turner's owned the mortuary that Grant Wood was living adjacent to.

In 1929 he paints a portrait of his mother, Woman with Plants, and in that you see a combination of some of painterly work that you see mostly in the face and hands and then the firmer, more hard-edged work that you see in the clothing and in the landscape behind.

♪♪ The museum also houses other Grant Wood creations including woodwork and an item transformed from its original use in a mortuary.

Sean Ulmer: We have work on view that he did while he was a teacher at McKinley High School and that he did with students, a mourner's bench that you would sit on outside the principal's office while you waited to be called into the principal's office for some wrongdoing that you might have done.

He worked on that with the students.

His three finials, each one is a small child's head grimacing or weeping because this is not the bench that you wanted to sit on if you could avoid it.

Sean Ulmer: We have the actual door from the Grant Wood studio on view and that was the door that was a modified coffin lid because the studio was adjacent to a mortuary, to a funeral home.

And so it was a space that was offered to him by the mangers, the owners of the funeral home, his work space above the garage basically.

And so people in Cedar Rapids felt very friendly with Grant Wood, felt very much that they could walk into his place any time that they wanted to.

So he fashioned a door that had a glass window in it and it was a coffin lid, the glass was where you would look down into the coffin and see the deceased, as was the case them, and he fashioned a dial in that window that he could turn to let people know whether he was in or out, if he was out of town, if he was taking a bath, if he was away what time he would return, if he was having a party.

It really portrays his sense of humor.

♪♪ Under the ownership of the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art is the inner sanctum of Woods' creativity.

♪♪ His artist studio, still located near downtown, the modest loft space was converted into part studio and part living quarters.

Much of its existence today in the 21st century resembles Wood's time 100 years ago.

But the space began as a hay loft in the early 1900s.

♪♪ Sean Ulmer: He started using it as a studio in 1924 but realized right away if he was clever about this, if he was ingenious about utilizing this space, he could actually live in the hay loft and move his mother in with him and his, sometimes his sister, and they could live and he could work in that same space, thereby not needing to pay to live someplace else and also allowing him to become a full-time artist, to give up this teaching position and try to be a full-time artist.

From Grant Wood's real-life studio to the collection at the museum, these works resemble more than the efforts of one man, they are a celebration of the city's artistic history.

Sean Ulmer: The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art has never had great funds to buy work.

In fact, the collection here is somewhere between 90% and 95% donated to us.

So in that way the collection reflects the community.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Along the bank of the Cedar River rests a building encased in brick with monetary roots and an evolving history in Cedar Rapids.

♪♪ Tara Templeman: Basically the People's Savings Bank was established in 1900 by a variety of business owners and well-to- do types in Cedar Rapids.

And they were expanding very rapidly and they needed a new place to put their bank.

So they reached out to Louis Sullivan to build a bank building for them using his typical style.

Louis Sullivan was better known as the father of the American skyscraper with pioneering work to integrate steel frameworks.

After his heyday as the designer of towering structures, Sullivan adapted his form follows function mantra to structures like the People's Savings Bank in Cedar Rapids.

But Sullivan took an artistic path to architectural stardom.

Tara Templeman: He dropped out of high school and applied to an architecture school and then dropped out within about a year of starting that program.

He went to Paris to become an architect there and he was just continuously frustrated by people wanting to recreate the same things.

And so he thought that there was a call for modern architecture and that there was an opening to create what does American architecture look like.

For Sullivan, the bank in Cedar Rapids would resemble a protected fortress where the free flow of commerce inside would be bathed in the glow of atrium light.

Tara Templeman: If you want your money to be protected what is a better protector than a gargoyle sitting on the top of your building and if one is good six is better.

There are elements of the building that I think are almost castle-like in that same way, that a bank is a protective space for your money, so he chose to do ornamentation like that.

And then the murals on the inside of the building, he knew that those were going in and so he installed light above that so the windows were a leaded glass so they were supposed to give this really mellow lighting that was supposed to highlight both the murals and make for beautiful lighting inside of the bank building.

The early 1900s murals drew agrarian inspiration from a state well-grounded in farm production.

Tara Templeman: Those murals were specifically selected for a couple of reasons.

So they are all farming scenes in Iowa, which seems like sort of a strange thing for a bank to have on display, but it was very intentional.

One, because they wanted to show that the bankers were toiling in the bank for a harvest, as in the profits they were bringing in just as the farmer was toiling in the fields for the harvest of food.

They also wanted the farmer to feel welcome and included and like they were represented in the bank building.

So that was a very intentional choice to make sure that their clientele felt welcome, appreciated, understood and represented in this bank building.

The structure was modified in the 1950s and '60s to include trends at the time like a drop ceiling, which would later be removed during 1990's renovations.

Tara Templeman: So they didn't remove the pieces that were added in the '50s, '60s and '70s, but they at least restored the original 1911 building to its former glory I would say.

So there were things that were done then like removing the drop ceiling that had gone in blocking the windows above the beautiful murals and just trying to restore it as much as possible.

So that happened in 1991, beautifully restored building, and then the flood hit in 2008, basically destroyed everything that had been done at that point.

It made it onto the Iowa Preservation's list of most endangered properties in 2012 and at that point it was purchased and the work went into how do we restore this building, keep the beautiful architecture intact, be true to Louis Sullivan's original design and turn it into a restaurant?

After the bones of the structure survived the 2008 flood, it was reborn as a restaurant with bank-inspired themes including use of the old vault as a private dinner locale.

Architecture renovation firms looked to the final details to incorporate the historic designs of 100 years ago into the modern use of this Louis Sullivan bank today.

Tara Templeman: When you're in spaces like this that are beautiful spaces that look more or less like they did in 1911 when they were constructed you have a totally different feeling of what that history is, you feel more connected to the architects, you feel more connected to the people who were responsible for raising the money to build this in the first place.

It is a completely different feeling and it is that direct connection to history, that human-to-human contact that is so hard to get from a history book.

And so I think by preserving spaces like this we make history interesting to the average person, we give people the chance to experience was life was like for a Cedar Rapidian very early on in that history and it just has a totally different feeling that you wouldn't get from a restaurant had this been totally raised and a new building put up in its place.

The Popoli restaurant that occupied this former bank closed in the aftermath of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, but the building still rests along the Cedar River, ready for its next chapter in the City of Five Seasons.

♪♪ ♪♪ In Iowa's second largest community, this collection of structures tell a story dating back more than a century from a towering icon honoring veterans adorned with a golden flame at the Veterans Memorial Building to an historic mansion known as Brucemore with its multi-generational story of business titans and preservation.

The legendary Paramount Theatre rebuilt to its original glory even after it was ravaged by flood waters to a museum chronicling the rich immigrant heritage of the Czech people or the hometown work of an iconic American artist, Grant Wood, at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art.

And an historic Louis Sullivan bank finding new purposes in the 21st century.

These Cedar Rapids structures combine for an unparalleled tour of awe-inspiring art and architecture and make up just the latest chapter of Historic Buildings of Iowa.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Funding for Historic Buildings of Iowa: Cedar Rapids is provided by Friends, the Iowa PBS Foundation, as well as generations of families and friends who feel passionate about the programs they watch on Iowa PBS.

And by OPN Architects.

There's always a discovery period.

And whether that is really trying to find the documentation of the original building or doing your investigation, every building has a story and there's always a surprise.

♪♪ Iowa PBS is here for you.

Be here for Iowa PBS.

Donations from neighbors like you make all the difference and ensure a bright future for more programs like this.

Thank you.

♪♪ ♪♪