About Des Moines

Des Moines, IA, has been referred to as a friendly, caring neighborhood type of city, and is the center of the Feed Grains and Livestock Belt, governmental leadership, as well as home to numerous insurance companies.

As Iowa's capital city, Des Moines is situated at the junction of the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers. The Des Moines river is 535 miles long. It’s early beginnings as Fort Des Moines, in 1851, led to it becoming chartered as Des Moines in 1857 as it was settled by homesteaders.

Des Moines is the seat of Drake University, the College of Osteopathic Medicine and Surgery, Grand View College, among other educational institutions.

The city has gone down in history as suffering several floods in the 1950s, and most notably the historic Great Flood of 1993 that was a devastating event for the city. The occurrence took place despite flood control measures constructed on the Des Moines River. The majority of the city and surrounding cities forced the evacuation of much of the city of Des Moines.

Greater Des Moines is a diverse, multi-faceted metropolitan area where the arts, theatre, ballet, symphony, opera are plentiful. Other places of interest include the Capitol, the Center of Science and Industry, the Iowa Museum of Agriculture, and the state fairgrounds. The 400-acre Iowa State Fairgrounds is open year-round and features hundreds of ongoing events, as well as the annual August Fair.

The Boone and Scenic Valley Railroad is an operating educational railroad museum providing excursion train rides and dinner train rides through the scenic Des Moines River Valley. Take a walk through 300 years of agricultural history and visit Iowa’s Living History Farms. This is a hands on experience.

Des Moines has five professional minor league teams. The Iowa Chops, ice hockey, Iowa Barnstormers, arena football, and the Iowa Energy, basketball, all play at the Wells Fargo Arena. There is also the Iowa Cubs baseball team and the Des Moines Menace soccer team.