This blog’s purpose is to provide a glimpse into the life and issues for students and residents in West Ames and Iowa State University from a bygone era. The content of the Iowa State Daily will provide (nearly) all of what you’ll see.

Love it or hate it, the Daily, which had many names before the current one was adopted in 1947, is arguably the universal staple that all ISU alumni have in common. The Daily is older than Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, Thomas Edison’s motion picture technology, basketball, and country music. It’s vast archive covers numerous local, national, and international topics as well as an abundance of poetry, fiction writing, and historical analysis in the early decades. And virtually all of it is buried on microfilm — unsearchable and difficult to access.

Here, several topics, including the Daily‘s own history, will be highlighted and briefly explored through stories and illustrations, but they alone can’t give a “complete” picture — hence an “incomplete history.” There is always more digging to do; I’m just passing through and grabbing select items I find worth sharing.