Infinite Road
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OmahaDes Moines

Tap a numbered dot and listen.

Narrated by The Storyteller 217 km · about 117 min · 24 stories

Across the Missouri into the Iowa heartland: Grenville Dodge building the Union Pacific, the Mormon handcart migration, the Adair train robbery — Jesse James's first — the Barrow Gang's shootout at Dexfield Park, and the loess hills that exist almost nowhere else on Earth.

The stories

In order along the route. Tap a dot on the map, or play them here.

  1. 1
    Omaha, Nebraska

    The Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge

  2. 2
    Council Bluffs, Iowa

    The Life of Grenville Dodge

  3. 3
    Council Bluffs, Iowa

    The Mormon Pioneer Migration Deep Dive · Part 1 of 3

  4. 4
    Underwood, Iowa

    The Mormon Pioneer Migration Deep Dive · Part 2 of 3

  5. 5
    Neola, Iowa

    The Mormon Pioneer Migration Deep Dive · Part 3 of 3

  6. 6
    Minden, Iowa

    Building the Union Pacific Railroad Deep Dive · Part 1 of 3

  7. 7
    Shelby, Iowa

    Building the Union Pacific Railroad Deep Dive · Part 2 of 3

  8. 8
    Avoca, Iowa

    Building the Union Pacific Railroad Deep Dive · Part 3 of 3

  9. 9
    Avoca, Iowa

    Walnut's German Bank Building

  10. 10
    Walnut, Iowa

    Walnut's Antique City Transformation

  11. 11
    Atlantic, Iowa

    Tivoli Fest in Elk Horn

  12. 12
    Atlantic, Iowa

    The Hansen Farmstead Danish Roots

  13. 13
    Anita, Iowa

    Dr. Morrison's Frontier Station

  14. 14
    Anita, Iowa

    The Adair Viaduct

  15. 15
    Adair, Iowa

    The Formation of the Loess Hills

  16. 16
    Casey, Iowa

    The Adair Train Robbery

  17. 17
    Stuart, Iowa

    The Rock Island Rockets

  18. 18
    Stuart, Iowa

    The Rise of Roadside Attractions

  19. 19
    Dexter, Iowa

    The Barrow Gang at Dexfield Park

  20. 20
    Earlham, Iowa

    The Pioneer Schoolhouse Debt

  21. 21
    Adel, Iowa

    The Heater from Van Meter

  22. 22
    Waukee, Iowa

    Living History Farms Agricultural Evolution

  23. 23
    West Des Moines, Iowa

    The Iowa State Fair Legacy

  24. 24
    Des Moines, Iowa

    The Underground Railroad in Des Moines

Drives nearby

Where the stories come from

Infinite Road draws from a library of primary sources — public-domain county histories, the WPA American Guide Series, National Register of Historic Places records, local records, and encyclopedic sources — then writes and narrates each story in its own words.