How many people will remember going to the Pizza Hut after school or after a game? It was the hotspot teenage hang out for many years. This photo was from the Algona Upper Des Moines archives dated May 4, 1972. It states their hours as open until midnight Monday through Thursday and open until 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. You won’t find many places open that late today.

To the Editor

Changes needed at the swimming pool

Changes need to be taken in the management of the pool (Aquatic Center) are several.

1. Building a bleacher inside the pool fence for the higher income mothers and lower income mothers to be nearer their children in the shallow water part. Both lower and higher income to sit together. No charge. Free.

2. Open the pool at 11AM for everyone FREE of charge. ONE hour.

Be like Bob and Betty

As a young boy, I had a couple of unfortunately unique things about me. First, I did not have any living grandparents. And second, my parents were divorced. Neither of those may seem unique today, but in the 1970s in a Catholic school in small-town Iowa, they were. I was fortunate to have another unique situation, as I experienced wonderful pseudo-grandparents in Bob and Betty Moritz.

7 area towns battle fire at West Bend

150 Years Ago

Gen. John O’Neill, the celebrated Irish orator, is lecturing in the State on Ireland’s condition, for the purpose of selecting a desirable locality for the immigrants from his country.

125 Years Ago

Does your lawn make the cut?

By Rick Murphy

Mayor of Algona

Creating a beautiful community takes a community effort

Mowing the lawn is a challenge in this heat, but it would have been even more difficult without the contributions of a man named Cecil Pond. After serving in the military during World War II, Pond came home to Indiana to start building tractors with his father. 

Words can’t do the beauty of Vatican museum justice

By Gene Miller

Couches should conform to the human figure

150 Years Ago

By Molly MacDonald

Graduation parties and two confessions

Now that the season of high school graduations and graduation parties has passed, I suppose it’s time for me to make a confession. Bing and I had five children, all of whom graduated from high school. Bing and I attended all five of their graduation ceremonies. Bing and I hosted exactly . . . umm . . . zero graduation parties.

Don’t judge. We had a reason, however feeble.

By Jim Sloter

From Pisa to Rome scenes from a movie

As we prepared to leave Pisa, we noticed that the streets were being swept by women wielding wide push brooms – unusual, but things sure looked clean and tidy.  

By Brad Hicks

Battling biases

Gannett, publisher of USA Today, hundreds of newspapers across the country, and most recognizably in our state, The Des Moines Register, announced in recent days that it is reducing editorial pages in its markets. The company said it would be instead doing a more reader interactive format. Editorial pages will not completely disappear from Gannett properties, but they will be less frequent.

By Jane Koppen

ISU Extension

By Shane Goodman

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee

A 22-year-old Cassius Clay (soon to change his name to Muhammad Ali) made those words famous when he told boxing fans what his ring style would be against heavyweight champ Sonny Liston.

A Whale of a Tale

Have you ever lost your way? I am not the greatest at finding my way around and usually rely on an app or my wife to direct me. Whenever I get lost, I need someone or something to tell me where I am and where I need to go to get me on the right path again. 

I am often surprised at how many people I come into contact with who have a feeling of being lost. Not a directional lostness, but a spiritual one. 

Can you name this intersection? The buildings shown? What’s there now? Send your best guesses to news@algona.com. Show it to your kids and grandkids who might be surprised to see what this area used to look like.