text:
Des Moines, Iowa

Des Moines is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Iowa. It is the county seat of Polk County with parts extending into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines, which was shortened to "Des Moines" in 1857. It is located on, and named after, the Des Moines River, which likely was adapted from the early French name, Rivière des Moines, meaning "River of the Monks". The city's population was 214,133 as of the 2020 census. The six-county metropolitan area is ranked 81st in terms of population in the United States, with 709,466 residents according to the 2020 census by the United States Census Bureau, and is the largest metropolitan area fully located within the state.

Des Moines is a major center of the US insurance industry and has a sizable financial-services and publishing business base. The city is the headquarters for the Principal Financial Group, Ruan Transportation, TMC Transportation, EMC Insurance Companies, and Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield. Other major corporations such as Wells Fargo, Cognizant, Voya Financial, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, ACE Limited, Marsh, Monsanto, and Corteva have large operations in or near the metropolitan area. In recent years, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, and Facebook have built data-processing and logistical facilities in the Des Moines area.

Des Moines is an important city in U.S. presidential politics; as the state's capital, it is the site of the first caucuses of the presidential primary cycle. Many presidential candidates set up campaign headquarters in Des Moines. A 2007 article in The New York Times said, "If you have any desire to witness presidential candidates in the most close-up and intimate of settings, there is arguably no better place to go than Des Moines."

Etymology
Des Moines takes its name from Fort Des Moines (1843–46), which was named for the Des Moines River. This was adopted from the name given by French colonists. Des Moines (formerly ) translates literally to either "from the monks" or "of the monks".

One popular interpretation of "Des Moines" concludes that it refers to a group of French Trappist monks, who in the 17th century lived in huts built on top of what is now known as the ancient Monks Mound at Cahokia, the major center of Mississippian culture, which developed in what is present-day Illinois, east of the Mississippi River and the city of St. Louis. This was some 200 mi from the Des Moines River.

Prehistoric inhabitants of early Des Moines
Based on archaeological evidence, the junction of the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers has attracted humans for at least 7,000 years. Several prehistoric occupation areas have been identified by archaeologists in downtown Des Moines. Discovered in December 2010, the "Palace" is an expansive, 7,000-year-old site found during excavations prior to construction of the new wastewater treatment plant in southeastern Des Moines. It contains well-preserved house deposits and numerous graves. More than 6,000 artifacts were found at this site. State of Iowa archaeologist John Doershuk was assisted by University of Iowa archaeologists at this dig.

At least three Late Prehistoric villages, dating from about AD 1300 to 1700, stood in or near what developed later as downtown Des Moines. In addition, 15 to 18 prehistoric American Indian mounds were observed in this area by early settlers. All have been destroyed during development of the city.

Origin of Fort Des Moines
Des Moines traces its origins to May 1843, when Captain James Allen supervised the construction of a fort on the site where the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers merge. Allen wanted to use the name Fort Raccoon; however, the U.S. War Department preferred Fort Des Moines. The fort was built to control the Sauk and Meskwaki peoples, whom the government had moved to the area from their traditional lands in eastern Iowa. The fort was abandoned in 1846 after the Sauk and Meskwaki were removed from the state and shifted to the Indian Territory.

The Sauk and Meskwaki did not fare well in Des Moines. The illegal whiskey trade, combined with the destruction of traditional lifeways, led to severe problems for their society. One newspaper reported: "'It is a fact that the location of Fort Des Moines among the Sac and Fox Indians (under its present commander) for the last two years, had corrupted them more and lowered them deeper in the scale of vice and degradation, than all their intercourse with the whites for the ten years previous'."After official removal, the Meskwaki continued to return to Des Moines until around 1857.

Archaeological excavations have shown that many fort-related features survived under what is now Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway and First Street. Soldiers stationed at Fort Des Moines opened the first coal mines in the area, mining coal from the riverbank for the fort's blacksmith.

Early settlement

Settlers occupied the abandoned fort and nearby areas. On May 25, 1846, the state legislature designated Fort Des Moines as the seat of Polk County. Arozina Perkins, a school teacher who spent the winter of 1850–1851 in the town of Fort Des Moines, was not favorably impressed:

"This is one of the strangest looking 'cities' I ever saw... This town is at the juncture of the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers. It is mostly a level prairie with a few swells or hills around it. We have a court house of 'brick' and one church, a plain, framed building belonging to the Methodists. There are two taverns here, one of which has a most important little bell that rings together some fifty boarders. I cannot tell you how many dwellings there are, for I have not counted them; some are of logs, some of brick, some framed, and some are the remains of the old dragoon houses... The people support two papers and there are several dry goods shops. I have been into but four of them... Society is as varied as the buildings are. There are people from nearly every state, and Dutch, Swedes, etc."

In May 1851, much of the town was destroyed during the Flood of 1851. "The Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers rose to an unprecedented height, inundating the entire country east of the Des Moines River. Crops were utterly destroyed, houses and fences swept away." The city started to rebuild from scratch.

Era of growth
On September 22, 1851, Des Moines was incorporated as a city; the charter was approved by voters on October 18. In 1857, the name "Fort Des Moines" was shortened to "Des Moines", and it was designated as the second state capital, previously at Iowa City. Growth was slow during the Civil War period, but the city exploded in size and importance after a railroad link was completed in 1866.

In 1864, the Des Moines Coal Company was organized to begin the first systematic mining in the region. Its first mine, north of town on the river's west side, was exhausted by 1873. The Black Diamond mine, near the south end of the West Seventh Street Bridge, sank a 150 ft mine shaft to reach a 5 ft coal bed. By 1876, this mine employed 150 men and shipped 20 carloads of coal per day. By 1885, numerous mine shafts were within the city limits, and mining began to spread into the surrounding countryside. By 1893, 23 mines were in the region. By 1908, Des Moines' coal resources were largely exhausted. In 1912, Des Moines still had eight locals of the United Mine Workers union, representing 1,410 miners. This was about 1.7% of the city's population in 1910.

By 1880, Des Moines had a population of 22,408, making it Iowa's largest city. It displaced the three Mississippi River ports: Burlington, Dubuque, and Davenport, that had alternated holding the position since the territorial period. Des Moines has remained Iowa's most populous city. In 1910, the Census Bureau reported Des Moines' population as 97.3% white and 2.7% black, reflecting its early settlement pattern primarily by ethnic Europeans.

"City Beautiful" project, decline and rebirth

At the turn of the 20th century, encouraged by the Civic Committee of the Des Moines Women's Club, Des Moines undertook a "City Beautiful" project in which large Beaux Arts public buildings and fountains were constructed along the Des Moines River. The former Des Moines Public Library building (now the home of the World Food Prize); the United States central Post Office, built by the federal government (now the Polk County Administrative Building, with a newer addition); and the City Hall are surviving examples of the 1900–1910 buildings. They form the Civic Center Historic District.

The ornate riverfront balustrades that line the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers were built by the federal Civilian Conservation Corps in the mid-1930s, during the Great Depression under Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as a project to provide local employment and improve infrastructure. The ornamental fountains that stood along the riverbank were buried in the 1950s when the city began a postindustrial decline that lasted until the late 1980s. The city has since rebounded, transforming from a blue-collar industrial city to a white-collar professional city.

In 1907, the city adopted a city commission government known as the Des Moines Plan, comprising an elected mayor and four commissioners, all elected at-large, who were responsible for public works, public property, public safety, and finance. Considered progressive at the time, it diluted the votes of ethnic and national minorities, who generally could not command a majority to elect a candidate of their choice.

That form of government was scrapped in 1950 in favor of a council-manager government, with the council members elected at-large. In 1967, the city changed its government to elect four of the seven city council members from single-member districts or wards, rather than at-large. This enabled a broader representation of voters. As with many major urban areas, the city core began losing population to the suburbs in the 1960s (the peak population of 208,982 was recorded in 1960), as highway construction led to new residential construction outside the city. The population was 198,682 in 2000 and grew slightly to 200,538 in 2009. The growth of the outlying suburbs has continued, and the overall metropolitan-area population is over 700,000 today.

During the Great Flood of 1993, heavy rains throughout June and early July caused the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers to rise above flood stage levels. The Des Moines Water Works was submerged by floodwaters during the early morning hours of July 11, 1993, leaving an estimated 250,000 people without running water for 12 days and without drinking water for 20 days. Des Moines suffered major flooding again in June 2008 with a major levee breach. The Des Moines River is controlled upstream by Saylorville Reservoir. In both 1993 and 2008, the flooding river overtopped the reservoir spillway.

Today, Des Moines is a member of ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability USA. Through ICLEI, Des Moines has implemented "The Tomorrow Plan", a regional plan focused on developing central Iowa in a sustainable fashion, centrally-planned growth, and resource consumption to manage the local population.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 90.65 sqmi, of which 88.93 sqmi is land and 1.73 sqmi is covered by water. It is 850 ft above sea level at the confluence of the Raccoon and Des Moines Rivers.

In November 2005, Des Moines voters approved a measure that allowed the city to annex parcels of land in the northeast, southeast, and southern corners of Des Moines without agreement by local residents, particularly areas bordering the Iowa Highway 5/U.S. 65 bypass. The annexations became official on June 26, 2009, as 5174 acre and around 868 new residents were added to the city of Des Moines. An additional 759 acre were voluntarily annexed to the city over that same period.

Cityscape
The skyline of Des Moines changed in the 1970s and the 1980s, when several new skyscrapers were built. Additional skyscrapers were built in the 1990s, including Iowa's tallest. Before then, the 19-story Equitable Building, from 1924, was the tallest building in the city and the tallest building in Iowa. The 25-story Financial Center was completed in 1973 and the 36-story Ruan Center was completed in 1974. They were later joined by the 33-story Des Moines Marriott Hotel (1981), the 25-story HUB Tower and 25-story Plaza Building (1985). Iowa's tallest building, Principal Financial Group's 45-story tower at 801 Grand was built in 1991, and the 19-story EMC Insurance Building was erected in 1997.

During this time period, the Civic Center of Greater Des Moines (1979) was developed; it hosts Broadway shows and special events. Also constructed were the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden (1979), a large city botanical garden/greenhouse on the east side of the river; the Polk County Convention Complex (1985), and the State of Iowa Historical Museum (1987). The Des Moines skywalk also began to take shape during the 1980s. The skywalk system is 4 mi long and connects many downtown buildings.

In the early 21st century, the city has had more major construction in the downtown area. The new Science Center of Iowa and Blank IMAX Dome Theater and the Iowa Events Center opened in 2005. The new central branch of the Des Moines Public Library, designed by renowned architect David Chipperfield of London, opened on April 8, 2006.

The World Food Prize Foundation, which is based in Des Moines, completed adaptation and restoration of the former Des Moines Public Library building in October 2011. The former library now serves as the home and headquarters of the Norman Borlaug/World Food Prize Hall of Laureates.

Climate
At the center of North America and far removed from large bodies of water, the Des Moines area has a hot summer type humid continental climate (Köppen Dfa), with warm to hot, humid summers and cold, dry winters. Summer temperatures can often climb into the 90 °F range, occasionally reaching 100 °F. Humidity can be high in spring and summer, with frequent afternoon thunderstorms. Fall brings pleasant temperatures and colorful fall foliage. Winters vary from moderately cold to bitterly cold, with low temperatures venturing below 0 °F quite often. Snowfall averages 36.5 in per season, and annual precipitation averages 36.55 in, with a peak in the warmer months. Winters are slightly colder than Chicago, but still warmer than Minneapolis, with summer temperatures being very similar between the Upper Midwest metropolitan areas.

Demographics
The city has the largest African American population in Iowa.

2020 census
The 2020 United States census counted 214,133 people, 87,958 households, and 48,599 families in Des Moines. The population density was 2,428.4 per square mile (937.6/km$2$). There were 95,082 housing units at an average density of 1,078.3 per square mile (416.3/km$2$).

The racial makeup (including Hispanics in the racial counts) was 64.54% (138,200) white or European American (60.99% non-Hispanic white), 11.68% (25,011) black or African-American, 0.69% (1,474) Native American or Alaska Native, 6.76% (14,474) Asian, 0.06% (135) Pacific Islander or Native Hawaiian, 6.62% (14,178) from other races, and 9.65% (20,661) from two or more races.

The racial and ethnic makeup (where Hispanics are excluded from the racial counts and placed in their own category) was 60.99% (130,599) White alone (non-Hispanic), 11.46% (24,538) Black alone (non-Hispanic), 0.28% (597) Native American alone (non-Hispanic), 6.70% (14,348) Asian alone (non-Hispanic), 0.06% (124) Pacific Islander alone (non-Hispanic), 0.38% (817) Other Race alone (non-Hispanic), 4.50% (9,630) Multiracial or Mixed Race (non-Hispanic), and 15.64% (33,480) Hispanic or Latino.

The 2020 census population of the city included 252 people incarcerated in adult correctional facilities and 2,378 people in student housing.

Of the 87,958 households, 28.0% had children under the age of 18; 35.5% were married couples living together; 31.3% had a female householder with no spouse or partner present. 35.3% of households consisted of individuals and 11.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.5 and the average family size was 3.3. The percent of those with a bachelor's degree or higher was estimated to be 19.9% of the population. Of the population age 25 and over, 86.7% were high school graduates or higher and 27.9% had a bachelor's degree or higher.

23.5% of the population was under the age of 18, 10.4% from 18 to 24, 29.6% from 25 to 44, 23.1% from 45 to 64, and 13.5% were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34.8 years. For every 100 females, there were 102.7 males. For every 100 females ages 18 and older, there were 104.4 males.

The 2016-2020 5-year American Community Survey estimates show that the median household income was $54,843 (with a margin of error of +/- $1,544) and the median family income was $66,420 (+/- $1,919). Males had a median income of $38,326 (+/- $1,405) versus $29,855 (+/- $1,327) for females. The median income for those above 16 years old was $33,699 (+/- $740). Approximately, 12.1% of families and 16.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 24.3% of those under the age of 18 and 9.8% of those ages 65 or over.

2010 census
As of the census of 2010, there were 203,433 people, 81,369 households, and 47,491 families residing in the city. Population density was 2515.6 PD/sqmi. There were 88,729 housing units at an average density of 1097.2 /sqmi. The racial makeup of the city for unincorporated areas not merged with the city proper was 66.2% White, 15.5% African Americans, 0.5% Native American, 4.0% Asian, and 2.6% from Two or more races. People of Hispanic or Latino origin, of any race, made up 12.1% of the population. The city's racial make up during the 2010 census was 76.4% White, 10.2% African American, 0.5% Native American, 4.4% Asian (1.2% Vietnamese, 0.9% Laotian, 0.4% Burmese, 0.3% Asian Indian, 0.3% Thai, 0.2% Chinese, 0.2% Cambodian, 0.2% Filipino, 0.1% Hmong, 0.1% Korean, 0.1% Nepalese), 0.1% Pacific Islander, 5.0% from other races, and 3.4% from two or more races. People of Hispanic or Latino origin, of any race, formed 12.0% of the population (9.4% Mexican, 0.7% Salvadoran, 0.3% Guatemalan, 0.3% Puerto Rican, 0.1% Honduran, 0.1% Ecuadorian, 0.1% Cuban, 0.1% Spaniard, 0.1% Spanish). Non-Hispanic Whites were 70.5% of the population in 2010. Des Moines also has a sizeable South Sudanese community.

There were 81,369 households, of which 31.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 38.9% were married couples living together, 14.2% had a female householder with no husband present, 5.3% had a male householder with no wife present, and 41.6% were non-families. 32.5% of all households were made up of individuals, and 9.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.43 and the average family size was 3.11.

The median age in the city was 33.5 years. 24.8% of residents were under the age of 18; 10.9% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 29.4% were from 25 to 44; 23.9% were from 45 to 64; and 11% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 48.9% male and 51.1% female.

2000 census
As of the 2000 census, there were 198,682 people, 80,504 households, and 48,704 families in the city. The population density was 2,621.3 PD/sqmi. There were 85,067 housing units at an average density of 1,122.3 /sqmi. The racial makeup of the city was 82.3% white, 8.07% Black, 0.35% American Indian, 3.50% Asian, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 3.52% from other races, and 2.23% from two or more races. 6.61% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 20.9% were of German, 10.3% Irish, 9.1% "American" and 8.0% English ancestry, according to Census 2000.

There were 80,504 households, out of which 29.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 43.7% were married couples living together, 12.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 39.5% were non-families. 31.9% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.39 and the average family size was 3.04.

The age distribution was 24.8% under the age of 18, 10.6% from 18 to 24, 31.8% from 25 to 44, 20.4% from 45 to 64, and 12.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females, there were 93.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90.5 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $38,408, and the median income for a family was $46,590. Males had a median income of $31,712 versus $25,832 for females. The per capita income for the city was $19,467. About 7.9% of families and 11.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 14.9% of those under age 18 and 7.6% of those ages 65 or over.

Economy
Many insurance companies are headquartered in Des Moines, including the Principal Financial Group, EMC Insurance Group, Fidelity & Guaranty Life, Allied Insurance, GuideOne Insurance, Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield of Iowa, FBL Financial Group, and American Republic Insurance Company. Iowa has one of the lowest insurance premium taxes in the nation at 1%, and does not charge any premium taxes on qualified life insurance plans, making the state attractive to insurance business. Des Moines has been referred to as the "Hartford of the West" and "Insurance Capital" because of this. Principal is one of two Fortune 500 companies with headquarters in Iowa (the other being Casey's General Stores), ranking 201st on the magazine's list in 2020.

As a center of financial and insurance services, other major corporations headquartered outside of Iowa have a presence in the Des Moines Metro area, including Wells Fargo, Voya Financial, and Electronic Data Systems (EDS). The Meredith Corporation, a leading publishing and marketing company, was also based in Des Moines prior to its acquisition by IAC and merger with Dotdash in 2021. Meredith published Better Homes and Gardens, one of the most widely circulated publications in the United States. Des Moines was also the headquarters of Golf Digest magazine.

Other major employers in Des Moines include UnityPoint Health, Mercy Medical Center, MidAmerican Energy Company, CDS Global, UPS, Firestone, Lumen Technologies, Drake University, Titan Tire, The Des Moines Register, Anderson Erickson, EMCO.

In 2017, Kemin Industries opened a state-of-the-art worldwide headquarters building in Des Moines.

Arts and theater

The City of Des Moines is a cultural center for Iowa and home to several art and history museums and performing arts groups. The Des Moines Performing Arts routinely hosts touring Broadway shows and other live professional theater. The Temple for Performing Arts and Des Moines Playhouse are other venues for live theater, comedy, and performance arts.

The Des Moines Metro Opera has been a cultural resource in Des Moines since 1973. The Opera offers educational and outreach programs and is one of the largest performing arts organizations in the state. Ballet Des Moines was established in 2002. Performing three productions each year, the Ballet also provides opportunities for education and outreach.

The Des Moines Symphony performs frequently at different venues. In addition to performing seven pairs of classical concerts each season, the Symphony also entertains with New Year's Eve Pops and its annual Yankee Doodle Pops concerts.

Jazz in July is an annual event founded in 1969 that performs free jazz shows daily at venues throughout the city during July.

Wells Fargo Arena is the Des Moines area's primary venue for sporting events and concerts since its opening in 2005. Named for title sponsor Wells Fargo Financial Services, Wells Fargo Arena holds 16,980 and books large, national touring acts for arena concert performances, while several smaller venues host local, regional, and national bands. It is the home of the Iowa Wolves of the NBA G League, the Iowa Wild of the American Hockey League, and the Iowa Barnstormers of the Indoor Football League.

The Simon Estes Riverfront Amphitheater is an outdoor concert venue on the east bank of the Des Moines River which hosts music events such as the Alive Concert Series.

The Des Moines Art Center, with wings designed by architects I.M. Pei and Richard Meier, presents art exhibitions and educational programs as well as studio art classes. The Center houses a collection of artwork from the 19th century to the present. An extension of the art center is downtown in an urban museum space, featuring three or four exhibitions each year.

The Pappajohn Sculpture Park was established in 2009. It showcases a collection of 24 sculptures donated by Des Moines philanthropists John and Mary Pappajohn. Nearby is the Temple for Performing Arts, a cultural center for the city. Next to the Temple is the 117000 sqft Central Library, designed by renowned English architect David Chipperfield.

Salisbury House and Gardens is a 42-room historic house museum on 10 acres of woodlands in the South of Grand neighborhood of Des Moines. It is named after—and loosely inspired by—King's House in Salisbury, England. Built in the 1920s by cosmetics magnate Carl Weeks and his wife, Edith, the Salisbury House contains authentic 16th-century English oak and rafters dating to Shakespeare's days, numerous other architectural features re-purposed from other historic English homes, and an internationally significant collection of original fine art, tapestries, decorative art, furniture, musical instruments, and rare books and documents. The Salisbury House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and has been featured on A&E's America's Castles and PBS's Antiques Roadshow. Prominent artists in the Salisbury House collection include Joseph Stella, Lillian Genth, Anthony van Dyck and Lawrence Alma-Tadema.

Built in 1877 by prominent pioneer businessman Hoyt Sherman, Hoyt Sherman Place mansion was Des Moines' first public art gallery and houses a distinctive collection of 19th and 20th century artwork. Its restored 1,250-seat theater features an intricate rococo plaster ceiling and excellent acoustics and is used for a variety of cultural performances and entertainment.

Attractions
Arising in the east and facing westward toward downtown, the Iowa State Capitol building with its 275 ft, 23-karat gold leafed dome towering above the city is a favorite of sightseers. Four smaller domes flank the main dome. The Capitol houses the governor's offices, legislature, and the old Supreme Court Chambers. The ornate interior also features a grand staircase, mural "Westward", five-story law library, scale model of the USS Iowa, and collection of first lady dolls. Guided tours are available.

The Capitol grounds include a World War II memorial with sculpture and Wall of Memories, the 1894 Soldiers and Sailors Monument of the Civil War and memorials honoring those who served in the Spanish–American, Korean, and Vietnam Wars. The West Capitol Terrace provides the entrance from the west to the state's grandest building, the State Capitol Building. The 10 acre "people's park" at the foot of the Capitol complex includes a promenade and landscaped gardens, in addition to providing public space for rallies and special events. A granite map of Iowa depicting all 99 counties rests at the base of the terrace and has become an attraction for in-state visitors, many of whom walk over the map to find their home county.

Iowa's history lives on in the State of Iowa Historical Museum. This modern granite and glass structure at the foot of the State Capitol Building houses permanent and temporary exhibits exploring the people, places, events, and issues of Iowa's past. The showcase includes native wildlife, American Indian and pioneer artifacts, and political and military items. The museum features a genealogy and Iowa history library, museum gift shop, and cafe.

Terrace Hill, a National Historic Landmark and Iowa Governor's Residence, is among the best examples of American Victorian Second Empire architecture. This opulent 1869 home was built by Iowa's first millionaire, Benjamin F. Allen, and restored to the late 19th century period. It overlooks downtown Des Moines and is situated on 8 acre with a re-created Victorian formal garden. Tours are conducted Tuesdays through Saturdays from March through December.

The 110000 sqft Science Center of Iowa and Blank IMAX Dome Theater offers seven interactive learning areas, live programs, and hands-on activities encouraging learning and fun for all ages. Among its three theaters include the 216-seat Blank IMAX Dome Theater, 175-seat John Deere Adventure Theater featuring live performances, and a 50 ft domed Star Theater.

The Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden, an indoor conservatory of over 15,000 exotic plants, is one of the largest collections of tropical, subtropical, and desert-growing plants in the Midwest. The Center blooms with thousands of flowers year-round. Nearby are the Robert D. Ray Asian Gardens and Pavilion, named in honor of the former governor whose influence helped relocate thousands of Vietnamese refugees to Iowa homes in the 1970s and 1980s. Developed by the city's Asian community, the Gardens include a three-story Chinese pavilion, bonsai landscaping, and granite sculptures to highlight the importance of diversity and recognize Asian American contributions in Iowa.

Blank Park Zoo is a landscaped 22 acre zoological park on the south side. Among the exhibits include a tropical rain forest, Australian Outback, and Africa. The Zoo offers education classes, tours, and rental facilities.

The Iowa Primate Learning Sanctuary was established as a scientific research facility with a 230 acre campus housing bonobos and orangutans for the noninvasive interdisciplinary study of their cognitive and communicative capabilities.

The East Village, on the east side of the Des Moines River, begins at the river and extends about five blocks east to the State Capitol Building, offering an eclectic blend of historic buildings, hip eateries, boutiques, art galleries, and a wide variety of other retail establishments mixed with residences.

Adventureland Park is an amusement park in neighboring Altoona, just northeast of Des Moines. The park boasts more than 100 rides, shows, and attractions, including six rollercoasters. A hotel and campground is just outside the park. Also in Altoona is Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino, an entertainment venue for gambling and horse racing. Open 24 hours a day, year-round, the racetrack and casino features live racing, plus over 1,750 slot machines, table games, and concert and show entertainment. The racetrack hosts two Grade III races annually, the Iowa Oaks and the Cornhusker Handicap.

Living History Farms in suburban Urbandale tells the story of Midwestern agriculture and rural life in a 500 acre open-air museum with interpreters dressed in period costume who recreate the daily routines of early Iowans. Open daily from May through October, the Living History Farms include a 1700 Ioway Indian village, 1850 pioneer farm, 1875 frontier town, 1900 horse-powered farm, and a modern crop center.

Wallace House was the home of the first Henry Wallace, a national leader in agriculture and conservation and the first editor of Wallaces' Farmer farm journal. This restored 1883 Italianate Victorian houses exhibits, artifacts, and information covering four generations of Henry Wallaces and other family members.

Historic Jordan House in West Des Moines is a stately Victorian home built in 1850 and added to in 1870 by the first white settler in West Des Moines, James C. Jordan. Completely refurbished, this mansion was part of the Underground Railroad and today houses 16 period rooms, a railroad museum, West Des Moines community history, and a museum dedicated to the Underground Railroad in Iowa. In 1893 Jordan's daughter Eda was sliding down the banister when she fell off and broke her neck. She died two days later, and her ghost is reputed to haunt the house.

The Chicago Tribune wrote that Iowa's capital city has "walker-friendly downtown streets and enough outdoor sculpture, sleek buildings, storefronts and cafes to delight the most jaded stroller".

Festivals and events

Des Moines plays host to a growing number of nationally acclaimed cultural events, including the annual Des Moines Arts Festival in June, Metro Arts Jazz in July, Iowa State Fair in August, and the World Food & Music Festival in September. On Saturdays from May through October, the Downtown Farmers' Market draws visitors from across the state. Local parades include Saint Patrick's Day Parade, Drake Relays Parade, Capitol City Pride Parade, Iowa State Fair Parade, Labor Day Parade, and Beaverdale Fall Festival Parade.

Other annual festivals and events include: Des Moines Beer Week, 80/35 Music Festival, 515 Alive Music Festival, ArtFest Midwest, Blue Ribbon Bacon Fest, CelebrAsian Heritage Festival, Des Moines Pride Festival, Des Moines Renaissance Faire, Festa Italiana, Festival of Trees and Lights, World Food & Music Festival, I'll Make Me a World Iowa, Latino Heritage Festival, Oktoberfest, Winefest, ImaginEve!, Iowa's Premier Beer, Wine & Food Show, and Wild Rose Film Festival.

Museums

 * Des Moines Art Center
 * Jordan House Museum
 * Hoyt Sherman Place
 * Salisbury House
 * Science Center of Iowa
 * State Historical Society of Iowa
 * Terrace Hill – Official residence of the governor of Iowa
 * Wallace House Museum
 * World Food Prize Hall of Laureates

Sports

Des Moines hosts professional minor league teams in several sports — baseball, basketball, hockey, indoor football, and soccer — and is home to the sports teams of Drake University which play in NCAA Division I.

The Des Moines Menace soccer club, a member of USL League Two, play their home games at Valley Stadium in West Des Moines. Des Moines United FC of the National Premier Soccer League also utilize Valley Stadium.

Des Moines is home to the Iowa Cubs baseball team of the Triple-A East. The I-Cubs, which are the Triple-A affiliate of the major league Chicago Cubs, play their home games at Principal Park near the confluence of the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers.

Wells Fargo Arena of the Iowa Events Center is home to the Iowa Barnstormers of the Indoor Football League, the Iowa Wild of the American Hockey League, and the Iowa Wolves of the NBA G League. The Barnstormers relaunched as an af2 club in 2008 before joining a relaunched Arena Football League in 2010 and the Indoor Football League in 2015; the Barnstormers had previously played in the Arena Football League from 1994 to 2000 (featuring future NFL Hall of Famer and Super Bowl MVP quarterback Kurt Warner) before relocating to New York. The Iowa Energy, a D-League team, began play in 2007. They were bought by the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2017 and were renamed the Iowa Wolves to reflect the new ownership. The Wild, the AHL affiliate of the National Hockey League's Minnesota Wild have played at Wells Fargo Arena since 2013; previously, the Iowa Chops played four seasons in Des Moines (known as the Iowa Stars for three of those seasons.)

Additionally, the Des Moines Buccaneers of the United States Hockey League play at Buccaneer Arena in suburban Urbandale.

Des Moines is also home to the Drake University Bulldogs, an NCAA Division I member of the Missouri Valley Conference, primarily playing northwest of downtown at the on-campus Drake Stadium and Knapp Center. Drake Stadium is home to the famed Drake Relays each April. In addition to the Drake Relays, Drake Stadium has hosted multiple NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships and USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

The Vikings of Grand View University also compete in intercollegiate athletics in Des Moines. A member of the Heart of America Athletic Conference, within the NAIA, they field 21 varsity athletic teams. They were NAIA National Champions in football in 2013.

The Principal Charity Classic, a Champions Tour golf event, is held at Wakonda Club in late May or early June. The IMT Des Moines Marathon is held throughout the city each October.

Parks and recreation
Des Moines has 76 city parks and three golf courses, as well as three family aquatic centers, five community centers and three swimming pools. The city has 45 mi of trails. The first major park was Greenwood Park. The park commissioners purchased the land on April 21, 1894.

The Principal Riverwalk is a riverwalk park district being constructed along the banks of the Des Moines River in the downtown. Primarily funded by the Principal Financial Group, the Riverwalk is a multi-year jointly funded project also funded by the city and state. Upon completion, it will feature a 1.2 mi recreational trail connecting the east and west sides of downtown via two pedestrian bridges. A landscaped promenade along the street level is planned. The Riverwalk includes the downtown Brenton Skating Plaza, open from November through March.

Gray's Lake, part of the 167 acres of Gray's Lake Park, features a boat rental facility, fishing pier, floating boardwalks, and a park resource center. Located just south of the downtown, the centerpiece of the park is a lighted 1.9 mi Kruidenier Trail, encircling it entirely.

From downtown Des Moines primarily along the east bank of the Des Moines River, the Neil Smith and John Pat Dorrian Trails are 28.2 mi paved recreational trails that connect Gray's Lake northward to the east shore of Saylorville Lake, Big Creek State Park, and the recreational trails of Ankeny including the High Trestle Trail. These trails are near several recreational facilities including the Pete Crivaro Park, Principal Park, the Principal Riverwalk, the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden, Union Park and its Heritage Carousel of Des Moines, Birdland Park and the Birdland Marina/Boatramp on the Des Moines River, Riverview Park, McHenry Park, and River Drive Park. Although outside of Des Moines, Jester Park has 1834 acres of land along the western shore of Saylorville Lake and can be reached from the Neil Smith Trail over the Saylorville Dam.

Just west of Gray's Lake are the 1500 acre of the Des Moines Water Works Park. The Water Works Park is along the banks of the Raccoon River immediately upstream from where the Raccoon River empties into the Des Moines River. The Des Moines Water Works Facility, which obtains the city's drinking water from the Raccoon River, is entirely within the Water Works Park. A bridge in the park crosses the Raccoon River. The Water Works Park recreational trails link to downtown Des Moines by travelling past Gray's Lake and back across the Raccoon River via either along the Meredith Trail near Principal Park, or along the Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway. The Water Works Park trails connect westward to Valley Junction and the recreational trails of the western suburbs: Windsor Heights, Urbandale, Clive, and Waukee. Also originating from Water Works Park, the Great Western Trail is an 18 mi journey southward from Des Moines to Martensdale through the Willow Creek Golf Course, Orilla, and Cumming. Often, the location for summer music festivals and concerts, Water Works Park was the overnight campground for thousands of bicyclists on Tuesday, July 23, 2013, during RAGBRAI XLI.

Government
Des Moines operates under a council–manager form of government. The council consists of a mayor who is elected in citywide vote, two at-large members, and four members representing each of the city's four wards. In 2014, Jonathan Gano was appointed as the new Public Works Director. In 2015, Dana Wingert was appointed as Police Chief. In 2018, Steven L. Naber was appointed as the new City Engineer.

The council members include: A plan to merge the governments of Des Moines and Polk County was rejected by voters during the November 2, 2004, election. The consolidated city-county government would have had a full-time mayor and a 15-member council that would have been divided among the city and its suburbs. Each suburb would still have retained its individual government but with the option to join the consolidated government at any time. Although a full merger was soundly rejected, several city and county departments and programs have been consolidated.

Education
The Des Moines Public Schools district is the largest community school district in Iowa with 32,062 enrolled students as of the 2012–2013 school year. The district consists of 63 schools: 38 elementary schools, eleven middle schools, five high schools (East, Hoover, Lincoln, North, and Roosevelt), and ten special schools and programs. Small parts of the city are instead served by Carlisle Community Schools, Johnston Community School District, the Southeast Polk Community School District and the Saydel School District Grand View Christian School is the only private school in the city, although Des Moines Christian School (in Des Moines from 1947 to 2006) in Urbandale, Dowling Catholic High School in West Des Moines, and Ankeny Christian Academy on the north side of the metro area serve some city residents.

Des Moines is also home to the main campuses of three four-year private colleges: Drake University, Grand View University, and Mercy College of Health Sciences. The University of Iowa has a satellite facility in the city's Western Gateway Park, while Iowa State University hosts Master of Business Administration classes downtown. Des Moines Area Community College is the area's community college with campuses in Ankeny, Des Moines, and West Des Moines. The city is also home to Des Moines University, an osteopathic medical school.

Media
The Des Moines market, which originally consisted of Polk, Dallas, Story, and Warren counties, was ranked 91st by Arbitron as of the fall of 2007 with a population of 512,000 aged 12 and older. In June 2011 it moved up to 72nd with the addition of Boone, Clarke, Greene, Guthrie, Jasper, Lucas, Madison and Marion counties.

Commercial stations
iHeartMedia owns five radio stations in the area, including WHO 1040 AM, a 50,000-watt AM news/talk station that has the highest ratings in the area and once employed future President Ronald Reagan as a sportscaster. In addition to WHO, iHeartMedia owns KDRB 100.3 FM (adult hits), KKDM 107.5 FM (contemporary hits), KXNO-FM 106.3, and KXNO 1460 AM (sports radio). They also own news/talk station KASI 1430 AM and hot adult contemporary station KCYZ 105.1 FM, both of which broadcast from Ames.

Cumulus Media owns five stations that broadcast from facilities in Urbandale: KBGG 1700 AM (sports), KGGO 94.9 FM (classic rock), KHKI 97.3 FM (country music), KJJY 92.5 FM (country music), and KWQW 98.3 FM (contemporary hits).

Saga Communications owns nine stations in the area: KAZR 103.3 FM (rock), KAZR-HD2 (oldies), KIOA 93.3 FM (oldies), KIOA-HD2 99.9FM & 93.3 HD2 (Rhythmic Top 40), KOEZ 104.1 FM (soft adult contemporary), KPSZ 940 AM (contemporary Christian music, religious teaching, and conservative talk), KRNT 1350 AM (ESPN Radio), KSTZ 102.5 FM (adult contemporary hits), and KSTZ-HD2 (classic country).

Other stations in the Des Moines area include religious stations KWKY 1150 AM, and KPUL 101.7 FM.

Non-commercial stations
Non-commercial radio stations in the Des Moines area include KDPS 88.1 FM, a station operated by the Des Moines Public Schools; KWDM 88.7 FM, a station operated by Valley High School; KJMC 89.3 FM, an urban contemporary station; K213DV 90.5 FM, the contemporary Christian K-Love affiliate for the area; and KDFR 91.3 FM, operated by Family Radio. Iowa Public Radio broadcasts several stations in the Des Moines area, all of which are owned by Iowa State University and operated on campus. WOI 640 AM, the network's flagship station, and WOI-FM 90.1, the network's flagship "Studio One" station, are both based out of Ames and serve as the area's National Public Radio outlets. The network also operates classical stations KICG, KICJ, KICL and KICP. The University of Northwestern – St. Paul operates Contemporary Christian simulcasts of KNWI-FM at 107.1 Osceola/Des Moines, KNWM-FM at 96.1 Madrid/Ames/Des Moines, and K264CD at 100.7 in downtown Des Moines. Low-power FM stations include KFMG-LP 99.1, a community radio station broadcasting from the Hotel Fort Des Moines and also webstreamed.

Television
The Des Moines-Ames media market consists of 35 central Iowa counties: Adair, Adams, Appanoose, Audubon, Boone, Calhoun, Carroll, Clarke, Dallas, Decatur, Franklin, Greene, Guthrie, Hamilton, Hardin, Humboldt, Jasper, Kossuth, Lucas, Madison, Mahaska, Marion, Marshall, Monroe, Pocahontas, Polk, Poweshiek, Ringgold, Story, Taylor, Union, Warren, Wayne, Webster, and Wright. It was ranked 71st by Nielsen Media Research for the 2008–2009 television season with 432,410 television households.

Commercial television stations serving Des Moines include CBS affiliate KCCI channel 8, NBC affiliate WHO-DT channel 13, and Fox affiliate KDSM-TV channel 17. ABC affiliate WOI-TV channel 5 and CW affiliate KCWI-TV channel 23 are both licensed to Ames and broadcast from studios in West Des Moines. KFPX-TV channel 39, the local ION affiliate, is licensed to Newton. Two non-commercial stations are also licensed to Des Moines: KDIN channel 11, the local PBS member station and flagship of the Iowa Public Television network, and KDMI channel 19, a TCT affiliate. Mediacom is the Des Moines area's cable television provider.

Print
The Des Moines Register is the city's primary daily newspaper. As of March 31, 2007, the Register ranked 71st in circulation among daily newspapers in the United States according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations with 146,050 daily and 233,229 Sunday subscribers. Weekly newspapers include Juice, a publication aimed at the 25–34 demographic published by the Register on Wednesdays; Cityview, an alternative weekly published on Thursdays; and the Des Moines Business Record, a business journal published on Sundays, along with the West Des Moines Register, the Johnston Register, and the Waukee Register on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays depending on the address of the subscriber. Additionally, magazine publisher Meredith Corporation was based in Des Moines prior to its acquisition by IAC and merger with Dotdash in 2021.

Transportation
Des Moines has an extensive skywalk system within its downtown core. With over four miles of enclosed walkway, it is one of the largest of such systems in the United States. The Des Moines Skywalk System has been criticized for hurting street-level business, though a recent initiative has been made to make street-level Skywalk entrances more visible.

Interstate 235 (I-235) cuts through the city, and I-35 and I-80 both pass through the Des Moines metropolitan area, as well as the city of Des Moines. On the northern side of the city of Des Moines and passing through the cities of Altoona, Clive, Johnston, Urbandale and West Des Moines, I-35 and I-80 converge into a long concurrency while I-235 takes a direct route through Des Moines, Windsor Heights, and West Des Moines before meeting up with I-35 and I-80 on the western edge of the metro. The Des Moines Bypass passes south and east of the city. Other routes in and around the city include US 6, US 69, Iowa 28, Iowa 141, Iowa 163, Iowa 330, Iowa 415, and Iowa 160.

Des Moines's public transit system, operated by DART (Des Moines Area Regional Transit), which was the Des Moines Metropolitan Transit Authority until October 2006, consists entirely of buses, including regular in-city routes and express and commuter buses to outlying suburban areas.

Characteristics of household ownership of cars in Des Moines are similar to national averages. In 2015, 8.5 percent of Des Moines households lacked a car, and increased to 9.6 percent in 2016. The national average was 8.7 percent in 2016. Des Moines averaged 1.71 cars per household in 2016, compared to a national average of 1.8.

Burlington Trailways and Jefferson Lines run long-distance, intercity bus routes through Des Moines. The bus station is located north of downtown.

Although Des Moines was historically a train hub, it does not have direct passenger train service. For east–west traffic it was served at the Rock Island Depot by the Corn Belt Rocket express from Omaha to the west, to Chicago in the east. The Rock Island also offered the Rocky Mountain Rocket from Colorado Springs in the west, to Chicago, and the Twin Star Rocket to Minneapolis to the north and Dallas and Houston to the south. The last train was an unnamed service ending at Council Bluffs, and it was discontinued on May 31, 1970. Today, this line constitutes the mainline of the Iowa Interstate Railroad.

Other railroads used the East Des Moines Union Station. Northward and northwest bound, there were Chicago and North Western trains to destinations including Minneapolis. The Wabash Railroad ran service to the southeast to St. Louis. These lines remain in use but are now operated by Union Pacific and BNSF.

The nearest Amtrak station is in Osceola, about 40 mi south of Des Moines. The Osceola station is served by the Chicago–San Francisco California Zephyr; there is no Osceola–Des Moines Amtrak Thruway connecting service. There have been proposals to extend Amtrak's planned Chicago–Moline Quad City Rocket to Des Moines via the Iowa Interstate Railroad.

The Des Moines International Airport (DSM), on Fleur Drive in the southern part of Des Moines, offers nonstop service to destinations within the United States. The only international service is cargo service, but there have been discussions about adding an international terminal.

Sister cities
The Greater Des Moines Sister City Commission, with members from the City of Des Moines and the suburbs of Cumming, Norwalk, Windsor Heights, Johnston, Urbandale, and Ankeny, maintains sister city relationships with:
 * 🇯🇵 Kōfu, Japan (1958)
 * 🇫🇷 Saint-Étienne, France (1985)
 * 🇨🇳 Shijiazhuang, China (1985)
 * 🇷🇺 Stavropol, Russia (1992) (suspended)
 * Pristina, Kosovo (2018) (Kosovo also opened Consulate in downtown Des Moines in 2015 – List of diplomatic missions of Kosovo)
 * 🇮🇹 Catanzaro, Italy (2006)
 * 🇲🇾 Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia (1987)

title: Des Moines, Iowa


text:
Donald Campbell

Donald Malcolm Campbell, (23 March 1921 – 4 January 1967) was a British speed record breaker who broke eight absolute world speed records on water and on land in the 1950s and 1960s. He remains the only person to set both world land and water speed records in the same year (1964). He died during a water speed record attempt at Coniston Water in the Lake District, England.

Family and personal life
Donald Malcolm Campbell was born at Canbury House, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, the son of Malcolm, later Sir Malcolm Campbell, holder of 13 world speed records in the 1920s and 1930s in the Bluebird cars and boats, and his second wife, Dorothy Evelyn (née Whittall).

Campbell attended St Peter's School, Seaford in East Sussex, and Uppingham School in Rutland. At the outbreak of the Second World War he volunteered for the Royal Air Force, but was unable to serve because of a case of childhood rheumatic fever. He joined Briggs Motor Bodies Ltd in West Thurrock, where he became a maintenance engineer. Subsequently, he was a shareholder in a small engineering company called Kine Engineering, producing machine tools. Following his father's death on 31 December 1948 and aided by Malcolm's chief engineer, Leo Villa, the younger Campbell strove to set speed records first on water and then land.

He married three times — to Daphne Harvey in 1945, producing daughter Georgina (Gina) Campbell, born on 19 September 1946; to Dorothy McKegg (1928–2008) in 1952; and to Tonia Bern (1928–2021) in December 1958, which union lasted until his death in 1967. Campbell was intensely superstitious, hating the colour green, the number thirteen and believing nothing good ever happened on a Friday. He also had some interest in the paranormal, which he nurtured as a member of the Ghost Club.

Water speed records
Campbell began his speed record attempts in the summer of 1949, using his father's old boat, Blue Bird K4, which he renamed Bluebird K4. His initial attempts that summer were unsuccessful, although he did come close to raising his father's existing record. The team returned to Coniston Water, Lancashire in 1950 for further trials. While there, they heard that an American, Stanley Sayres, had raised the record from 141 to 160 mph, beyond K4's capabilities without substantial modification.

In late 1950 and 1951, Bluebird K4 was modified to make it a "prop-rider" as opposed to her original immersed propeller configuration. This greatly reduced hydrodynamic drag: The third planing point would now be the propeller hub, meaning one of the two propeller blades was always out of the water at high speed. She now sported two cockpits, the second one being for Leo Villa.

Bluebird K4 now had a chance of exceeding Sayres' record and also enjoyed success as a circuit racer, winning the Oltranza Cup in Italy in the spring of that year. Returning to Coniston in September, they finally got Bluebird up to 170 mph after further trials, only to suffer a structural failure at 170 mph which wrecked the boat. Sayres raised the record the following year to 178 mph in Slo-Mo-Shun IV.

Along with Campbell, Britain had another potential contender for water speed record honours — John Cobb. He had commissioned the world's first purpose-built turbojet Hydroplane, Crusader, with a target speed of over 200 mph, and began trials on Loch Ness in autumn 1952. Cobb was killed later that year, when Crusader broke up, during an attempt on the record. Campbell was devastated at Cobb's loss, but he resolved to build a new Bluebird boat to bring the water speed record back to Britain.

In early 1953, Campbell began development of his own advanced all-metal jet-powered Bluebird K7 hydroplane to challenge the record, by now held by the American prop rider hydroplane Slo-Mo-Shun IV.[1] Designed by Ken and Lew Norris, the K7 was a steel-framed, aluminium-bodied, three-point hydroplane with a Metropolitan-Vickers Beryl axial-flow turbojet engine, producing 3,500-pound-force (16 kN) of thrust.

Like Slo-Mo-Shun, but unlike Cobb's tricycle Crusader, the three planing points were arranged with two forward, on outrigged sponsons and one aft, in a "pickle-fork" layout, prompting Bluebird's early comparison to a blue lobster. K7 was of very advanced design and construction, and its load bearing steel space frame ultra rigid and stressed to 25 g (exceeding contemporary military jet aircraft). It had a design speed of 250 mph and remained the only successful jet-boat in the world until the late 1960s.

The designation "K7" was derived from its Lloyd's unlimited rating registration. It was carried on a prominent white roundel on each sponson, underneath an infinity symbol. Bluebird K7 was the seventh boat registered at Lloyds in the "Unlimited" series.

Campbell set seven world water speed records in K7 between July 1955 and December 1964. The first of these marks was set at Ullswater on 23 July 1955, where he achieved a speed of 202.32 mph but only after many months of trials and a major redesign of Bluebird's forward sponson attachments points. Campbell achieved a steady series of subsequent speed-record increases with the boat during the rest of the decade, beginning with a mark of 216 mph in 1955 on Lake Mead in Nevada. Subsequently, four new marks were registered on Coniston Water, where Campbell and Bluebird became an annual fixture in the latter half of the 1950s, enjoying significant sponsorship from the Mobil oil company and then subsequently BP.

Campbell also made an attempt in the summer of 1957 at Canandaigua, New York, which failed due to lack of suitable calm water conditions. Bluebird K7 became a well known and popular attraction, and as well as her annual Coniston appearances, K7 was displayed extensively in the UK, United States, Canada and Europe, and then subsequently in Australia during Campbell's prolonged attempt on the land speed record in 1963–1964.

To extract more speed, and endow the boat with greater high-speed stability, in both pitch and yaw, K7 was subtly modified in the second half of the 1950s to incorporate more effective streamlining with a blown Perspex cockpit canopy and fluting to the lower part of the main hull. In 1958, a small wedge shaped tail fin, housing an arrester parachute, modified sponson fairings, that gave a significant reduction in forward aerodynamic lift, and a fixed hydrodynamic stabilising fin, attached to the transom to aid directional stability, and exert a marginal down-force on the nose were incorporated into the design to increase the safe operating envelope of the hydroplane. Thus she reached 225 mph in 1956, where an unprecedented peak speed of 286.78 mph was achieved on one run, 239 mph in 1957, 248 mph in 1958 and 260 mph in 1959.

Campbell was awarded the Command of the British Empire (CBE) in January 1957 for his water speed record breaking, and in particular his record at Lake Mead in the United States which earned him and Britain very positive acclaim.

On 23 November 1964, Campbell achieved the Australian water speed record of 216 mph on Lake Bonney Riverland in South Australia, although he was unable to break the world record on that attempt.

Land speed record attempt

It was after the Lake Mead water speed record success in 1955 that the seeds of Campbell's ambition to hold the land speed record as well were planted. The following year, the serious planning was under way — to build a car to break the land speed record, which then stood at 394 mph set by John Cobb in 1947. The Norris brothers designed Bluebird-Proteus CN7 with 500 mph in mind.

The British motor industry, in the guise of Dunlop, BP, Smiths Industries, Lucas Automotive, Rubery Owen as well as many others, became heavily involved in the project to build the most advanced car the world had yet seen. CN7 was powered by a specially modified Bristol-Siddeley Proteus free-turbine engine of 4450 shp driving all four wheels. Bluebird CN7 was designed to achieve 475–500 mph and was completed by the spring of 1960.

Following low-speed tests conducted at the Goodwood motor racing circuit in Sussex, in July, the CN7 was taken to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, United States, scene of his father's last land speed record triumph, some 25 years earlier in September 1935. The trials initially went well, and various adjustments were made to the car. On the sixth run in CN7, Campbell lost control at over 360 mph and crashed. It was the car's tremendous structural integrity that saved his life. He was hospitalised with a fractured skull and a burst eardrum, as well as minor cuts and bruises, but CN7 was a write-off. Almost immediately, Campbell announced he was determined to have another go. Sir Alfred Owen, whose Rubery Owen industrial group had built CN7, offered to rebuild it for him. That single decision was to have a profound influence on the rest of Campbell's life. His original plan had been to break the land speed record at over 400 mph in 1960, return to Bonneville the following year to really bump up the speed to something near to 500 mph, get his seventh water speed record with K7 and then retire.

Campbell decided not to go back to Utah for the new trials. He felt the Bonneville course was too short at 11 mi and the salt surface was in poor condition. BP offered to find another venue and eventually after a long search, Lake Eyre, in South Australia, was chosen. It hadn't rained there for nine years and the vast dry bed of the salt lake offered a course of up to 20 mi. By the summer of 1962, Bluebird CN7 was rebuilt, some nine months later than Campbell had hoped. It was essentially the same car, but with the addition of a large stabilising tail fin and a reinforced fibreglass cockpit cover. At the end of 1962, CN7 was shipped out to Australia ready for the new attempt. Low-speed runs had just started when the rains came. The course was compromised and further rain meant, that by May 1963, Lake Eyre was flooded to a depth of 3 inches, causing the attempt to be abandoned. Campbell was heavily criticised in the press for alleged time wasting and mismanagement of the project, despite the fact that he could hardly be held responsible for the unprecedented weather.

To make matters worse for Campbell, American Craig Breedlove drove his pure thrust jet car "Spirit of America" to a speed of 407.45 mph at Bonneville in July 1963. Although the "car" did not conform to FIA (Federation Internationale de L'Automobile) regulations, that stipulated it had to be wheel-driven and have a minimum of four wheels, in the eyes of the world, Breedlove was now the fastest man on Earth.

Campbell returned to Australia in March 1964, but the Lake Eyre course failed to fulfil the early promise it had shown in 1962 and there were further spells of rain. BP pulled out as his main sponsor after a dispute, but he was able to secure backing from Australian oil company Ampol.

The track never properly dried out and Campbell was forced to make the best of the conditions. Finally, in July 1964, he was able to post some speeds that approached the record. On the 17th of that month, he took advantage of a break in the weather and made two courageous runs along the shortened and still damp track, posting a new land speed record of 403.10 mph. The surreal moment was captured in a number of well-known images by photographers, including Australia's Jeff Carter.

Campbell was bitterly disappointed with the record as the vehicle had been designed for much higher speeds. CN7 covered the final third of the measured mile at an average of 429 mph, peaking as it left the measured distance at over 440 mph. He resented the fact that it had all been so difficult. "We've made it — we got the bastard at last," was his reaction to the success. Campbell's 403.1 mph represented the official land speed record.

In 1969, after Campbell's fatal accident, his widow, Tonia Bern-Campbell negotiated a deal with Lynn Garrison, president of Craig Breedlove and Associates, that would see Craig Breedlove run Bluebird on Bonneville's Salt Flats. This concept was cancelled when the parallel Spirit of America supersonic car project failed to find support.

Double records
Campbell now planned to go after the water speed record one more time with Bluebird K7 — to do what he had aimed for so many years earlier, during the initial planning stages of CN7 — break both records in the same year. After more delays, he finally achieved his seventh water speed record at Lake Dumbleyung near Perth, Western Australia, on the last day of 1964, at a speed of 276.33 mph. He had become the first, and so far only, person to set both land and water speed records in the same year.

Campbell's land speed record was short-lived, because FIA rule changes meant that pure jet cars would be eligible to set records from October 1964. Campbell's 429 mph speed on his final Lake Eyre run remained the highest speed achieved by a wheel-driven car until 2001; Bluebird CN7 is now on display at the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu in Hampshire, England, its potential only partly realised.

Bluebird Mach 1.1

Campbell decided a massive jump in speed was called for following his successful 1964 land speed record attempt in Bluebird CN7. His vision was of a supersonic rocket car with a potential maximum speed of 840 mph. Norris Brothers were requested to undertake a design study. Bluebird Mach 1.1 was a design for a rocket-powered supersonic land speed record car. Campbell chose a lucky date to hold a press conference at the Charing Cross Hotel on 7 July 1965 to announce his future record breaking plans:

"'... In terms of speed on the Earth's surface, my next logical step must be to construct a Bluebird car that can reach Mach 1.1. The Americans are already making plans for such a vehicle and it would be tragic for the world image of British technology if we did not compete in this great contest and win. The nation whose technologies are first to seize the 'faster than sound' record on land will be the nation whose industry will be seen to leapfrog into the '70s or '80s. We can have the car on the track within three years.'"

Bluebird Mach 1.1 was to be rocket-powered. Ken Norris had calculated using rocket motors would result in a vehicle with very low frontal area, greater density, and lighter weight than if he were to employ a jet engine. Bluebird Mach 1.1 would also be a relatively compact and simple design. Norris specified two off-the-shelf Bristol Siddeley BS.605 rocket engines. The 605 had been developed as a rocket-assisted take-off engine for military aircraft and was fuelled with kerosene, using hydrogen peroxide as the oxidiser. Each engine was rated at 8000 lbf thrust. In Bluebird Mach 1.1 application, the combined 16000 lbf thrust would be equivalent of 36,000 bhp (27,000 kW; 36,000 PS) at 840 mph.

Final record attempt
To increase publicity for his rocket car venture, in the spring of 1966, Campbell decided to try once more for a water speed record. This time the target was 300 mph. Bluebird K7 was fitted with a lighter and more powerful Bristol Orpheus engine, taken from a Folland Gnat jet aircraft, which developed 4500 lb-f of thrust. The modified boat was taken back to Coniston in the first week of November 1966. The trials did not go well. The weather was very poor, and K7 suffered an engine failure when her air intakes collapsed and debris was drawn into the engine. By the middle of December, some high-speed runs were made, in excess of 250 mph but still well below Campbell's existing record. Problems with Bluebird's fuel system meant that the engine could not reach full speed, and so would not develop maximum power. Eventually, by the end of December, after further modifications to her fuel system, and the replacement of a fuel pump, the fuel starvation problem was fixed, and Campbell awaited better weather to mount an attempt.

Death
On 4 January 1967, weather conditions were finally suitable for an attempt. Campbell commenced the first run of his last record attempt at just after 8:45 am. Bluebird moved slowly out towards the middle of the lake, where she paused briefly as Campbell lined her up. With a deafening blast of power, Campbell now applied full throttle and Bluebird began to surge forward. Clouds of spray issued from the jet-pipe, water poured over the rear spar and after a few hundred yards, at 70 mph, Bluebird unstuck from the surface and rocketed off towards the southern end of the lake, producing her characteristic comet's tail of spray. She entered the measured kilometre at 8:46 am. Leo Villa witnessed her passing the first marker buoy at about 285 mph in perfect steady planing trim, her nose slightly down, still accelerating. 7.525 seconds later, Keith Harrison saw her leave the measured kilometre at a speed of over 310 mph.

The average speed for the first run was 297.6 mph. Campbell lifted his foot from the throttle about 3/10 of a second before passing the southern kilometre marker. As Bluebird left the measured kilometre, Keith Harrison and Eric Shaw in a course boat at the southern end of the measured kilometre both noticed that she was very light around the bows, riding on her front stabilising fins. Her planing trim was no worse than she had exhibited when equipped with the Beryl engine, but it was markedly different from that observed by Leo Villa at the northern end of the kilometre, when she was under full acceleration. Campbell had made his usual commentary throughout the run.

Campbell's words on his first run were, via radio intercom: "'... I'm under way, all systems normal; brake swept up, er ... air pressure warning light on ... I'm coming onto track now and er ... I'll open up just as soon as I am heading down the lake, er doesn't look too smooth from here, doesn't matter, here we go ... Here we go ... [pause 3 seconds] ... Passing through four ... five coming up ... a lot of water, nose beginning to lift, water all over the front of the engine again ... and the nose is up ... low pressure fuel warning light ... going left ... OK we're up and away ... and passing through er ... tramping very hard at 150 ... very hard indeed ... FULL POWER ... Passing through 2 ... 25 out of the way ... tramping like hell Leo, I don't think I can get over the top, but I'll try, FULL HOUSE ... and I can't see where I am ... FULL HOUSE – FULL HOUSE – FULL HOUSE ... POWER OFF NOW! ... I'M THROUGH! ... power ... (garbled) er passing through 25 vector off Peel Island ... passing through 2 ... I'm lighting like mad ... brake gone down ... er ... engine lighting up now ... relighting ... passing Peel Island ... relight made normal ... and now ... down at Brown Howe ... passing through 100 ... er ... nose hasn't dropped yet ... nose down.'"

Instead of refuelling and waiting for the wash of this run to subside, Campbell decided to make the return run immediately. This was not an unprecedented diversion from normal practice, as Campbell had used the advantage presented; i.e., no encroachment of water disturbances on the measured kilometre by the quick turnaround in many previous runs. The second run was even faster once severe tramping subsided on the run-up from Peel Island (caused by the water-brake disturbance). Once smooth water was reached some 700 m or so from the start of the kilometre, K7 demonstrated cycles of ground effect hovering before accelerating hard at 0.63 g to a peak speed of 328 mph some 200 metres or so from the southern marker buoy. Bluebird was now experiencing bouncing episodes of the starboard sponson with increasing ferocity.

At the peak speed, the most intense and long-lasting bounce precipitated a severe decelerating episode — 328 mph to 296 mph, -1.86g — as K7 dropped back onto the water. Engine flame-out then occurred and, shorn of thrust nose-down momentum, K7 experienced a gliding episode in strong ground effect with increasing angle-of-attack, before completely leaving the water at her static stability pitch-up limit of 5.2°. Bluebird then executed an almost complete backflip (~ 320° and slightly off-axis) before plunging into the water (port sponson marginally in advance of the starboard), approximately 230 metres from the end of the measured kilometre. The boat then cartwheeled across the water before coming to rest. The impact killed Campbell instantly and broke K7 forward of the air intakes (where Campbell was sitting), and the main hull sank shortly afterwards.

Mr Whoppit, Campbell's teddy bear mascot, was found among the floating debris and the pilot's helmet was recovered. Royal Navy divers made efforts to find and recover the body but, although the wreck of K7 was found, they called off the search, after two weeks, without locating his body. Campbell's body was finally located in 2001.

Campbell's last words, during a 31-second transmission, on his final run were, via radio intercom:

"'... Full nose up ... Pitching a bit down here ... coming through our own wash ... er getting straightened up now on track ... rather closer to Peel Island ... and we're tramping like mad ... and er ... FULL POWER ... er tramping like hell OVER. I can't see much and the water's very bad indeed ... I'm galloping over the top ... and she's giving a hell of a bloody row in here ... I can't see anything ... I've got the bows out ... I'm going ... U-hh ...'"

The cause of the crash has been variously attributed to several possible causes (or a combination of these causes):
 * Campbell did not wait to refuel after doing a first run of 297.6 mph and hence the boat was lighter and travelled through the wash caused by his first run, a wash made much worse by the use of the water brake. These factors have since been found to be not particularly important: The water brake was used well to the south of the measured distance, and only from approx. 200 mph. The area in the centre of the course where Bluebird was travelling at peak speed on her return run was flat calm, and not disturbed by the wash from the first run, which had not had time to be reflected back on the course. Campbell knew this and, as discussed previously, adopted his well-practised, "quick turn-around" strategy.
 * Bluebird may have exceeded its aerodynamic static stability limit, complicated by the additional destabilising influences of loss of engine thrust. There is also evidence to point to the fact that K7's dynamic stability limit had been exceeded. The cause(s) of the engine flame-out cannot be established unequivocally. It could have been due to fuel starvation, damage to some ancillary structural element associated with engine function (following the worst bouncing episode), disturbance of the airstream into the intakes during the pitching episodes, or indeed a combination of all three. Further evidence of lost engine thrust may be seen in both cinematographic and still film recordings of the latter part of the run — as Bluebird left the water, jet exhaust from a functioning engine would have severely disturbed the water surface; no such disturbance or accompanying spray is evident. Also, close examination of such records show no evidence to the effect that the water brake was deployed.
 * Analysis of film footage suggests that Bluebird may have hit a duck during test runs, which may have affected the aerodynamic shape of the boat, making it harder to control at extreme speeds.

On 28 January 1967, Campbell was posthumously awarded the Queen's Commendation for Brave Conduct "for courage and determination in attacking the world water speed record."

Recovery of Bluebird K7 and Campbell's body
The wreckage of Campbell's craft was recovered by Gilgeous Diving Services (GDS Extreme Engineering, Liverpool) along with amateur diver Bill Smith. Lifting K7 was run and overseen by GDS Extreme Engineering and Smith’s team. The main section/hull first raised in March 2001 and later in May 2001, when Campbell's body was recovered. The largest section, comprising approximately two-thirds of the centre hull, was raised on 8 March 2001. The project began when Smith was inspired to look for the wreck after hearing the Marillion song "Out of This World" (from the album Afraid of Sunlight), which was written about Campbell and Bluebird.

The remains of Campbell's body were located just over two months later and recovered from the lake on 28 May 2001, still wearing his blue nylon overalls. On the night before his death, while playing cards he had drawn the queen and the ace of spades. Reflecting upon the fact that Mary, Queen of Scots had drawn the same two cards the night before she was beheaded, he told his mechanics, who were playing cards with him, that he had a fearful premonition that he was going to "get the chop". It was not possible to determine the cause of Campbell's death, though a consultant engineer giving evidence to the inquest said that the force of the impact could have caused him to be decapitated.

Campbell was buried in Coniston Cemetery on 12 September 2001 after his coffin was carried down the lake, and through the measured kilometre, on a launch, one last time. A funeral service was then held at St Andrew's Church in Coniston, after an earlier, and positive DNA examination had been carried out. The funeral was attended by his widow, Tonia, daughter Gina, other members of his family, members of his former team and admirers. The funeral was overshadowed in the media by coverage of the 9/11 attacks in the United States.

Campbell's sister, Jean Wales, had been against the recovery of her brother's body out of respect for his stated wish that, in the event of something going wrong, "Skipper and boat stay together".

When Campbell was buried in Coniston Cemetery on 12 September 2001 she did not attend the service. Steve Hogarth, lead singer for Marillion, was present at the funeral and performed the song "Out of This World" solo.

Legacy
Between them, Campbell and his father had set 11 speed records on water and 10 on land.

The story of Campbell's last attempt at the water speed record on Coniston Water was told in the BBC television film Across the Lake in 1988, with Anthony Hopkins as Campbell. Nine years earlier, Robert Hardy had played Campbell's father, Sir Malcolm Campbell, in the BBC2 Playhouse television drama "Speed King"; both were written by Roger Milner and produced by Innes Lloyd. In 2003, the BBC showed a documentary reconstruction of Campbell's fateful water-speed record attempt in an episode of Days That Shook the World. It featured a mixture of modern reconstruction and original film footage. All of the original colour clips were taken from a film capturing the event, Campbell at Coniston by John Lomax, a local amateur filmmaker from Wallasey, England. Lomax's film won awards worldwide in the late 1960s for recording the final weeks of Campbell's life.

In 1956, Campbell was surprised by Eamonn Andrews for the seventh episode of the new television show This Is Your Life.

An English Heritage blue plaque commemorates Campbell and his father at Canbury School, Kingston Hill, Kingston upon Thames, where they lived.

In the village of Coniston, the Ruskin Museum has a display of Campbell memorabilia, and the Bristol Orpheus engine recovered in 2001 is also displayed. The engine's casing is mostly missing, having acted as a sacrificial anode in its time underwater, but the internals are preserved. Campbell's helmet from the ill-fated run is also on display.

Campbell’s legendary BLUEBIRD K7 is now also on display at the Coniston Ruskin Museum.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Donald Campbell


text:
Directed set

In mathematics, a directed set (or a directed preorder or a filtered set) is a nonempty set $$A$$ together with a reflexive and transitive binary relation $$\,\leq\,$$ (that is, a preorder), with the additional property that every pair of elements has an upper bound. In other words, for any $$a$$ and $$b$$ in $$A$$ there must exist $$c$$ in $$A$$ with $$a \leq c$$ and $$b \leq c.$$ A directed set's preorder is called a direction.

The notion defined above is sometimes called an . A  is defined analogously, meaning that every pair of elements is bounded below. Some authors (and this article) assume that a directed set is directed upward, unless otherwise stated. Other authors call a set directed if and only if it is directed both upward and downward.

Directed sets are a generalization of nonempty totally ordered sets. That is, all totally ordered sets are directed sets (contrast ordered sets, which need not be directed). Join-semilattices (which are partially ordered sets) are directed sets as well, but not conversely. Likewise, lattices are directed sets both upward and downward.

In topology, directed sets are used to define nets, which generalize sequences and unite the various notions of limit used in analysis. Directed sets also give rise to direct limits in abstract algebra and (more generally) category theory.

Equivalent definition
In addition to the definition above, there is an equivalent definition. A directed set is a set $$A$$ with a preorder such that every finite subset of $$A$$ has an upper bound. In this definition, the existence of an upper bound of the empty subset implies that $$A$$ is nonempty.

Examples
The set of natural numbers $$\N$$ with the ordinary order $$\,\leq\,$$ is one of the most important examples of a directed set. Every totally ordered set is a directed set, including $$(\N, \leq),$$ $$(\N, \geq),$$ $$(\Reals, \leq),$$ and $$(\Reals, \geq).$$

A (trivial) example of a partially ordered set that is  directed is the set $$\{a, b\},$$ in which the only order relations are $$a \leq a$$ and $$b \leq b.$$ A less trivial example is like the following example of the "reals directed towards $$x_0$$" but in which the ordering rule only applies to pairs of elements on the same side of $$x_0$$ (that is, if one takes an element $$a$$ to the left of $$x_0,$$ and $$b$$ to its right, then $$a$$ and $$b$$ are not comparable, and the subset $$\{ a, b \}$$ has no upper bound).

Product of directed sets
Let $$\mathbb{D}_1$$ and $$\mathbb{D}_2$$ be directed sets. Then the Cartesian product set $$\mathbb{D}_1 \times \mathbb{D}_2$$ can be made into a directed set by defining $$\left(n_1, n_2\right) \leq \left(m_1, m_2\right)$$ if and only if $$n_1 \leq m_1$$ and $$n_2 \leq m_2.$$ In analogy to the product order this is the product direction on the Cartesian product. For example, the set $$\N \times \N$$ of pairs of natural numbers can be made into a directed set by defining $$\left(n_0, n_1\right) \leq \left(m_0, m_1\right)$$ if and only if $$n_0 \leq m_0$$ and $$n_1 \leq m_1.$$

Directed towards a point
If $$x_0$$ is a real number then the set $$I := \R \backslash \lbrace x_0 \rbrace$$ can be turned into a directed set by defining $$a \leq_I b$$ if $$\left|a - x_0\right| \geq \left|b - x_0\right|$$ (so "greater" elements are closer to $$x_0$$). We then say that the reals have been directed towards $$x_0.$$ This is an example of a directed set that is partially ordered nor totally ordered. This is because antisymmetry breaks down for every pair $$a$$ and $$b$$ equidistant from $$x_0,$$ where $$a$$ and $$b$$ are on opposite sides of $$x_0.$$ Explicitly, this happens when $$\{a, b\} = \left\{x_0 - r, x_0 + r\right\}$$ for some real $$r \neq 0,$$ in which case $$a \leq_I b$$ and $$b \leq_I a$$ even though $$a \neq b.$$ Had this preorder been defined on $$\R$$ instead of $$\R \backslash \lbrace x_0 \rbrace$$ then it would still form a directed set but it would now have a (unique) greatest element, specifically $$x_0$$; however, it still wouldn't be partially ordered. This example can be generalized to a metric space $$(X, d)$$ by defining on $$X$$ or $$X \setminus \left\{x_0\right\}$$ the preorder $$a \leq b$$ if and only if $$d\left(a, x_0\right) \geq d\left(b, x_0\right).$$

Maximal and greatest elements
An element $$m$$ of a preordered set $$(I, \leq)$$ is a maximal element if for every $$j \in I,$$ $$m \leq j$$ implies $$j \leq m.$$ It is a greatest element if for every $$j \in I,$$ $$j \leq m.$$

Any preordered set with a greatest element is a directed set with the same preorder. For instance, in a poset $$P,$$ every lower closure of an element; that is, every subset of the form $$\{a \in P : a \leq x\}$$ where $$x$$ is a fixed element from $$P,$$ is directed.

Every maximal element of a directed preordered set is a greatest element. Indeed, a directed preordered set is characterized by equality of the (possibly empty) sets of maximal and of greatest elements.

Subset inclusion
The subset inclusion relation $$\,\subseteq,\,$$ along with its dual $$\,\supseteq,\,$$ define partial orders on any given family of sets. A non-empty family of sets is a directed set with respect to the partial order $$\,\supseteq\,$$ (respectively, $$\,\subseteq\,$$) if and only if the intersection (respectively, union) of any two of its members contains as a subset (respectively, is contained as a subset of) some third member. In symbols, a family $$I$$ of sets is directed with respect to $$\,\supseteq\,$$ (respectively, $$\,\subseteq\,$$) if and only if
 * for all $$A, B \in I,$$ there exists some $$C \in I$$ such that $$A \supseteq C$$ and $$B \supseteq C$$ (respectively, $$A \subseteq C$$ and $$B \subseteq C$$)

or equivalently,
 * for all $$A, B \in I,$$ there exists some $$C \in I$$ such that $$A \cap B \supseteq C$$ (respectively, $$A \cup B \subseteq C$$).

Many important examples of directed sets can be defined using these partial orders. For example, by definition, a Filter (set theory) or is a non-empty family of sets that is a directed set with respect to the partial order $$\,\supseteq\,$$ and that also does not contain the empty set (this condition prevents triviality because otherwise, the empty set would then be a greatest element with respect to $$\,\supseteq\,$$). Every $\pi$-system, which is a non-empty family of sets that is closed under the intersection of any two of its members, is a directed set with respect to $$\,\supseteq\,.$$ Every λ-system is a directed set with respect to $$\,\subseteq\,.$$ Every filter, topology, and σ-algebra is a directed set with respect to both $$\,\supseteq\,$$ and $$\,\subseteq\,.$$

Tails of nets
By definition, a is a function from a directed set and a sequence is a function from the natural numbers $$\N.$$ Every sequence canonically becomes a net by endowing $$\N$$ with $$\,\leq.\,$$

If $$x_{\bull} = \left(x_i\right)_{i \in I}$$ is any net from a directed set $$(I, \leq)$$ then for any index $$i \in I,$$ the set $$x_{\geq i} := \left\{x_j : j \geq i \text{ with } j \in I\right\}$$ is called the tail of $$(I, \leq)$$ starting at $$i.$$ The family $$\operatorname{Tails}\left(x_{\bull}\right) := \left\{x_{\geq i} : i \in I\right\}$$ of all tails is a directed set with respect to $$\,\supseteq;\,$$ in fact, it is even a prefilter.

Neighborhoods
If $$T$$ is a topological space and $$x_0$$ is a point in $$T,$$ set of all neighbourhoods of $$x_0$$ can be turned into a directed set by writing $$U \leq V$$ if and only if $$U$$ contains $$V.$$ For every $$U,$$ $$V,$$ and $$W$$:
 * $$U \leq U$$ since $$U$$ contains itself.
 * if $$U \leq V$$ and $$V \leq W,$$ then $$U \supseteq V$$ and $$V \supseteq W,$$ which implies $$U \supseteq W.$$ Thus $$U \leq W.$$
 * because $$x_0 \in U \cap V,$$ and since both $$U \supseteq U \cap V$$ and $$V \supseteq U \cap V,$$ we have $$U \leq U \cap V$$ and $$V \leq U \cap V.$$

Finite subsets
The set $$\operatorname{Finite}(I)$$ of all finite subsets of a set $$I$$ is directed with respect to $$\,\subseteq\,$$ since given any two $$A, B \in \operatorname{Finite}(I),$$ their union $$A \cup B \in \operatorname{Finite}(I)$$ is an upper bound of $$A$$ and $$B$$ in $$\operatorname{Finite}(I).$$ This particular directed set is used to define the sum $${\textstyle\sum\limits_{i \in I}} r_i$$ of a generalized series of an $$I$$-indexed collection of numbers $$\left(r_i\right)_{i \in I}$$ (or more generally, the sum of elements in an abelian topological group, such as vectors in a topological vector space) as the limit of the net of partial sums $$F \in \operatorname{Finite}(I) \mapsto {\textstyle\sum\limits_{i \in F}} r_i;$$ that is: $$\sum_{i \in I} r_i ~:=~ \lim_{F \in \operatorname{Finite}(I)} \ \sum_{i \in F} r_i ~=~ \lim \left\{\sum_{i \in F} r_i \,: F \subseteq I, F \text{ finite }\right\}.$$

Logic
Let $$S$$ be a formal theory, which is a set of sentences with certain properties (details of which can be found in the article on the subject). For instance, $$S$$ could be a first-order theory (like Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory) or a simpler zeroth-order theory. The preordered set $$(S, \Leftarrow)$$ is a directed set because if $$A, B \in S$$ and if $$C := A \wedge B$$ denotes the sentence formed by logical conjunction $$\,\wedge,\,$$ then $$A \Leftarrow C$$ and $$B \Leftarrow C$$ where $$C \in S.$$ If $$S / \sim$$ is the Lindenbaum–Tarski algebra associated with $$S$$ then $$\left(S / \sim, \Leftarrow\right)$$ is a partially ordered set that is also a directed set.

Contrast with semilattices

Directed set is a more general concept than (join) semilattice: every join semilattice is a directed set, as the join or least upper bound of two elements is the desired $$c.$$ The converse does not hold however, witness the directed set {1000,0001,1101,1011,1111} ordered bitwise (e.g. $$1000 \leq 1011$$ holds, but $$0001 \leq 1000$$ does not, since in the last bit 1 > 0), where {1000,0001} has three upper bounds but no  upper bound, cf. picture. (Also note that without 1111, the set is not directed.)

Directed subsets
The order relation in a directed set is not required to be antisymmetric, and therefore directed sets are not always partial orders. However, the term is also used frequently in the context of posets. In this setting, a subset $$A$$ of a partially ordered set $$(P, \leq)$$ is called a directed subset if it is a directed set according to the same partial order: in other words, it is not the empty set, and every pair of elements has an upper bound. Here the order relation on the elements of $$A$$ is inherited from $$P$$; for this reason, reflexivity and transitivity need not be required explicitly.

A directed subset of a poset is not required to be downward closed; a subset of a poset is directed if and only if its downward closure is an ideal. While the definition of a directed set is for an "upward-directed" set (every pair of elements has an upper bound), it is also possible to define a downward-directed set in which every pair of elements has a common lower bound. A subset of a poset is downward-directed if and only if its upper closure is a filter.

Directed subsets are used in domain theory, which studies directed-complete partial orders. These are posets in which every upward-directed set is required to have a least upper bound. In this context, directed subsets again provide a generalization of convergent sequences.

title: Directed set


text:
Edward Bellamy

Edward Bellamy (March 26, 1850 – May 22, 1898) was an American author, journalist, and political activist most famous for his utopian novel Looking Backward. Bellamy's vision of a harmonious future world inspired the formation of numerous "Nationalist Clubs" dedicated to the propagation of his political ideas.

After working as a journalist and writing several unremarkable novels, Bellamy published Looking Backward in 1888. It was one of the most commercially successful books published in the United States in the 19th century, and it especially appealed to a generation of intellectuals alienated from the alleged dark side of the Gilded Age. In the early 1890s, Bellamy established a newspaper known as The New Nation and began to promote united action between the various Nationalist Clubs and the emerging Populist Party. He published Equality, a sequel to Looking Backward, in 1897, and died the following year.

Early life
Edward Bellamy was born in Chicopee, Massachusetts. His father was Rufus King Bellamy (1816–1886), a Baptist minister and a descendant of Joseph Bellamy. His mother, Maria Louisa Putnam Bellamy, was a Calvinist. She was the daughter of a Baptist minister named Benjamin Putnam, who was forced to withdraw from the ministry in Salem, Massachusetts, following objections to his becoming a Freemason.

Bellamy attended public school at Chicopee Falls before leaving for Union College of Schenectady, New York, where he studied for just two semesters. Upon leaving school, he made his way to Europe for a year, spending extensive time in Germany. He briefly studied law but abandoned that field without ever having practiced as a lawyer, instead entering the world of journalism. In this capacity Bellamy briefly served on the staff of the New York Post before returning to his native Massachusetts to take a position at the Springfield Union.

At the age of 25, Bellamy developed tuberculosis, the disease that would ultimately kill him. He suffered with its effects throughout his adult life. In an effort to regain his health, Bellamy spent a year in the Hawaiian Islands (1877 to 1878). Returning to the United States, he decided to abandon the daily grind of journalism in favor of literary work, which put fewer demands upon his time and his health.

Bellamy married Emma Augusta Sanderson in 1882. The couple had two children.

Literary career
Bellamy's early novels, including Six to One (1878), Dr. Heidenhoff's Process (1880), and Miss Ludington's Sister (1885), were unremarkable works, making use of standard psychological plots.

A turn to utopian science fiction with Looking Backward, 2000–1887, published in January 1888, captured the public imagination and catapulted Bellamy to literary fame. Its publisher could scarcely keep up with demand. Within a year it had sold some 200,000 copies, and by the end of the 19th century had sold more copies than any other book published in America up to that time except for Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace. The book gained an extensive readership in the United Kingdom as well, more than 235,000 copies being sold there between 1890 and 1935.

In Looking Backward, a non-violent revolution had transformed the American economy and thereby society; private property had been abolished in favor of state ownership of capital and the elimination of social classes and the ills of society that he thought inevitably followed from them. In the new world of the year 2000, there was no longer war, poverty, crime, prostitution, corruption, money, or taxes. Neither did there exist such occupations seen by Bellamy as of dubious worth to society, such as politicians, lawyers, merchants, or soldiers. Instead, Bellamy's utopian society of the future was based upon the voluntary employment of all citizens between the ages of 21 and 45, after which time all would retire. Work was simple, aided by machine production, working hours short and vacation time long. The new economic basis of society effectively remade human nature itself in Bellamy's idyllic vision, with greed, maliciousness, untruthfulness, and insanity all relegated to the past.

Bellamyite movement
Bellamy's book inspired legions of inspired readers to establish so-called Nationalist Clubs, beginning in Boston late in 1888. His vision of a country relieved of its social ills through abandonment of the principle of competition and establishment of state ownership of industry proved an appealing panacea to a generation of intellectuals alienated from the dark side of Gilded Age America. By 1891 it was reported that no fewer than 162 Nationalist Clubs were in existence.

Bellamy's use of the term "Nationalism" rather than "socialism" as a descriptor of his governmental vision was calculated, as he did not want to limit either sales of his novel or the potential influence of its political ideas. In an 1888 letter to literary critic William Dean Howells, Bellamy wrote:

"Every sensible man will admit there is a big deal in a name, especially in making first impressions. In the radicalness of the opinions I have expressed, I may seem to out-socialize the socialists, yet the word socialist is one I never could well stomach. In the first place it is a foreign word in itself, and equally foreign in all its suggestions. It smells to the average American of petroleum, suggests the red flag, and with all manner of sexual novelties, and an abusive tone about God and religion, which in this country we at least treat with respect. [...] [W]hatever German and French reformers may choose to call themselves, socialist is not a good name for a party to succeed with in America. No such party can or ought to succeed that is not wholly and enthusiastically American and patriotic in spirit and suggestions."

Bellamy himself came to actively participate in the political movement which emerged around his book, particularly after 1891 when he founded his own magazine, The New Nation, and began to promote united action between the various Nationalist Clubs and the emerging People's Party. For the next three and a half years, Bellamy gave his all to politics, publishing his magazine, working to influence the platform of the People's Party, and publicizing the Nationalist movement in the popular press. This phase of his life came to an end in 1894, when The New Nation was forced to suspend publication owing to financial difficulties.

With the key activists of the Nationalist Clubs largely absorbed into the apparatus of the People's Party (although a Nationalist Party did run three candidates for office in Wisconsin as late as 1896 ), Bellamy abandoned politics for a return to literature. He set to work on a sequel to Looking Backward titled Equality, attempting to deal with the ideal society of the post-revolutionary future in greater detail. In this final work, he addressed the question of feminism, dealing with the taboo subject of female reproductive rights in a future, post-revolutionary America. Other subjects overlooked in Looking Backward, such as animal rights and wilderness preservation, were dealt with in a similar context. The book saw print in 1897 and would prove to be Bellamy's final creation.

Several short stories of Bellamy's were published in 1898, and The Duke of Stockbridge; a Romance of Shays' Rebellion was published in 1900.

Death and legacy
Edward Bellamy died of tuberculosis in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts ten years after the publication of his most famous book. He was 48 years old.

His lifelong home in Chicopee Falls, built by his father, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1971.

Bellamy was the cousin of Francis Bellamy, famous for writing the original version of the Pledge of Allegiance.

Bellamy Road, a residential road in Toronto, is named for the author.

Novels

 * Six to One (1878)
 * Dr. Heidenhoff's Process (1880)
 * Miss Ludington's Sister (1885)
 * Looking Backward, 2000–1887 (1888)
 * Equality (1897)
 * The Duke of Stockbridge; a Romance of Shays' Rebellion (1900)

Short stories

 * "At Pinney's Ranch"
 * "The Blindman's World"
 * "Deserted"
 * "An Echo Of Antietam"
 * "Hooking Watermelons"
 * "Lost"
 * "A Love Story Reversed"
 * "The Old Folks' Party"
 * "A Positive Romance"
 * "Potts's Painless Cure"
 * "A Summer Evening's Dream"
 * "To Whom This May Come"
 * "Two Days' Solitary Imprisonment"
 * "With The Eyes Shut"
 * "The Cold Snap"
 * "The Old Folks' Party"

title: Edward Bellamy