Ask CITYVIEW

Ask CITYVIEW anything by emailing editor@dmcityview.com.

Why have so many lights been out along the Gray’s Lake trail for so long? With the park open from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. and daylight dwindling, there are hours at a time when long stretches of the trail are very dark. It’s dangerous.

We reached out with this question to the City of Des Moines and were told that the Parks and Rec trail team have confirmed that they do not have any reports of lights being out at Gray’s Lake Park. They believe it could be related to the Meredith Trail, which runs along Gray’s Lake, where they did endure vandalism to their lights in quarter one. If you wish to report an outage, you can visit the city’s website at www.dsm.city/departments/engineering_-_division/street_lights.php, or use the DSMmobile/website at www.dsm.city/mydsmmobile/ to report an issue with one of the parks. 

The plantings at the Denman fountain in Water Works Park are gorgeous and well-kept, but the planters have been in dire need of resurfacing for some time. Are there plans to do that yet this year? Also, is the fountain itself out of commission? Haven’t seen it operating for a while.

We asked this question to Des Moines Water Works and received the following response from Melissa Walker: “The fountain had been turned off during the lawn watering ban and because of recent threats of flooding. Our staff will be cleaning it this week and turning it back on. In addition, we have budgeted for maintenance and are in the process of getting quotes for resurfacing of the fountain.”

What are the record attendance days for each day of the Iowa State Fair?

The Iowa State Fair has a running chart on its website detailing the attendance numbers for the current year, the previous year, and what the all-time records are. Here are 2025’s numbers compared to the records:

• Day 1: 95,671 | Record: 101,262 (2008)
• Day 2: 104,191 | Record: 115,703 (2001)
• Day 3: 118,454 | Record: 128,732 (2024)
• Day 4: 113,001 | Record: 115,048 (2024)
• Day 5: 97,273 | Record: 105,522 (2017)
• Day 6: 102,080 | Record: 105,384 (2024)
• Day 7: 105,787 | Record: 109,323 (2019)
• Day 8: 106,925 | Record: 107,449 (2015)
• Day 9: 108,966 | Record: 112,891 (2019)
• Day 10: 118,093 | Record: 128,298 (2022)
• Day 11: 89,680 | Record: 119,754 (2012)

In total, the 2025 Iowa State Fair had an attendance of 1,160,121. This is not quite the height of the record-breaking 2024 with 1,182,682 but is still a solid number. ♦