The KCCI Weather Beacon

Weather Beacon photo from kcci.com

When I first moved to Des Moines in 2007, I was rattled with lore and strange facts about the city. I had been gone from the state since June of 2004 and previously haunted only the eastern side. I only made one or two trips to or through Des Moines as a kid. My mom took me to see “The Phantom of the Opera” at the Civic Center sometime in the 1990s and then just simply passed through heading to Omaha to see my uncle and his family. Mom would insist that we stop at Waterfront Deli in West Des Moines every time we would be here. So my synopsis of Des Moines was: The Civic Center, a golden dome, and Waterfront Deli. I didn’t even have Adventureland on my radar because I have been mentally 60 years old since I was 10.

Anyway, I moved in 2007 to Des Moines not knowing a single person who lived here. It was the wild idea that I wanted to be back in Iowa but not anywhere I had family or friends. So getting settled in my first year and into my first winter storm that loomed that December, I began hearing stories of the KCCI Weather Beacon. Keep in mind that smart phones were just coming into fruition. If I wanted to know what the weather was going to be for the day or for the week, I would need to check the internet before I left for the day. This was the same if I needed directions. Remember using Mapquest and printing out the directions or, in my case, writing them down on a napkin to take with me because I didn’t have a printer? This was still the era when someone had to be prepared before they ventured out into the world.

Well, I was preparing to make the trek east back to the Quad Cities to see my family for the holidays, and while making small talk with a stranger about the weather, I learned about the weather beacon over at KCCI.

Most locals knew this like their favorite childhood nursery rhymes. The tower was erected in 1960 as an aid to inform locals of what the forecast was going to be. It used traffic-style lights that would glow brightly so people could see them from various parts of the city. It stood 500 feet in the air and held 450 bulbs. Towers like this one could be found in many other cities including San Francisco, Cleveland and Chicago.

During the energy crisis of the 1970s, the tower went dark until it was rebuilt in 1988 after KCCI moved to its current location on Ninth Street. In 2012, the decision was made to shut down the weather beacon. The bulbs were no longer being made, and the tower’s structure had become too heavy to meet the current building code. It had simply become too outdated and too heavy to maintain, especially with the high winds we can get here. Even with changing out to a custom-made LED bulb, the equipment that spread across the tower to power lights was still too heavy.

A Facebook Group was created called “Save the Weather Beacon,” and the backslash was heard across the country that even resulted in a column in the Wall Street Journal on Oct. 23, 2012. I consider this the type of nostalgia that we need to move away from. There is probably a familiarity I am missing because I did not grow up here. A lot of people talk about how it affects our skyline, and I hear you. What if we need it again someday? I am sure there is a nightmare reality where the internet gets turned off and chaos reigns. (I just watched “Leave the World Behind” on Netflix where this scenario is played out.) But these devices could be considered archaic in today’s world. Meanwhile, a few weather beacons still exist in Dubuque and Sioux City.

The weather beacon does live on here locally. Jeremy Schultz released an app the same year the tower was turned off, but I don’t think it evolved into anything past its beta version: https://www.jeremyschultz.com/weather-beacon/. Confluence also made its tribute beer, “Weather Beacon Red.” And finally, an unidentified person runs a weather beacon Instagram page that no longer posts but will periodically creep on your stories. n

Kristian Day is a filmmaker and writer based in Des Moines. He also hosts the syndicated Iowa Basement Tapes radio program on 98.9 FM KFMG. Instagram: @kristianday Twitter: @kristianmday