A temporary archway over Walnut Street welcomed visitors to Seni Om Sed in 1897. This illustration appeared in the festival’s 54-page program.
On Monday evening, Sept. 13, 1897, President William McKinley pushed “an electronic button at Washington … connected by Postal Telegraph wire with Des Moines” and blew up a boat on the Des Moines River.
The explosion marked the opening of Seni Om Sed — “Des Moines” spelled backward — an annual event that accompanied early Iowa State Fairs.
President McKinley’s remote participation in the re-enactment of the Civil War’s Siege of Vicksburg is described in the 1897 event’s official souvenir program, which notes that fireworks were followed by a musical program featuring the world-renown Iowan Ida Fuller and “her marvelous fire dances on an immense barge in the river.”
Seni Om Sed was “a gigantic Mardi Gras-level carnival,” explained Cat Bierling, a research librarian at the Des Moines Public Library.
The festival began in 1888, two years after the Iowa State Fair had moved from the west side of Des Moines to its current location on the east side. At the time, the fair was still “entirely agricultural,” Bierling said.
It was perfect timing: Iowa’s capital had been among the first cities to install electric streetlights, which allowed for night-time parades. (Heads up: This year’s Iowa State Fair Parade on Grand Avenue starts at 6:15 tonight, long before sunset.)
The inaugural 1888 parade was a doozy, where 50,000 spectators saw “about 70 floats representing the various industries and commercial interests of Des Moines,” according to news reports. The newspapers also described a spectacle that was typical of the time: “thirty Mesquakie Indians from Tama … in war paint and feathers and frontier coaches … with cowboy attendants.”
The following year, attendance swelled to 85,000 for a parade that included the world’s first electric vehicle, a battery-powered, bus-like carriage invented by local chemist William Morrison.
The number and variety of attractions grew during the 1890s with pageants and floats depicting the fall of Rome, the destruction of Pompei, the arrival of the Mayflower and other historic events.
This was well before radio, television or motion pictures. Seni Om Sed was all about parades, performances and pageants, an art form that Mark Twain described in 1907 as “the most instructive and most impressive way of portraying history.”
The 1897 Seni Om Sed was one of the most elaborate. In addition to President McKinley’s boat detonation, the simulated Siege of Vicksburg featured “canoes and flatboats converted into seeming gun boats, (with) skyrockets and Roman candles used for cannon.”
Newspapers reported that 80,000 to 100,000 people witnessed the river bombardment, which began at 8:30 p.m., when “the first gun boat left its moorings and drifted downstream.” As the bombardment from the riverbank began, fireworks erupted over the water. According to news reports in Davenport and Cedar Rapids, some rockets flew perilously close to spectators who had paid 50 cents to sit in an amphitheater on a riverside bluff.
Fair officials later complained the elaborate carnival attractions had lowered the fair’s attendance. Separately, Seni Om Sed planners confessed they were running out of new ideas and ways to pay for the spectacles.
After a final performance in 1898, Seni Om Sed was mothballed.
In 1979, the Des Moines Junior Chamber of Commerce revived the name with a slight edit — Seniom Sed — and a new approach, holding weekly events on Friday evenings during the summer at Nollen Plaza (now Cowles Commons). For $3 (later $5), adults were admitted to a fenced-off area where bands played and beer and wine flowed freely.
Weekly attendance topped 2,000 until suburbs began hosting similar after-work events during the 1990s. The final two Seniom Sed events of 2001 were canceled due to low attendance, and the backward Des Moines name again faded into history.
Dave Elbert has covered local history and Iowa business news for more than 40 years, first for the Des Moines Register and then the Business Record.
Show Comments (1)
Jim Zeller
We scooped you at “The Skywalker.” We liked your Rollins Mansion piece in DSM. The pictures are great, too.
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