In 1853 Grenville Dodge surveyed Iowa from Iowa City to the Missouri:

He wrote his father, “oh, that you could come out and overtake me on the prairies of Iowa, look at the country and see how we live.”
….
Dodge loved the flaming sumac, the gold tinge of the willows, the turning leaves on the cottonwooe beside the rivers, and on the elms, black oak, and hard maple,, the silvered wild grass, the variety and number of animals.
Stephen Ambrose, Nothing Like It In The World, 33.

This conjures up a much different picture for me than today’s Iowa:

(Click image for larger view)

This is a pretty good representation of the Iowa I saw last summer when we drove across the state from Council Bluff to Iowa City to Davenport and back with some side trips around Iowa City.