Mt Ayr IA / Corn Parade WPA Mural Featured

There is lots of interest in the WPA (Works Progress Administration) murals that were funded by the government during the Depression. A surprising number have survived, and are often still on view in communities throughout the country. 

Of course there are some that are awful. But undoubtedly one of the finest still hangs in the US Post Office in Mount Ayr, Iowa. Created in 1941 by local artist Orr Cleveland Fisher, it is titled Corn Parade. 

It is one of the treasures included in a new book about aspects of Iowa history, a collection of twenty-five essays by design historian Roy R. Behrens, titled DREAMS OF FIELDS: Memory Traces of Iowa's Past (Ice Cube Press, 2025).

Orr Fisher, Corn Parade mural

artist Orr Fisher in process of painting his mural

In the previous post, we featured a delightful WPA post office mural, called The Corn Parade, by Iowa artist Orr Cleveland Fisher. At the time, we didn't realize that someone named Blake Schnormeier has put up a multi-page Sutori site on the same artist. It offers interesting snippets of text, news clippings, paintings, cartoons, and a selection of vintage photographs, including the one posted above, which shows Orr Fisher putting the finishing touches on his wall-sized masterpiece.

favorite feather in the cap of Ringgold County

Above Detail of Orr Fisher's WPA mural, The Corn Parade (1941), in the US Post Office in Mount Ayr IA. 

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Roy R. Behrens, THE CORN PARADE: Orr Fisher's wacky WPA mural, in The Iowa Source (Fairfield IA), Vol 38 No 1 (January 2021), pp. 10-11—

American astronaut Peggy Whitson was born in south central Iowa, in Riggold County, and attended high school in Mount Ayr, the county seat. She is that region's claim to fame, although it should also be noted that the parents of Abstract Expressionist artist Jackson Pollock also grew up in that county. My favorite feather in the cap of Ringgold County is a Depression-era WPA mural that hangs in the US Post Office in Mount Ayr. Created in 1941 by local artist Orr Cleveland Fisher (1885-1974), it is titled The Corn Parade.…more>>>