America's Coolest Small Towns - Budget Travel

America's Coolest Small Towns - Mount Vernon, Iowa

The "American Gothic" painting was recreated on a barn near Mount Vernon, Iowa by Iowan Mark Benesh. It was my chosen landscape contribution to the 50 States Project. Mount Vernon, Iowa was chosen as one of the "10 coolest towns in America". Thisbe Nissen, good friend and writer, wrote the short essay describing why Mount Vernon is a very cool town.

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Coolest Small Town--Mount Vernon, Iowa

This summer Thisbe Nissen and I worked for the Budget Travel magazine. Thisbe wrote an excellent guide to the coolest places to visit and things to do in Mount Vernon, Iowa and I shot the photographs. My American Gothic photograph was just one photograph of the bunch but it was chosen to reside in an article published online. Mark Benesh painted Grant Wood's well-known American Gothic on the side of barn on Highway 30, right between Mount Vernon and Cedar Rapids, Iowa.