The American Legion Department of Iowa began accepting applications for post charters on May 12, 1919. As in many American Legion departments, it was determined that the post whose charter was approved the earliest would be Post 1.

 Thus was staged the great race between Council Bluffs and Spencer.

 At the stroke of midnight, 15 charter Legionnaires of each city signed the application form, had it notarized and sped off to Des Moines. The Spencer veterans set..

Mathew Adrian Tinley, physician and surgeon, retired Lieutenant General and Commander of the 34th Infantry Division was the first Commander of the Iowa Department of the American Legion.

Born on March 5, 1876, over a small grocery store in Council Bluffs, Mathew was one of 8 children of Mathew Hugh and Rose (Dolan) Tinley, both natives of Ireland.  Mathew attended public schools in..

The first convention for the Department of Iowa was held on September 4, 1919, at the Hotel Fort Des Moines.

The initial Department Officers were:

Commander            
Mathew A. Tinley of Council Bluffs

Vice Commander     
Hanford MacNider of Mason City

Adjutant                  
John MacVicar of Des Moines

Finance Officer        
Fred M. Hubbell of Des Moines

Historian                 
Raymond Smith of Council Bluffs

Chaplain                 
W. E. Robb of Des Moines

Master-At-Arms      
J. F. Cole of Oelwein

More than 5,000 people attended his funeral on that warm spring day, May 14, 1921, in Waterloo, Iowa. Mourners filled the church and flowed out onto the parking lot. Later that afternoon, they packed the local cemetery.

They came from all over the state to honor Fred Becker, who had given his life fighting in France during World War I. It was believed to be the largest crowd ever assembled in Waterloo..

1921 – Hanford MacNider of Mason City, a highly decorated combat officer of the American
Expeditionary Forces and veteran of the Pancho Villa expedition, is elected national commander
of The American Legion and leads a cross-country victory tour for Supreme Allied Commander
Marshal Ferdinand Foch of France. MacNider would go on..

1932 – Future U.S. President and American Legion member Ronald Reagan graduated from Eureka College in 1932, when jobs were tight because of the Depression. Reagan, 22, breaks into the broadcasting field by announcing University of Iowa football games for WOC Radio in Davenport and, soon after, WHO Radio in Des Moines. Reagan's first assignment - for $5 and bus fare - was the University of Iowa's homecoming game against Minnesota on 22 October.  While..

1935 – Ray Murphy, a founder of Leo McNamara Post 61, Ida Grove, is elected as the 18^th American Legion national commander. Murphy had been a star football and basketball player at the University of Iowa before he served in the National Guard along the Mexican border and, later, as a captain of a machine-gun company in France.