Cache Is Not At The Posted Coordinates
Mr. Toot is the mascot not only of the North Iowa Band Festival, but also for Mason City as a whole. His image has appeared on everything from T-Shirts to business cards to city light poles. Now his image also appears on the geocaching map just south of Mason City Iowa. Each of these puzzles will include a fact or story in theme with the art series. Some may also include a question or two for you to answer correctly to find the coordinates.
Mason City
On a different page we talked about the Mason City Airport and Charles Lindburg flying here. The airport has since moved to its new location just West of Mason City. It would not be right not to mention the tragic accident of February 3rd, 1959 "The Day The Music Died.
It was on this day that rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson along with the pilot, Roger Peterson died in an airplane crash soon after takeoff, late at night and in poor, wintry weather condidtions.
In the official investigation it was disclosed that Peterson had over four years of flying experiance, of which one was with Dwyer Flying Service, and had accumulated 711 flying hours, of which 128 were on Bonanzas of the type he flew that night. He had also logged 52 hours of instrument flight training, although he had passed only his written examination, and was not yet qualified to operate in weather that required flying solely by reference to instruments.
News of the death of the rock and roll singers was known nationwide within hours. Following the miscarriage suffered by Holly's wife and the circumstances in which she was informed of his death, a policy was later adopted by authorities not to disclose victims' names until after their families have been notified.