Visitor runs through every H.C. town

HOWARD COUNTY - Tyler Sullivan has a plan. 

He wants to run through every town in Iowa. Along the way, he will have visited all 99 counties and 1,160 towns. And then he’s going to write poems about them all. Just last week, he hit his 1,000th town — St. Ansgar, and was in Elma for Maddie Poppe’s concert and the rest of Howard County.

Sullivan, who lives in Iowa City, started his journey in 2015,  while a girlfriend lived in Mason City. “Driving up there, I saw a lot of counties I had never heard of. So we started visiting different places. When I went up there, I picked some places to see, and when she came down, she picked out places.”

The couple eventually broke up, but Sullivan wanted to continue visiting new and different towns. “I thought there had to be more to Worth County than the fair,” he said. “I try to find the hidden gems.”

Then a friend suggested running through each town. He had been a cross country and track athlete in high school and liked the idea.

In 2018, he started running either through the town or for a mile. While there, he visits historical sites, eats at the local diner and just absorbs the ambiance of where he is.

He finds inspiration for his poems from touring the Wrestling Hall of Fame, visiting a statue of Dr. Norman Borlaug, joining a 5K run, enjoying a concert in the park or sitting on a bench watching the river water flow by.

After he has collected his thoughts and put them into poetry-form, he plans to write a nine-section book, which includes northeast, north central,  northwest Iowa, etc.

He is obviously close to being done with his project, but he’s in no hurry to complete it yet. He wants to savor the remainder. “I only have seven counties left, and I’m going to split them up over the next two years.”

He doesn’t plan to stop exploring new and different places, though. “I want to go to the Iowa state parks and then the national parks,” he explained. 

When he is done, interested individuals can purchase his poetry book online. He has already written two books, the first about his grandparents.

To see where Sullivan has been, check out his Facebook page at Iowa’s Scenic Views By Foot, which is where a person can contact him for more information on his poetry or books.