Iowa wins annual tug of war with Illinois

There was a tug-of-war competition across the Mississippi River in eastern Iowa this weekend, and Iowans won. The score is now Le Claire, Iowa, eight; Port Byron, Illinois, seven. The cities which sit across the Mississippi from one another squared off Saturday in the 15th Annual Great River Tug. Nine men’s teams and a women’s team tugged across an 18-hundred foot section of the river. Each team had three minutes on the rope — which weighed 780 pounds and stretched 24-hundred feet. About four thousand spectators gathered on the riverbanks to watch.