About Prairie Lights

As the staff and customers tended the books with care much like a garden, the store grew and blossomed. By 1982 Prairie Lights transplanted itself from South Linn to South Dubuque and has gradually spread to three and a half floors, the half being an 1100 square feet coffee house located in the exact same space that the local literary society met throughout the 1930s hosting writers Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, Sherwood Anderson, Langston Hughes, e e cummings and others. Gertrude Stein and friend Alice B. Toklas were scheduled for a reading but were sleeted in at Waukesha airport or so the story goes.

Perhaps the strength of reputation lies in the reading series of local, national and international writers who have read their works which were broadcast live on stations WSUI and WOI and which is the only regular literary series of its kind in the U.S.

All of this could not have been possible without a loyal customer base and a dedicated staff. This past May more than 100 former workers returned for an employee reunion held on the second floor and in the cafe. Employees now living in Seattle, Sacramento, San Jose, Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago and the Twin Cities joined with the current staff of 35 for the catered event.