A few weeks ago, William Shatner stopped by Riverside, Iowa, to audition locals for Invasion Iowa, a sci-fi screenplay he supposedly co-wrote with Leonard Nimoy. It turned out to be a put-on. There will be no Invasion Iowa, only a reality-TV show making fun of Riversiders.
Why did Shatner, an unapologetic Canadian, decide to pick on Riverside? At some point during the original Star Trek series in the sixties, it was said that Capt. James Tiberius Kirk of the starship Enterprise was born in a small town in Iowa. Years later, that gave Riverside City Council member Steve Miller an idea. In 1985, he wrote to Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and asked why Riverside, Iowa, shouldn’t be the “future birthplace of Captain Kirk.” Perhaps seeing a chance to generate a little publicity for their new sci-fi series (Star Trek: The Next Generation was just being conceived), the producers agreed.
The town festival, on the last Saturday in June, soon changed its name from the unfantastic “Riverfest” to “Trek Fest.” Naturally, this adjustment lured more sci-fi fans dressed as Vulcans, Klingons, coneheads, and future cadets of Starfleet. A sign reading, “Where the West Begins” used to welcome Riverside visitors, but the town motto has since been changed to “Where the Trek Begins.” Videos of Star Trek are screened after the parade, and collectors trade memorabilia at a swap meet.
In August, I beamed down and explored the area in the wake of the festival. Some people in town were still feeling a little overwhelmed by all the trekkies who had converged on Riverside. “I don’t watch Star Trek, but the festival was pretty fun,” said Ron, a clerk at the Kwik-n-EZ. “There was a costume contest over there at the park, but I didn’t dress up.”
A sculptor who was fixing up downtown storefronts had a more enthusiastic take on the festivities. He said, “It ain’t the Green Bay Packers, but it sure is a flying farce that sets us apart from every other podunk town in Iowa. I think Riverside should take advantage of it and have all sorts of prequels filmed of his life before Star Trek and Starfleet.” Any profit from Trek Fest is dedicated to erecting a monument to Captain Kirk’s future birth. Unfortunately, Paramount—the company that owns the rights to all Star Trek paraphernalia and armaments—won’t let little Riverside erect a Star Trek statue without a hefty licensing fee: forty thousand dollars.
“That’s extortion!” griped the Riverside sculptor, known to locals as simply “Artist Bob.” To skirt these legal obstacles, the town built a twenty-foot-long USS Enterprise and mounted it on a trailer in the town park but named it the USS Riverside. Apart from that, a plaque behind the yellow New Image Salon marks where the future local hero will be born on March 21, 2233. Vials of “Kirk Dirt” from this spot are for sale for three dollars via catalog.
“The other local legend,” said Artist Bob, “is that he’ll be conceived on the pool table in Murphy’s Bar—of course, that probably puts him in the running with everybody else in town. I doubt they’ll put up any sort of plaque for that, though.”
Bob also passed along the gossip that people in town have been wondering what Kirk’s ancestry will be, because his great-great-grandparents probably are alive today.
“There’s something strange and special about this town that people just up and do things,” he said. “I just gotta hand it to the son-of-a-bitch who wrote Gene Roddenberry. That’s genius. I hope Riverside goes overboard and keeps expanding on this crazy idea.”—Eric Dregni
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