Field of Dreams: Step Into Film-Making History
In This Iowa Cornfield

By Jim Loomis

Dyersville, Iowa, with a population of just over 4,000 souls, lies in the eastern part of the state some 30 miles from Dubuque and well off the beaten path. Most people would probably consider Dubuque to be pretty far from that beaten path, too.

The Lansing Farm and Field

Dyersville, you see, is where a baseball field was carved out of a cornfield and became the setting for the film, Field of Dreams, in which the ghosts of Shoeless Joe Jackson and his teammates from the 1919 Chicago White Sox come back to play ball again.

The field is still here and, for reasons few are fully able to explain, every year thousands of people from all over the country are drawn to this little Iowa town to see it.

Approaching the Field of Dreams down a dusty dirt road from the east, my first glimpse is from the far side of a cornfield. But it’s not just any cornfield …it’s the very cornfield into which the ghost players disappeared after their games. Remember? "I’m melting! I’m melting!"

Everything is here, exactly as it appears in the movie: the weathered white farmhouse with the wrap-around verandah, the red barns in the background and, of course, the baseball diamond.

It’s late morning on a sunny summer day and there are more than 20 cars in the gravel parking area. Nearby, a dozen or so kids are patiently waiting in line for the chance to step up to the plate and swing at soft pitches being tossed by a man in a Red Sox cap.

Out in right field, a father and son are throwing a ball back and forth. After a while, they tuck the baseball gloves under their arms and begin walking in and out of the corn stalks that border the entire outfield.

In the shade of a large tree near the farmhouse, a family of five has spread a blanket and is in the middle of a picnic lunch.

The Lansing family has owned this farm for one hundred years. Don Lansing, born and raised in Dyersville and the current owner of the property, surveys the activity going on all around him and smiles. "Pretty typical for a summer day," he says.

Lansing has long since become accustomed to having people around his place most of the time, but he still shakes his head when he talks about the knock on his front door during the winter of 1987 that changed his life.

"There was snow on the ground," he says. "It was a lady from Dubuque. The Iowa Film Office hired her to look for a farm with a two-story house that would be right for a movie."

Dozens of farms in several counties were considered and there were three or four more visits to the Lansing farm over the next few months before it made the final cut. And how did Lansing feel when he got the news? "It was an honor to have my farm chosen," he says simply.

Once the final decision had been made, things happened fast. The baseball field was finished within a matter of days. A crew of carpenters descended on the 100-year-old farmhouse and began remodeling the interior, all under Don Lansing’s watchful eye. A new stairway to the second floor was installed and several walls on the first floor were knocked out to give cameras more room to follow Kevin Costner and other cast members as they moved from kitchen to living room and back.

Outside there was another problem, one that couldn’t be fixed with a hammer and nails. There was very little rain during that spring and summer in 1988, and by late-May the film’s producers were starting to worry.

Homerun Hits Lost Among the Corn

"They came to me saying the corn wasn’t tall enough," Lansing says. "I told them, 'Well, it's the drought.' So we dammed up the stream over there and pumped water on the corn around the outfield until it was tall enough so the actors could go in and out." He stares out at the cornfield, remembering. "That was a real dry summer." Then he brightens. "But we've had rain every year since."

The filming was completed on the 15th of August. Almost 18 years later to the day, as we sit and chat on the same porch swing seen in the movie, a man and woman hesitantly approach the white picket fence that separates the house from the baseball field. The man calls out. "Are you Mr. Lansing?"

Lansing gets up off the swing and walks to the edge of the porch. "Yes, I am."

"I'd just like to thank you for keeping all this going," the man says. Then he adds, almost sheepishly, "This is my sixth visit here."

Lansing nods, clearly not surprised. "What keeps you coming back?"

The man pauses, glances at his wife, then shakes his head. "I really don’t know," he says.

They politely ask for and get permission to take Don Lansing’s photo, thank him again and head back to the field where their son is shagging balls in the outfield.

Lansing maintains the diamond himself and pays for the cost of its upkeep with proceeds from the sale of caps, T-shirts and other Field of Dreams items at a busy souvenir stand.

The community of Dyersville has also benefited from all the activity generated by the ball field on Don Lansing's farm. Two new motels have sprung up in recent years and the ripple affect has been a boon for the local restaurants, gas stations and other retailers.

Once again our conversation is interrupted, this time by two couples who approach the fence and politely ask to have their photos taken with the farm house in the background. Lansing says that would be fine and ends up taking the pictures for them. One of the two men asks Lansing for an autograph, then fumbles awkwardly through his wife’s purse for a pen and any scrap of paper. Lansing scribbles his name and the man thanks him profusely.

"No problem," says Lansing. "Thanks for coming by."

"It was an honor," the man replies, and all four back away down the grassy slope, almost like courtiers withdrawing from a monarch’s presence.

A tour bus comes slowly down the driveway, stops and two-dozen people begin climbing out. There are a lot more people here now than there were an hour ago.

Because there is no admission charged at the Field of Dreams, no one knows for sure how many visitors come here every year. But from the number of names in the guest book he has placed on a stand behind the backstop, Lansing estimates that 60,000 people visited last year alone. What’s more, he says the number of visitors is actually increasing every year.

Father & Son Bonding on the Field

The people in the tour group drift over to watch the activity on the baseball field where a whole new line of youngsters is now waiting to bat. Kids and adults both are scattered around the field fielding balls and tossing them back into the infield. There’s no yelling, no horseplay. And, as Don Lansing points out, there’s not a speck of trash anywhere in sight.

"If all this was a problem, I'd give it up in a New York minute," he says. "But everyone respects the place. They just figure it’s their own little piece of heaven."

Is this heaven?

Well, no, it’s Iowa … but that 10-year-old about to step up to the plate would almost certainly disagree.

And, on this particular day, so would I.