“The day the music died” — when musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson were in a fatal plane crash on their way out of Clear Lake — was a national tragedy. At the time, the rural Iowa town didn’t want to associate themselves with it.
“It wasn't Clear Lake's finest hour,” said Jeff Nicholas, a farmer who was a just baby on the day of the crash, Feb. 3, 1959. “And so the people in Clear Lake and north Iowa kind of wanted to get things zipped up and cleaned up, and everybody on their way and kind of put it out of our minds.”
Nicholas’ parents bought farmland about five miles north of Clear Lake in the early 1960s, but they didn’t know they owned the crash site until a Buddy Holly fan from Green Bay, Wisc., researched the crash and informed the family in the 1970s.
Today, a spot along the rural Gull Road is marked with an oversized pair of thick framed glasses, where fans make the pilgrimage to pay their respects and leave their own pairs of glasses in honor of Holly. But the precise site of the crash is a quarter mile walk from the road, into the farm field.
Nicholas guided the Talk of Iowa team through the snowy, icy field on a winter day ahead of the anniversary. He doesn’t plant anything on the strip of land adjacent to the fence line where it happened. At the marker, a wind catcher turned in the frigid air.
“This was the first great rock and roll tragedy, and although we as a family didn't ask for it and Clear Lake as a community didn't ask for it or didn't want it, we have it,” Nicholas said. “And so I think what I am most proud about is how the community has embraced the celebration of the music and the life and the times of Buddy, Ritchie and the Bopper. And I will not leave out Roger Peterson.”
Peterson was the young pilot from Iowa who also died in the crash.
In addition to being a steward of the crash site, Nicholas is the president of the North Iowa Cultural Center and Museum board, a nonprofit organization that oversees the Surf Ballroom, the venue the musicians played on the eve of the crash.
In September 2025, the Surf opened the new Music Experience Center, next door to the historic ballroom. The space is part museum, part venue.
The highlight of the center is the “Not Fade Away” experience. The interactive display tells the history of the Surf Ballroom, including the fire which destroyed the original building in 1947, “the day the music died" and the many eras the Surf has experienced since.
In the lobby, personal items from the musicians who died are on display, including cuff links that belonged to Holly, a wallet made by Valens in high school shop class and a briefcase that belonged to Richardson — all of which were recovered from the crash site.
“We intentionally wanted to help people connect to these stars as people,” said Pete Potts, director of marketing and public relations for the Surf. “They were just young adults when this happened, so we wanted them to get to know them, how they arrived on the scene, how they ended up on the Winter Dance Party, who were they as people.”
The MEC is also a place for up-and-coming artists, with updated green rooms for touring musicians and classrooms for the Surf Music Academy. The upper level of the building has a patio where guests can dance under the stars, inspired by the design of the first Surf Ballroom, which burned down.
Next door, the Surf Ballroom feels like a time machine, with its carpeted entrance, pineapple wallpaper and a coat check desk with a sign from management that displays “fur coats will be checked at owners' risk.” The pay phone where Holly made his last phone call to his wife still there too.
“This feels just exactly like it did when the guys walked in here in 1959,” Nicholas said.
Each year, they hold the Winter Dance Party, honoring the tour that brought Holly, Valens and Richardson to Clear Lake for a last-minute stop on their zig-zagging trek across the Midwest.
For longtime residents of northern Iowa, the ballroom is often the site of major moments in their lives. It’s where they met their spouse or shared their first kiss.
“Even guys that were in WWII have come in and told the stories about, you know, ‘I was overseas, and I jumped into a fox hole, and there was somebody next to me that was from Garner, and I was from Belmond,” Nicholas said. “And the one thing that we had in common was we talked about the Surf Ballroom, and as we departed each other that day, he said to me, said, ‘Hey, when we get home, I'll see you at the Surf on Saturday night.’’”
While many small ballrooms of its kind have shuttered in the era of arena rock, the Surf Ballroom continues to be a destination for artists.
One of Nicholas’ favorite memories is when Field of Dreams star Kevin Costner came to town with a band called The Modern West.
“I sometimes get emotional about it, because it's so poignant,” Nicholas said. “He said, ‘I know where I am, and I know why I am here.’ He said, ‘I've had a lot of great things happen to me in my life, and I consider being here at the Surf as one of them.’”
Standing on the stage, performers look out at portraits of Holly, Valens and Richardson on the wall above the dance floor.
“Even though those three stars and their pilot left us far too early, this is a place where the beauty and the heart and soul of rock and roll will always live,” Potts said. “And these are the boards that any musician, any fan, any singer, wants to stand on and be in the same footsteps as those three stars.”
To hear this conversation, listen to Talk of Iowa, hosted by Charity Nebbe. Samantha McIntosh produced this episode.
