If you’ve ever cruised across northern Iowa on Highway 18, you’ve seen the sign: Clear Lake. Most travelers keep rolling, their playlists humming and road trip snacks half-eaten. But tucked just off a gravel road beyond those wide-open cornfields lies one of America’s most haunting and poetic landmarks — the site of the 1959 plane crash that took the lives of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper.
You may not know it the first time you pass it, but if you’ve ever listened to Don McLean’s American Pie, you’ve felt its echo.
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