A yearly picnic on the shores of Long Beach, California, once drew around 125,000 Iowans and former Iowans, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The 119th "Iowa Picnic," celebrated Aug. 17 aboard the deck of the USS Iowa, however, drew only 160 participants, a testament to how a great tradition endures despite, as the article notes, how many "local Iowans died, moved away or — worse — fully assimilated and became Californians."

The picnic is run by the Iowa Association of Long Beach, which organizes the gathering yearly. It usually lasts about five hours and involves a "blues band, a barbecue luncheon and a group performance of the Iowa Corn Song.”

The event began with intermittent celebration among the Iowa farmers who left the Midwest to retire in the more temperate climate of the Los Angeles area in the 1880s before it was firmly established in Long Beach, where many Iowans had settled.

Long Beach became ubiquitous as an expatriate Iowan community. Des Moines Register columnist Chuck Offenberger noted in a 1994 column that it even had the nickname "Iowa by the Sea." According to Offenberger, the first picnic was held New Year's Day in 1887 and attended by 408 people.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the celebration reached its peak attendance in 1925 with 125,000. But just like the population back in Iowa, attendance of the celebration has dwindled in the years since.

In a 1984 Los Angeles Times article reprinted in the Des Moines Register, attendance was counted at a mere 27.

For now, the tradition endures. This year, one picnic organizer, San Pedro resident Lee Meister, traveled to the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art and secured permission to display prints from artists like Marvin Cone and Grant Wood. "American Gothic" was proudly displayed on the deck of the USS Iowa.

“It’ll go on forever,” Andrea Harrington, a relative newcomer to the picnic, told the Los Angeles Times. “There’s too many of us here to let it just disappear.”

Aaron Calvin covers trending news for the Register. Reach him at acalvin@registermedia.com or 515-556-9097.