Editing Mount Vernon, Iowa (section)

==Arts and culture==
Located on Highway 30, is local artist Mark Benesh's rendition of Grant Wood's American Gothic, on the side of a barn.<ref name="BTMountVernon">{{cite web|url= http://www.budgettravel.com/bt-dyn/content/article/2009/09/04/AR2009090402162_2.html|title= America's Coolest Small Towns|publisher= Budget Travel|date= October 2009|access-date= January 19, 2011|url-status= dead|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110718230307/http://www.budgettravel.com/bt-dyn/content/article/2009/09/04/AR2009090402162_2.html|archive-date= July 18, 2011}}</ref>

=== Annual events ===
A [[sidewalk chalk]] festival, ''Chalk the Walk'', has taken place in Mount Vernon each May starting in 2006. Several blocks in Uptown Mount Vernon are closed to traffic, and people from all over are encouraged to create their own artwork on more than {{convert|4000|sqft|m2}} of the main street. The event attracts over 300 artists and requires more than a half-ton of chalk. Artists register to color an 8' x 10' section of pavement with their own design. Although participation is free, cash prizes are awarded for these large drawings. Each year there is also one large collaborative piece of art that is 20' by 40'.  Interested participants recreate a single 2' by 2' square of the image; the result is an image colored with pastel chalk by dozens of artists of all ages and abilities. Chalk the Walk is Iowa's largest annual [[Madonnari Festival]].<ref name="BTMountVernon"/>

''Magical Night'', a downtown Christmas festival, takes place in December.

Other events include the ''Chocolate Stroll, Heritage Days, Chili Cook-Off'', and ''Uptown Thursday Nights''.

===Popular culture===
In the October 2009 edition of ''Budget Travel Magazine'' in an article entitled ''America's Coolest Small Towns,'' Mount Vernon was included as one of the ten towns. A quote from the magazine. "Every now and then, you stumble upon a town that's gotten everything right—great coffee, food with character, shop owners with purpose."<ref name="BTMountVernon"/>

[[File:KingChapel1.jpg|thumb|upright|King Chapel, Cornell College, Mount Vernon, Iowa]]
Mount Vernon is the home of [[Cornell College]], a liberal arts institution with an enrollment of approximately 1,200 students. Cornell's entire campus is on the [[National Register of Historic Places]].