Mason City, Iowa city of Mason City, it does serve other communities in the Mason City micropolitan statistical area. The Iowa Northern has facilities in Manly, Iowa. The city also has a municipal airport, Mason City Municipal Airport, (MCW) with commercial service by Air Choice One. It is the airport from which Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper took off on the night of February 2, 1959, after a concert at the Surf Ballroom in nearby Clear Lake, Iowa, only to crash their plane in a historic event later referred to as the Day the Music Died. Mason City, Iowa, and
Ritchie Valens been painted around Pacoima in honor of the late Ritchie Valens. In 1985, artist Manuel Velasquez (assisted by 25 students) created a 12 foot by 20 foot mural which was painted on the side of a classroom building at the former Pacoima Junior High (now Pacoima Middle School) depicting Ritchie Valens' image, records labeled with some of his greatest hits, as well as the newspaper article about the plane crash that took his life. Another mural went up in 2012 at the intersection of Van Nuys Boulevard and Amboy Avenue and was painted by Hector Ponce. A second one was