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
The Day the Music Died the opening vocals of Frankie Sardo. The tour was set to cover twenty-four Midwestern cities in as many days. New hit artist Ritchie Valens, J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson and Dion DiMucci and his band The Belmonts joined the tour to promote their recordings and make an extra profit. The tour began in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on January 23, 1959. The amount of travel soon became a logistical problem. The distances between venues had not been properly considered when the performances were scheduled; instead of "circling" around the Midwest to each town, the tour zig-zagged with distances between cities over