Iowa City

Bob Hibbs

• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780738584027
• eBook ISBN: 9781439625835
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia nordamericana

After raucous times on the western frontier during the 1840s and 1850s, Iowa City settled into a relatively sleepy existence while its principal industry, the University of Iowa, was finding its way from obscurity into an important Iowa resource. Its once-too-small-to-succeed university hospital has blossomed into a medical and economic powerhouse. Research in widely varied fields, from space science to microbiology, finds fertile grounds and minds. Big Ten football beckons on fall Saturdays.

Eight

THE COMMON GOOD PO, COURTHOUSE, SCHOOLS, FIREMEN, AND MILITARY

A 1908 carrier carts an accordion-folded strip of images.

A spooky, sinister, and foreboding air hangs over an artsy 1905 image of the Johnson County Courthouse. It was constructed in 1901, after fire razed its predecessor, the ornate Gothic Revival three-story seen below. Erected in 1859, it was nicknamed “Trimble’s Smokehouse” for its builder and a penchant for filling with smoke from its own wood-fueled stoves. It was the county’s third effort after an 1839 wooden wilderness cabin at a site called Napoleon, and an 1842 stone predecessor in Iowa City.

Built in 1904 by Jacob Hotz who earlier had erected the Johnson County Courthouse, the first federal building constructed specifically for postal use in Iowa City shows above with work underway. The post office had previously been in rented quarters, both in a store where the university business college now sets, and on the Iowa Avenue and Clinton Street corner now serving Iowa Book across from Pentacrest.

Reorientation from south to west, plus quadrupling its size, produced the postal facility imaged above in 1935. This is now the senior center after a new post office was built in 1974.

A span from the 1904 post office just beyond the trees at left to the six-floor Johnson County Savings Bank at right, and stretching to the 1901 Johnson County Courthouse on the left horizon, is recorded in this bird’s-eye view, made about 1912, probably from a UI laundry chimney. The next year, the first six floors of Hotel Jefferson came to the site of Metropolitan Hall, which shows as the dark building left of the bank.

This aerial image of central Iowa City taken during the mid-1940s shows the Jefferson Hotel as the tallest downtown structure, with Pentacrest visible beyond it.

Kinnick Stadium and the American Legion building above share the unofficial title of worst timing possible for construction—both on the very eve of the Great Depression, which effectively bankrupted both. Lenders couldn’t figure out what to do with the football stadium when bonds weren’t paid, so they let it ride a decade until it could be redeemed. This building landed in the hands of Iowa City under a deal with the Legion to convert it into a community center, with legionnaires receiving a room for their office. After a January 1955 fire, it was replaced onsite by the current recreation center downtown.

Iowa City’s first public library outside rented quarters, this image presents a new 1904 facility financed largely by a grant from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation.

The 1881 City Hall reaches for the sky with its clocked belfry on the northwest quadrant of the Washington and Linn Streets intersection in this century-old image. The first floor was occupied by city offices on the left half, and by fire equipment behind the three doors on the right. The council chamber and fire quarters were up a flight of 23 or 24 steps to get to any public meeting held in the chamber. Public restrooms were provided in the basement—without a coin slot on the doors as at Hotel Jefferson where kids used them anyway by slipping in under the doors.

A regular meeting of volunteer firemen is called for 7:30 p.m. on January 6, 1913, at City Hall by the postcard notice reproduced above and addressed to Willie Tomlin.

Snowball and Highball, a matched pair of white Percherons imaged about 1910 in the Washington-Linn intersection outs...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• One - HEART AND SOUL OLD TOWN CENTER, HOSPITALS, AND CHURCHES
• Two - SHOPS AND CHINA CLOSETS STORE INTERIORS INCLUDING DRESDEN CHINA SHOP
• Three - FUN AND FROLICS CHAUTAUQUA, THEATERS, AND SPORTS
• Four - BUSINESS AND WEATHER HATCHERY, BANKS, AND WEATHER STATION
• Five - ON THE AVENUES STREETSCAPES, INCLUDING A DOUBLE–PAGE SPREAD
• Six - FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS CORALVILLE, RIVER, CITY PARK, AND LOVER’S LEAP
• Seven - ONE–NIGHT STANDS MOTELS AND HOTELS
• Eight - THE COMMON GOOD PO, COURTHOUSE, SCHOOLS, FIREMEN, AND MILITARY
• Nine - SIGHTSEEING OUT AND ABOUT, INCLUDING TWO DOUBLE–PAGE SPREADS
• Ten - LIES AND SHENANIGANS PHONY IMAGES, INCLUDING “NIGHT” SCENES
• INDEX