C.R. enlisted Grant Wood in the courthouse campaign

David V. Wendell, a historian and former Marion resident who now lives in Chicago, was interviewed for a story on the county's 165th anniversary that ran in The Gazette in 2004.

"... Marion's hold on the county seat was steadily weakening.

Cedar Rapids, which had been smaller than Marion when the county was

established, now exceeded the quaint residential town by more than three times

its size.

   "Petitions were launched throughout the end of the 19th century and into the

1900s seeking the transfer of the county seat to the Cedar River, and lost by

increasingly narrow margins. Finally, on Nov. 4, 1919, a referendum for the

removal of the county seat to Cedar Rapids was affirmed by a vote of 9,960 to

4,823.

   "A new courthouse was finished in 1925, and its dedication on May's

Island was the centerpiece of the Cedar Rapids Independence Day celebration."

The clipping below shows how Grant Wood's talent was enlisted in Cedar Rapids' campaign to move the county seat:

(Click on quote  for full page of pre-election campaign stories)