Curious Iowa: Why is May’s Island home to government buildings?

CEDAR RAPIDS — The list of cities with government buildings located on an island is small: Paris, France; Osaka, Japan; and Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

May’s Island, located in the heart of Cedar Rapids, is home to the Linn County Courthouse and jail, and the Veterans Memorial Building, which used to house City Hall prior to the 2008 flood. One curious Iowan wondered why these government buildings were built on an island.

Curious Iowa is a series from The Gazette that seeks to answer Iowans’ questions about the state, its culture and the people who live here. We dived into Cedar Rapids history to find the answer.

To understand the decision to build a courthouse on May’s Island, we must go back to the two pioneer settlements that defined Cedar Rapids as we know it today.

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The story of Kingston and West Cedar Rapids

The land the City of Cedar Rapids sits on today was originally inhabited by the Sac and Fox tribes. In the 1830s, the first non-native people built settlements in the area that would blossom into two cities: Kingston on the West side of the Cedar River and Cedar Rapids on the East. Interestingly, in late 1839 Marion was platted and established as the county seat of Linn County prior to residents living in the city. This is important later.

Cedar Rapids History Center Curator Tara Templeman said, “They weren’t totally separate, but Kingston was very much a different city from Cedar Rapids in the early days.”

Kingston was annexed in 1870 and became West Cedar Rapids.

“They sort of removed the name and identity from Kingston during that annexation and then people felt like Cedar Rapids was mostly on the east side of the river and so the attention and the funding and businesses mainly stayed on that side,” Templeman said. “And so people on the west side felt like they did not get the same funding and attention.”

Prior to the annexation, a New Yorker named John M. May surveyed and platted the sandy, tree covered plot of land known today as May’s Island. Templeman said the land had been previously used by Osgood Shepherd, an early Cedar Rapids pioneer, “to probably isolate stolen horses in an area where no one would see them.”

May hoped that the 62 lots he was trying to sell on the island would become home to businesses. But getting people to the island proved to be a challenge.

“He even constructed a roller coaster at one point to try to drive people to his island,” Templeman said.

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In the 1870s, flooding caused the First Avenue Bridge to collapse, making the Third Avenue bridge, which crosses May’s Island, the best way to cross the river.

“So between 1871 and 1884, people really didn’t have much of a choice except to use the island,” Templeman said. “And that’s when Henry Smulekoff decided to put his furniture store on the island and that really pushed traffic as well.”

Through this time, the rivalry between West Cedar Rapids and Cedar Rapids remained.

May died in 1904. In 1908, the City of Cedar Rapids purchased May’s Island for $70,000 with the intention of using the land for municipal buildings. Dirt was brought in to elongate the island to First Avenue. Laborers also built barriers to protect the island from flooding.

How the Linn County Courthouse got built on May’s Island

In the 1910s, a feud erupted between the cities of Marion and Cedar Rapids over which should be the county seat. Marion held the seat, but its courthouse, built in 1855, was considered a fire hazard. There was debate over keeping the seat in Marion or moving it to Cedar Rapids. Either way, a courthouse would need to be built. In 1919, a special election was called.

Days before the election, the front page of The Gazette published a large drawing of the Marion courthouse in flames, created by artist Grant Wood. The headline read “COURT HOUSE BURNS” and below, a subhead clarified, “This is an imaginary scene, but in the present condition of the fire hazard it may happen at any time”.

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Linn County voters chose to move the county seat to Cedar Rapids, but pushback from Marion residents continued, leading to the failure of a bond proposition in 1920 that would have paid for a new courthouse.

“Even though the county seat was supposed to have moved to Cedar Rapids, there was no funding to build a new courthouse and therefore, in practice, the county seat couldn’t be moved.” Templeman said. “And so that was one way that Marion sort of blocked this move.”

In 1922, a $750,000 bond proposition passed and construction boomed on the island with the erection of the Linn County Courthouse, Linn County Jail and Veteran’s Memorial building. The island was renamed Municipal Island, though the name hasn’t stuck.

“So this is 50 years after Kingston was annexed but there was still kind of a feeling — and maybe there even is today — of the west side versus the east side,” Templeman said. “By putting the courthouse on an island right in between the two, nobody could say that one side of the river or the other was being favored.”

Will May’s dream come to life?

May’s dream was for the island to be a bustling district in Cedar Rapids. Today, the island’s potential is being discussed again after the 2008 flood and COVID-19 pandemic left lasting impacts on how Cedar Rapids’ urban core is used by residents.

In August, The Gazette reported that consultants brought in to update the city’s Downtown Vision Plan have ideas to reactivate the island by closing the Second Avenue Bridge. The bridge could be turned into a festival street or linear park complete with food trucks. The green space on May’s Island could be used for events programming. These talks have extended to the Veteran’s Memorial Building and how it could be used to best engage the community.

“I know there’s pushback from some people about doing things like having food trucks and further blocking traffic, making it more difficult for people to get to the area or forcing people to be pedestrians in order to engage with the area,” Templeman said. “And Iowans are not that excited about walking.”

Another idea for revitalization projects in Cedar Rapids is using Third Street SE to build a stronger connection between downtown and the New Bohemia District.

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Comments: bailey.cichon@thegazette.com