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Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Hiawatha leaders look to celebrate 75 years of growth, development
The Cedar Rapids suburb has experienced exponential growth since it formed in 1950
Jun. 8, 2025 4:45 am, Updated: Jun. 9, 2025 7:29 am
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HIAWATHA — When Fay Clark looked out over the farmland northwest of Cedar Rapids nearly 80 years ago, he knew it could sustain more than just crops.
Clark, a local businessman, instead envisioned the beginnings of a thriving Midwest community where people could buy an affordable home, find a good job and raise a family, according to his autobiographical novel “You Will Take It With You.”
“I stood looking in the direction of the railroad, the tracks faded out and became a divided highway with cars and heavy traffic moving on it. The fields on both sides of the highway were filled in with houses,” Clark wrote of his belief. “Then the scene faded away, and I said ‘We will have work to do.’”
Looking today at what is now the city of Hiawatha, it’s hard to deny the veracity of Clark’s vision or the success of his community building efforts.
The city has experienced exponential and undeniable growth since it was incorporated in 1950 following a successful push from Clark and a crew of early Hiawatha residents to form a new town north of Blairs Ferry Road.
The area has evolved into a residential hub with an expanding business community that has experienced particular growth since the addition of Interstate 380 along the railroad tracks where Clark first forecast the city’s existence.
Local leaders hope to honor that history this month with a June 14 community celebration to mark the city’s 75th anniversary, where they will debut a traveling history exhibit that will be displayed around town.
In pondering on the city’s past, Mayor Steve Dodson said the goal is to get residents excited about the future.
“It’s going to be a hometown get together, family reunion and welcome party” all in one, Dodson said of the impending celebration. “We want people to have fun and enjoy learning about everything that’s going on.”
If You Go
The city of Hiawatha is hosting a 75th anniversary celebration on Saturday, June 14, to mark the city’s progress since it was incorporated in 1950.
The celebration will take place in Guthridge Park, 704 Emmons St., starting with a community parade at noon from the Kirkwood Regional Center to Guthridge Park.
Additional festivities will continue throughout the afternoon into the evening hours and will include offerings such as a dance show, inflatables, Bingo and more.
Mayor Steve Dodson will deliver a short speech at 5:45 p.m. to highlight the community’s progress from the past 75 years, and the night will finish up with fireworks set to begin between 9:30 and 10 p.m.
For a complete list of festivities and detailed schedule, visit hiawatha-iowa.com.
Early history marked by creativity, collaboration
When Hiawatha was first incorporated on June 12, 1950, the town had a population of 108 people spread across the small area between Shiloh Cemetery to the Illinois Central and WCF&N overpass.
Clark — who had spearheaded the campaign in favor of the town’s incorporation — was elected to become Hiawatha’s first mayor while David Ross, Leland Wilson, Thelma Karr, Norman Paukert and James Faas were the first batch of city council members.
The council’s first priority was housing. Its second was building up the sense of community around those homes that people would want to live in — a task that required equal parts dedication and creativity from the city’s early leaders.
“There were a handful of people who worked really hard to make Hiawatha work,” said Tara Templeman, curator and collections manager at The History Center in Cedar Rapids. “There was some strategic thinking from some of the early players to make sure everyone had what they needed.”
Because of the town’s small size, space was at a premium. As such, nearly all of Hiawatha’s earliest buildings were multipurpose spaces or ones that evolved over time to meet the needs of the growing community.
Significant early developments included the opening of Hiawatha Elementary School in 1958 and the construction of the Hiawatha Lumber Company building, which was eventually purchased by the city and repurposed into a shared space for City Hall and the Hiawatha Public Library.
City Hall remained in that building until 2008 when it moved to its current location at 101 Emmons St., and the library now operates nearby after being relocated to an expanded, newly constructed building in 2021.
Other notable buildings included the H&K Mart grocery store that later became a community center and the Quonset building constructed by Clark that acted as the city’s first commercial space that housed a variety of businesses over the years.
“Everyone in that community sort of worked together to make sure that there were things like a grocery store, a post office or a library,” Templeman said. “If one or two or all of those things occurred in one building, that was OK (with them), as long as those community services were being offered.”
City once led Linn County in population growth
In time, city leaders’ hard work began to pay off. By 1960, the town’s population had grown to 1,346, and that figure more than doubled by 1970 — earning Hiawatha the distinction of being Linn County’s fastest growing community.
Even still, City Manager Dennis Marks said Hiawatha maintained its small-town, community-oriented atmosphere. Marks grew up in Hiawatha in the ‘70s and recalled the city’s early layout with a mix of nostalgia and pride.
“It looked a lot different back then than it does now,” Marks said. “To see the city really pop up and just the migration of everything coming this way from housing developments to new parks, that’s been really cool.”
The road map to that growth has coincided in many ways with the city’s actual roadways, he noted.
As more people moved to town, neighborhoods were either built or expanded to house them while infrastructure improvements along major roads like Center Point and Blairs Ferry helped set the stage for the city’s large-scale success.
It was the addition of I-380 in the early ‘80s that proved truly transformative for Hiawatha, however, by dramatically improving the city’s accessibility and attractiveness to businesses and residents alike.
"The interstate created such a change," said Hiawatha Economic Development Coordinator Liz Mathis, who previously represented the area in the Iowa Senate. "It completely changed how people viewed and accessed” the city.
Business surveys show that the proximity to the major roadway remains a major draw for businesses, Mathis noted, as well as easy access to city services and an overall collaborative business environment.
Companies like Crystal Group, World Class Industries, and Hawkeye Electric have long since established themselves in town, contributing to a diverse economic ecosystem of over 500 businesses that ranges from high-tech engineering firms to family-run businesses.
The growth of the local business community has created a sort of positive feedback loop, Mathis said, whereby the success of those businesses has contributed to the success and growth of the city overall and vice versa.
As city evolves, leaders turn toward future
Today, Hiawatha’s population is estimated at nearly 8,000 people — although that figure is set to grow to more than 10,000 by the end of 2029.
Housing development remains top of mind, Dodson said, as local leaders strategize how best to meet the demands of a growing population, and the city is working with several developers to seek a mix of housing types to meet the city’s goal of adding an additional 824 units by 2029.
The city also has worked internally to bolster its services through investments into everything from public safety to outdoor recreation and a slew of other services aimed at supporting the Hiawatha community.
The Hiawatha Parks & Recreation Department last year opened a new pickleball court in Guthridge Park, for example, that has proved particularly popular, and the department also has worked to grow attendance at its Food Truck Friday summer program.
“We started with one food truck, and now we’ve got five of them out there,” Dodson said of the weekly community event. “I counted 80 people there the other day just sitting down, eating lunch” and having a good time.
As they look to celebrate those accomplishments and more at the impending 75th anniversary celebration, city leaders are now looking to expand on those community building efforts through the creation of a more robust city center.
Already, the city has invested in that initiative through the construction of a public plaza outside City Hall and through the 2021 library expansion. Now, Marks said the goal would be to see a mix of residential, retail and entertainment development to further bolster vibrancy in the downtown core.
The city has had previous leaders “who did a very good job of looking into the future,” Marks said. “Now we want to continue that momentum and identify Hiawatha’s next big thing.”
Comments: grace.nieland@thegazette.com
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