From pioneer town to present day, Iowa City celebrates 175 years

Iowa City started life 175 years ago as both the seat of the territory's government and a 'raucous pioneer town.”

Things have changed a lot since then, but the town owes a great deal to its legacy, Mayor Matt Hayek said Thursday. He and other community leaders are marking that legacy with celebrations this weekend.

'We wanted to bring some attention to the milestone and celebrate our heritage,” he said. 'We have a long and interesting history. Many people are not aware of it.”

The 'raucous pioneer town” designation comes from Iowa City historian Bob Hibbs, who has written four books focused on local history.

He describes the town's history as shaped by four eras, starting when Chauncey Swan, one of the city's founding fathers, drove a stake in the ground probably at the spot where what is now the Old Capitol Building would be built.

Iowa wasn't a state yet when the territory's legislative assembly decided to move its capital west from Burlington. Swan, John Ronalds, and Robert Ralston were appointed commissioners of the new town.

The territorial legislatures and then the Iowa General Assemblies met in Iowa City until 1857, when the capital moved to Des Moines.

Iowa became a state in 1846, and in the 1850s a railroad was extended from points east, with Iowa City the end of the line for travelers until the lines were extended after the Civil War. Settlers poured off the trains and either stayed or used the town as a staging ground for journeys west.

After the capital moved, Iowa City transitioned from being a political town, full of lobbyists and politicians, to an industrial community. Factories sprang up.

The University of Iowa, which would come to define the town's character, also began.

The university, officially formed by the legislature in 1847, functionally opened in 1855 with 124 students, of which 41 were women - the UI was the first public university in the country to admit men and women on an equal basis.

That precedent later led to UI being the first public university to grant a law degree to a woman, Mary B. Hickey Wilkinson, in 1873, and to a black man, G. Alexander Clark, in 1879. Iowa City also hosted the first teaching hospital west of the Mississippi when the UI Hospitals and Clinics opened in 1898.

Several decades later, the UI also became the first institution in the country to accept creative works such as such as painting, sculpture, and literature in place of a written thesis for masters and doctoral credit. That led to the establishment of the Writer's Workshop in 1936.

Hibbs credits the writers and other artists who flocked to the university with nurturing a creative culture in Iowa City that still thrives today. Mix that with a large number of scientific professionals working and studying at the UI Hospitals and Clinics, add in enthusiastic Hawkeye sports fans. and a constant infusion of students and you get Iowa City's unique, very UI-centered dynamic, he said.

'There is no comparable community to Iowa City in Iowa,” he said. 'We owe a great deal of debt to our forebears for building the climate of the town, for the variety and spice of life in Iowa City.”

Still, a high number of professionals and academics can present challenges - many of Iowa City's working-class residents can't afford to live in the town's borders, which has led to the explosive growth of the neighboring communities of Coralville and North Liberty.

Yet the town has come a long way from the log cabins built by those first residents. Another reshaping, Hibbs thinks, is just beginning, with the advent of 15-story towers - two have been built on the Pedestrian Mall so far, and several more are planned around town.

A desire to increase in-state student enrollment means more housing will be needed, along with more professors and support staff. An influx of construction jobs already has poured into the community for projects on campus and around town.

Many of those workers likely will stay.

'We're suddenly building up,” Hibbs said. 'So there's a big growth spurt coming.”

Hayek said a milestone such as 175 years is a chance to think about future growth while reflecting on where the town has come from.

'We've evolved,” he said. 'Today Iowa City is much larger, much more diverse and connected. The strength of Iowa City is that it is vibrant, successful and not static.

'It changes constantly.”