Photos from 2006 tornado sought by Iowa City Public Library

IOWA CITY - The Iowa City Public Library is collecting photographs related to the April 13, 2006 tornado, as the tenth anniversary of the destructive event approaches.

The photographs will be added to the library's Digital History Project, at history.icpl.org.

'We started to think of events, either anniversaries or things that are going to change in Iowa City and we thought of the tornado as one of those crowd-sourcing projects,” said Anne Mangano, collection services coordinator at the library. 'People had cameras on their cell phones and it was a very well-documented event by people.”

The F2 tornado heavily damaged several buildings, including St. Patrick's Catholic Church and the Alpha Chi Omega sorority house. It also uprooted trees and snapped off traffic lights.

The Digital History Project, launched in spring 2013, began as a partnership with the Johnson County Historical Society, Mangano said.

'They had really great images of downtown Iowa City, and we wanted to create a collection that people could access online, so we digitized some of their photographs,” she said.

Some of the photographs in the collection are of buildings torn down during the urban renewal period, as well as of downtown Iowa City in the 1950s, she said.

There also are photos from the 1939 centennial parade and downtown Iowa City during the turn of the century.

In total, the project includes more than 1,000 historical images, including photographs, postcards and letters.

In the past, the library has given the public the chance to scan photos and documents. It also has reached out to clubs and organizations. That effort led to the digitization of about 150 documents celebrating First Presbyterian Church's 175 years in Iowa City, according to the library.

To submit a photo

To submit a photo or to learn more about the collection, email Melody Dworak at Melody-Dworak@icpl.org or Candice Smith at Candice-Smith@icpl.org. To see the Digital History Project, go to history.icpl.org.