Time Machine: Coralville’s Old Town Hall

The little red brick building on Robinson Street, later Second Street, in Coralville went through a number of incarnations before it was restored and named to the National Register of Historic Places.

The building was built in the early 1880s as the Coralville Union Ecclesiastical Church. It was the second church in the city, built after the Methodist church on Patterson Street burned down.

Charles E. Robinson, operator of the Pearl Oat Mill on the Iowa River, donated the land, and the church was built with donated labor and materials. Its pews came used, from the Iowa City Episcopal church.

The church's charter, dated 1888, laid out two conditions for the building's use: the upper level was for church services, the basement was to serve as Coralville's town hall.

Over the years, the building housed several congregations and students from the University of Iowa - and not without controversy.

bootlegging trial

In the spring of 1921, a furor arose when Justice of the Peace Henry W. Fairchild asked Coralville Mayor Ed Koser for permission to try the case of an accused bootlegger at the building.

Koser directed him to the town council, which agreed to allow the trial to go on.

When word got out, church officials - one of whom was both a council member and a trustee of the church - protested, as did some area church women. Members of Coralville and Iowa City churches rallied to the side of the objectors.

The debate became heated. On one side, threats were made of a 'house cleaning” for the council. On the other side were suggestions that charges of 'contempt of court” might be pursued.

Violence was avoided, and the trial went on. The accused man was acquitted of bootlegging.

The argument of whether the building could be used as a courthouse, however, seemed headed for district court in Iowa City.

city buys building

At the same time, the building was no longer used by local congregations, and the original agreement stated the town no longer had the right to use it.

Both problems were solved when Coralville bought the land and building in 1921 for $2,500 and continued to use it as a town hall. It also served as a school for a short time and was the meeting place for another church, the Evangelical Free Church, until 1951.

In 1953, the structure was transitioned into a community building. Stairways were fixed, and water, plumbing and a new furnace were installed. When workmen tore up some flooring, they found names penciled beneath the boards. One autograph was 'Jim Paintin, 1876.” The year 1869 was carved on the front steps.

The town council still met there, along with the Boy Scouts, civic organizations and volunteer firemen.

Also in 1953, the city faced an audit when a resident sent a letter to Johnson County Attorney William Meardon, asking him to check into 'whether members of the council have been selling supplies, materials or services to the town of Coralville.”

Mayor Merritt Ewalt said that, to his knowledge, the town's books had never before been audited.

The purchase of a walnut-veneer counter from a councilman's brother-in-law may have sparked the controversy.

building uses varied

The Coralville Public Library was housed in a corner of the building's basement until January 1967, when its 5,733 volumes were moved to 806-1/2 Fifth St.

The building hosted card parties and euchre tournaments. On a March evening in 1959, three veterinarians held a mass rabies vaccination clinic for pet dogs at the hall.

In 1974, Coralville opened a new City Hall, allowing the Johnson County Heritage Museum to open a museum in the Old Town Hall. (The museum had been located behind the public library following the Coralville Centennial celebration in 1973.)

In 1977, Mayor Richard Myers told the council the historical importance of the brick building had been recognized by its acceptance into the National Register of Historic Places.

In a nod to its varied uses over the years, the building would house the Silver Spoon restaurant and catering business in the 1980s and early 1990s.

But in 1993, the Old Town Hall stood in the way of a $4 million retail and apartment complex being built at First Avenue and Fifth Street.

An organization called Coralville Preservation and Renovation raised enough money to buy the building and move it across the street to 406 Second Ave. The building's basement was lost in the move. The front door became the back door, and a new entrance was built.

The city regained ownership of the Old Town Hall following the Flood of 2008.

It was moved again, in 2014, to 407 Fifth St., across from the 1876 Schoolhouse. The Mormon Trek Memorial Foundation acquired the old, two-story schoolhouse in 1969 for use as a country school museum.

The two historic buildings now anchor Coralville's Old Town District.

Old Town Hall is now operated as a historical site by the Johnson County Historical Society.