Iowa City
Iowa City is a city in Johnson County, Iowa, United States. As of the 2007 census estimate, the city had a total population of 67,062 making it the fifth-largest city in Iowa. It is the county seat of Johnson County and the home of the University of Iowa and the Hawkeyes.
Iowa City is the principal city of the Iowa City, Iowa Metropolitan Statistical Area, it is located adjacent to Coralville and surrounds University Heights, with which it forms a contiguous urban area, which encompasses Johnson and Washington counties and has a population of 147,038. Iowa City was the second capital of the Iowa Territory and the first capital of the State of Iowa. Indian cultures include hunter-gatherers from the Paleo-Indian and Archaic Periods, Woodland and Late Prehistoric agriculturalist mound builders, and Meskwaki villages from the historic period. The first immigrants from Europe came from Germany, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, and Great Britain. The first permanent buildings in Iowa City were constructed to meet the immediate need of shelter and meeting space for the territorial legislature while the wood and stone capitol building was being completed. William Butler's Capitol and a somewhat dodgy hotel called lean-back hall were two simple wooden frame structures dating to that time. A competing technology was whole log construction, such as the Mathew Teneyck hotel that also served as an early church. The Old Capitol building is a National Historic Landmark and stands as a tourist attraction in the center of the University of Iowa campus as well as being an integral part of the university's Pentacrest. The University of Iowa Art Museum and Plum Grove, home of the first governor of Iowa, are other tourist attractions. In 2008, Forbes Magazine once named Iowa City the second Best Small Metropolitan Area for doing business in the United States. Iowa City was created by an act of Legislative Assembly of the Iowa Territory on January 21, 1839, fulfilling the desire of Governor Robert Lucas to move the capital out of Burlington and closer to the center of the territory. Iowa City was literally carved out of native prairie in 1839. It was organized by Fiat of the Iowa Territorial Legislature and U.S. Congress and was intended to be the first permanent location of Iowa's early seat of government. Chauncey Swan, John Ronalds, and Robert Ralston were appointed to be the commissioners for the locating and planning of the new capitol. Thomas Cox and John Frierson were hired to survey the original town plat and L. Judson was hired to draw the plat dated to June 27, 1839. On the evening of April 13, 2006, a confirmed EF2 tornado struck Iowa City, causing severe property damage and displacing many from their homes, including many University of Iowa students. It was the first tornado ever recorded to hit the city directly. on June 11, 2008, that water exceeded the emergency spillway at the Coralville Reservoir outside of Iowa City. As a result, the City of Iowa City and the University of Iowa were seriously affected by unprecedented flooding of the Iowa River.
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, home of the Hawkeyes, is a public research university, and is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees. The university is a member of the American Association of Universities, the Big Ten Conference, and the Committee on Institutional Cooperation. Its Writer's Workshop is the top-ranked creative writing program in the country. The University of Iowa was originally named The State University of Iowa, and this remains the institution's legal name. The State University of Iowa was founded February 25, 1847 as Iowa's 1st public institution of higher learning, only 59 days after Iowa became a state. The 1st faculty offered instruction at the university in March 1855 to students in the Old Mechanics Building, situated where Seashore Hall is now. In September 1855, there were 124 students, of whom forty-one were women. The 1856-57 catalogue listed nine departments offering Ancient Language, Modern Language, Intellectual Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, History, Natural History, Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Chemistry. The first President was Leigh S. J. Hunt. The original campus was composed of the Iowa Old Capitol Building and the 10 acres In 1855, Iowa became the 1st public university in the United States to admit men and women on an equal basis. Additionally, the university was the world's 1st university to accept creative work in theater, writing, music, and art on an equal basis with academic research. The university was one of the 1st institutions in America to grant a law degree to a woman (Mary B. Hickey Wilkinson, 1873), to grant a law degree to an African American (G. Alexander Clark, 1879), and to put an African American on a varsity athletic squad (Frank Holbrook, 1895). The university offered its 1st doctoral degree in 1898. On November 1, 1991, 5 employees of the university were killed and 1 student was critically injured. On April 13, 2006, a tornado struck the university and adjacent Iowa City, causing extensive damage throughout the campus and town.
The Iowa Old Capitol Building is located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It was once the main government building for the state of Iowa, and it now stands as the most prominent landmark at the center of the University of Iowa's campus. It is a U.S. National Historic Landmark and it is one part of the Pentacrest, a set of five buildings that, as a set, the Old Capitol, Jessup Hall, Macbride Hall, MacLean Hall, and Schaeffer Hall, all on a four-block-sized parcel of land in Iowa City, Iowa, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.