Iowa City

Iowa City, a city and the county-seat of Johnson county, Iowa, U.S.A., on Iowa river, about 120 m. E. of Des Moines. Pop. (1890) 7016; (1900) 7987, of whom 1355 were foreign born; (1905) 8497; (1910) 10,091. It is served by two branches of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific railroad, and by the Iowa City & Cedar Rapids Interurban railway (electric), of which it is a terminus. The ground on which the city is built forms an amphitheatre surrounded for the most part by hills and bluffs. Iowa City is the seat of the state university of Iowa, of Iowa City Academy, of the library of the State Historical Society and of the state Sanatorium for the Treatment of Tuberculosis. The university, organized in 1847, and occupying the old State Capitol grounds, is an integral part of the public school system of the state, and is under the control of a board of regents, consisting of the governor, the superintendent of public instruction and eleven members, elected—one from each congressional district—by the General Assembly. The university’s preparatory department was opened in 1855 and continued until 1879; the first collegiate session was in 1856-1857, but during 1858-1860 the collegiate department was closed. The institution embraces a college of liberal arts (1860), with a school of political and social science (1900)—which offers courses in commerce, administration, modern history and practical philanthropy—and a school of education, first opened in 1907, to train secondary and college teachers and school principals and superintendents; a college of law (1868); a college of medicine (1870), including a training school for nurses (1897); a college of homoeopathic medicine (1877), including a nurses’ training school (1894); a college of dentistry (1882); a college of pharmacy (1885); a graduate college; a college of applied science (1903), with courses in civil, electrical, mechanical, mining, municipal and sanitary engineering and courses in chemistry; a summer school for teachers and librarians and a university extension department. Affiliated with the university is a school of music. The university’s income is derived from the proceeds of invested funds and lands originally given by the United States, from permanent appropriations by the state and from the proceeds of a one-fifth mill tax to be used for buildings alone. In 1907-1908 the institution had 28 buildings (including the old State Capitol, built in 1840), a teaching and administrative force of nearly 200 members and 2315 students, of whom 1082 were in the college of liberal arts; the university library had about 65,000 volumes (25,000 were destroyed by fire in 1897), and the university law library, 14,000 volumes; and the total income of the university was about $611,000. In 1908 the library of the State Historical Society of Iowa, housed in the Hall of the Liberal Arts of the university, numbered about 40,000 volumes. Iowa City has a considerable variety of small manufacturing establishments. In 1839 Iowa City was selected as the site for the seat of government of the newly created Territory of Iowa. The legislature met for the first time in 1841 and continued to hold its sessions here until 1857, when Des Moines, on account of its more central position, was made the capital.