Coralville: Iowa Time Machine December 19, 1866

Iowa Time Machine ⏰: On December 19, 1866, an Iowa City newspaper declared that “so far as our knowledge extends, there is no other town in the wide world of the same name (Coralville).” The uniquely named town on the Iowa River claims an identity rooted in ancient seas that had covered the land millions of years before.

The story begins in the early 1840s when the Iowa City Manufacturing Company constructed the territory's largest grist mill and dam along a strategic bend in the Iowa River. Coralville grew around these mills, initially taking the informal name Clarksville after Ezekiel Clark, whose mill became the most prosperous operation in eastern Iowa. For more than two decades, residents lived without an official name, caught between their industrial identity and their geological heritage. Then, in 1864, Louis Agassiz, a Harvard University zoologist, delivered a lecture at the nearby University of Iowa titled "The Coral Reefs of Iowa City," presenting samples of fossilized Devonian period coral that sparked tremendous public interest.

In December of 1866, when workers discovered more coral fossils while digging foundations for yet another mill, the Iowa City newspaper seized the moment to declare the settlement's new identity. The editor's assertion that no other place on Earth shared this name reflected genuine curiosity about whether similar geological features had inspired another community. Citizens formally adopted "Coralville" as their name, abandoning Clarksville in favor of something that honored both their industrial present and prehistoric past.

Today, Coralville has grown from a mill village of a few hundred souls into a thriving city of more than 22,000 residents, yet the fossils remain embedded in its identity. The Iowa River Landing development stands where ancient seas once teemed with coral polyps, while the Coral Ridge Mall's very name echoes that 1866 newspaper declaration. Modern visitors can still see Devonian coral fossils in the limestone formations along the river, tangible proof of an ocean that existed 375 million years before anyone dreamed of building mills or naming towns. #Iowa #History #OTD #Fossils #Coral