Cedar Rapids Has One of the Only City Centers in the World Based on an Island

View from the south bank looking north at Mays Island where Cedar Rapids City Hall and Linn County Courthouse are located. Davumaya/CC BY-SA 3.0

Vintage postcard of Municipal Island Atlas Obscura user Elliot Carter

Cedar Rapids City Hall Iowahwyman/CC BY-SA 3.0

Mays Island in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, during the flood of 2008. Interiority/CC BY-SA 3.0

shaunk82 (Atlas Obscura User)

Major Robert Horsky shaunk82 (Atlas Obscura User)

The landlocked state of Iowa is not the place you’d expect to find one of the few cities in the world to base their government on an island. Yet thanks to a clever bit of urban planning that centralizes the local government and unifies the communities on either side of the river, this tiny island in the middle of the Hawkeye State is home to the courthouse, jail, veterans memorial, and was formerly the home of the Cedar Rapids City Hall.

Situated in the Cedar River, Mays Island, also known as Municipal Island, also serves as the key landmark for the postal system in Cedar Rapids. It is the center of a quadrant system that demarcates the northwest, northeast, southwest and southeast. Every address in the city is covered by a quadrant, except for the three buildings on Municipal Island.

The island itself is small, about four blocks long and one block wide. Its National Register for Historic Places nomination form colorfully notes that the shape somewhat resembles that of a battleship: the government buildings as bow and aft conning towers, the bridges as mooring lines, and the underground parking garage floating draft.

The buildings on Municipal Island are also worthy of note. On the northern tip is a combination veterans memorial, and convention center, and also used to house city hall. It boasts a two-story stained glass window designed by famed Iowan artist Grant Wood. On top of the building a towering cenotaph is based on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.

To the south, facing the veterans memorial, is the Linn County Courthouse. It is a stately Beaux Arts building connected via sky bridge with the adjacent jail. Beautiful Great Depression-era murals and a three-story rotunda decorate the interior.

Following a devastating flood in 2008, the veterans memorial building was no longer able to house the Cedar Rapids City Hall. In 2012, the City moved its headquarters just across the river to the East and City Hall is now housed in what was formerly a federal courthouse.