This week in Belle Plaine
About Belle Plaine
Belle Plaine started as a railroad promise: in 1862 landowner Prestley Hutton traded land for a depot as the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River line pushed west, and local families rejected the railroad's name of Halifax for Belle Plaine, French for the beautiful plain they saw across the Iowa River valley. Farm trade on the rails grew it to nearly a thousand people by 1870, and in 1886 a city well struck water so hard that 'Jumbo' gushed out of control for fourteen months and made news as far as Europe. When a blacksmith's spark burned five downtown blocks in July 1894, merchants rebuilt in brick within months, and those storefronts, the King Theatre and the old depot now make up a Main Street historic district. The Lincoln Highway brought a second boom of service stations, cabins and hotels like the Herring, and Preston's Station, its little white building covered in old oil and tire signs, still sits by the old route on 4th Avenue. Today about 2,300 people live here, the Plainsmen play in navy and gold, and the community library and the Belle Plaine Area Museum with its Henry B. Tippie Annex keep the town's story close at hand.
Along 12th St
- Your Memories Photography · 702 12th St
- Carquest Auto Parts · 703 12th St
- King Theatre · 720 12th St
- Drahos Shoe Store · 722 12th St
- Blu Luna C · 726 12th St
- Spotlight Studios · 727 12th St
- Whannel's U.S. Cellular · 729 12th St
- Circle K · 729 12th St
- Verizon · 729 12th St
- Cornerstone · 731 12th St
- Belle Plaine Chiropractic · 732 12th St
- Nettiannes Floral & Gifts · 802 12th St
- Grand Central Station Inc · 803 12th St
- Udders Burgers & More · 805 12th St
- Valhalla Hatchets · 805 12th St
- Timber Gate Gardens · 806 12th St
- Fire Box On Main · 813 12th St
- Belle Plaine Discount and More · 818 12th St
- Independent Tech Solutions · 819 12th St
- Accelerated Rehabilitation Centers · 821 12th St
- Junk and Disorderly · 821 12th St
- Jen Lewis Photography · 823 12th St
- O’Leary’s Office Tap · 825 12th St
- Miracle-Ear Hearing Aid Center · 826 12th St
- Belle Plaine Hardware · 827 12th St
- Belle Plaine Area Museum · 901 12th St
- Belle Plaine Community Library · 904 12th St
- Kollmorgen, Schlue & Zahradnik, P.C. · 920 12th St
- Kollmorgen, Schlue Zahradnik, P.C. · 920 12th St
- American Legion · 1008 12th St