This week in Hiawatha
- Fantasy and Sci-Fi Book Club - 4th Tuesday of the Month
Tue, Oct 27 · 6 PM · Forrest Kramer Room 103.1 - Doodlebugs at Hiawatha Public Library
Fri, Oct 30 · 10:30 AM · Forrest Glenn Community Room 103.1 &103.2
About Hiawatha
Hiawatha grew out of one man's picture of the future: in 1946 Fay Clark, a Linn County businessman, imagined new homes and a highway on the farmland just north of Cedar Rapids, and in 1950 he and 45 neighbors petitioned to make it a town, naming it after his own Hiawatha trailer company. Clark went on to serve as its first mayor and helped start a fire association so rural families nearby had protection too, and the city still runs the only fire-based ambulance service in Linn County. Families filled in the streets quickly, with Hiawatha Elementary opening on Emmons Street in 1958 and Nixon Elementary following in 1970. Today about 7,200 people live here, and the heart of town is the stretch of Emmons Street where the glass-fronted City Hall, dedicated in 2008, looks across to Guthridge Park with its splash pad, lighted ball diamonds and Sunday farmers market. On Boyson Road, the trailhead of the Cedar Valley Nature Trail starts walkers and cyclists on a trail that begins paved and runs north past patches of native prairie, almost 52 miles to Evansdale. The town marked its 75th birthday in June 2025, and its library keeps the calendar full with story times, game clubs and a winter solstice party.