This week in Marshalltown
- 7th - 12th Grade Orchestra Concert
Thu, Oct 29 · 7 PM · Marshalltown High School Marshalltown Performing Arts Center
About Marshalltown
Marshalltown traces itself to 1851, when Henry Anson put up a log cabin on a rise between the Iowa River and Linn Creek and called the spot the prettiest place in Iowa; a plaque on West Main Street still marks where it stood. He named the village Marshall after his old Michigan hometown, then the railroad arrived in 1862, the name grew to Marshalltown, and the county seat followed a year later. Factories gave the town its muscle, and one story says it all: a mason working on the new courthouse asked a local machinist for a better trowel, and the Marshalltown trowel went on to become a favorite of builders and archaeologists everywhere. That 1886 limestone courthouse, with its 175-foot clock tower, still anchors the town square, at the heart of a historic downtown that includes the seven-story Hotel Tallcorn, an opera house and a movie theater. When the 2018 tornado tore the spire from that tower, the county repaired it, and a new dome was lifted into place in 2020. Today families can catch a Bobcats game or a school concert, join thousands downtown for the Holiday Stroll's lights and Santa's Workshop, or drive past a brick Frank Lloyd Wright house built partly by its owners' own hands.