This week in Mason City
About Mason City
Mason City began in 1853 as a stand of trees called Masonic Grove, tucked beside limestone bluffs where Willow Creek meets the stream locals long called Lime Creek. Meredith Willson grew up here, and when his musical The Music Man reached Broadway in 1957, everyone knew its River City was really his hometown; a few years later the creek was even officially renamed the Winnebago River. Frank Lloyd Wright left a rare mark on the town, too: the Stockman House of 1908 and the Park Inn Hotel of 1910, now the last Wright-designed hotel still standing anywhere. Along Willow Creek, the Rock Crest-Rock Glen neighborhood gathers Prairie School houses by Walter Burley Griffin, Marion Mahony Griffin and their circle into the largest such cluster in the country. Today families can stroll the 1912-style streetscape at Music Man Square, tour Willson's boyhood home, then catch a storytime at the library or a holiday show at NIACC.