This week in Urbana
About Urbana
Urbana is one of the oldest places in Benton County: Samuel Lockhart and a few neighbors settled here in 1839 and 1840, and the little pioneer hamlet went by the name Hoosier Point. In May 1847 the county surveyor laid out a town called Marysville on the site, and by the mid-1850s four steam sawmills ran nearby, making it one of the busiest villages in the county, while its post office came to be called Urbana. A row of brick storefronts still lines the downtown street, including a 1909 block with a big arched window. The town's newest landmark is the Urbana Public Library, which opened in April 2024 as the first new public library in Iowa in more than 50 years, after two decades of fundraising turned the old city maintenance garage by the park into a bright room with a loft and a fireplace. Today about 1,550 people live where Interstate 380 meets Iowa Highway 150, halfway between Cedar Rapids and Waterloo, and Urbana's children go to the Center Point-Urbana schools, with the district's intermediate school right in town.
Along Wood St
- Legion Hall · 204 W Wood St
- Walter J. Meyocks, Post 264 Urbana American Legion & Auxiliary · 204 W Wood St
- Urbana Farmers Market · 206 W Wood St
- United States Postal Service · 304 W Wood St
- BoWood Company · 308 W Wood St
- O-Zone · 309 W Wood St
- Shipley Family Chiropractic · 314 W Wood St
- WELLS FARGO BANK · 320 W Wood St
- Williams Technologies · 320 W Wood St
- St Mary Parish · 402 ASH Ave
- Center Point-Urbana Intermediate School · 202 W Main St
- Urbana Public Library · 351 Velvas St
- Urbana Polk Twp Fire Department · 800 South St
- Urbana Car and Truck Wash · 102 S Union Ave
- Blue Moose Taxidermy Studio · 2 Main St