Cedar Rapids is a city in and the county seat of Linn County, Iowa, United States. The population was 137,710 at the 2020 census, making it the second-most populous city in Iowa. The city lies on both banks of the Cedar River, 20 miles (32 km) north of Iowa City and 128 miles (206 km) northeast of Des Moines, the state's capital.
The Peoples Savings Bank in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was designed by Louis Sullivan. It was the second of a number of small "jewel box" banks in midwest towns designed by Sullivan during 1907 to 1919. It was built in 1911, and it was individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. In 2014 it was included as a contributing property in the West Side Third Avenue SW Commercial Historic District.
May's Island is a small island on the Cedar River, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Functioning as a civic center much like the Île de la Cité, it is the site of the Memorial Building, the Linn County Courthouse, and the county jail. The island plus an adjacent block was listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
The Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern Railway (BCR&N) was a railroad that operated in the United States from 1876 to 1903. It was formed to take over the operations of the bankrupt Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Minnesota Railway, which was, in turn, the result of merging several predecessor lines, the construction of which began in 1869. The corporate headquarters were in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and it had operations in Iowa and in Minnesota. It was succeeded by the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway.
The Linn County Courthouse is located on May's Island in the middle of the Cedar River in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States. It, along with the Veterans Memorial Building and two other buildings, is a contributing property to the May's Island Historic District that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The courthouse is the third building the county has used for court functions and county administration.
The Auto Freight Transport Building of Oregon and Washington, also known as East Side Terminal and Eastbank Commerce Center, in southeast Portland in the U.S. state of Oregon is a four-story commercial structure listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Built in 1924, it was added to the register in 2005.
The Hotel Roosevelt is a historic structure located in downtown Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States. It was individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. In 2015 it was included as a contributing property in the Cedar Rapids Central Business District Commercial Historic District. The building is now known as the Roosevelt Lofts.
The Witwer Grocery Company Building, also known as the Osada Building or more recently as the Bottleworks Loft Condominiums, is a historic structure located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States. The building served as the grocery warehouse for the Witwer Grocery Company, a local Cedar Rapids grocer which included MeToo stores from 1946 to 1965 and had a bottling facility for Life Cola and Hires Root Beer on the first floor. The building is five stories tall and rises 55 feet (17 m) above the ground. It was designed by the architectural firm of Blahnik & Berger and was completed in 1946. The building was extensively renovated from 1996 to 1997 into apartments. A full height atrium was created in the buildings core. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998, and is part of the Commercial & Industrial Development of Cedar Rapids MPS. The Osada complex closed in 2007 and was remodeled into Bottleworks Loft Condominiums post-2008 flood.
Lacey-Keosauqua State Park is located southwest of Keosauqua, Iowa, United States. The park is located along the Des Moines River in Van Buren County. First dedicated in 1921, it is the largest state park in size in Iowa. In 1990, three areas were named nationally recognized historic districts and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Burlington, Cedar Rapids, and Northern Railroad-Rock Rapids Station, Railroad Track and Bridge is a nationally recognized historic district located in Rock Rapids, Iowa, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. At the time of its nomination the district included one contributing building and three contributing structures.
The Hawthorne Glove and Novelty Company–Shrader Drug Company Building is a historic building located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Completed in 1906, this utilitarian three-story brick structure is located in the city's original railroad and industrial corridor south of the central business district. This was an industrial area from the 1870s to the 1940s. It replaced a recently built building on the same site by the Hawthorne Glove and Novelty Company that had been destroyed in a fire. The back of the building opened upon the rail sidings of a branch line of the Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern Railway, later the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific. By the start of World War I the Shrader Drug Company occupied the building. It was one of three drug related factories that were located along the South Gilbert Street corridor at that time. The company name changed to the Hewell-Shrader Drug Company in 1930 and then the Hewell-Shrader Company in 1945 after farm fertilizer was added to its product line. The company closed in 1956, and the building was sold to the Thompson Transfer and Storage Company who used it for a warehouse. Whipple House Furniture Store took over the building three years later, and remained until 1975. In the intervening years a variety of businesses occupied the building until the 1980s when it was vacant for a period of time. In the mid-1980s The Vine Tavern occupied the basement level and the upper floors were used for artist studios. In 2012 the upper floors were converted into apartments. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.
The Cedar Rapids Pump Company Factory and Warehouse are two historic buildings located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States. The company began in 1881. They manufactured and distributed water pumps and windmills throughout the Midwest from this facility from 1884 to 1929. They completed the first floor of the factory building along the Chicago and North Western Railroad tracks in 1884. The second floor was added to the building around 1894, and in 1901 the warehouse building was completed. The Cedar Rapids Community School District used both buildings for storage from 1974 to about 2008. The buildings were affected by the 2008 flood. The two-story brick factory building features a monitor roof, and is otherwise "purely utilitarian in appearance with no particular stylistic or decorative tendency." The warehouse is also two-stories, constructed in brick, and lacking in ornamentation. The buildings were listed together on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.
Grant Vocational High School, also known as the Board of Education and the Cedar Rapids School District Central Office, is a historic building located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States. Completed in 1915, this is a rare example of a vocational high school in Iowa as only a handful were ever built. While it offered various student activities in athletics and the arts, its curriculum was based on the manual arts instead of humanities or college preparatory courses. A Progressive Era idea, vocational education began in Cedar Rapids in 1904. Within a year there was a call for a dedicated vocational high school. There was much debate as the local school district's regular high school was beyond capacity and there was a need for new elementary schools. Efforts to build the school began with the passage of a bond referendum in 1911. Cedar Rapids architect William J. Brown designed the three-story, brick Prairie School structure and it was built by the F.P. Gould Company of Omaha.
Cedar Rapids Central Fire Station, also known as Cedar Rapids Hose Company No. 1 and the Cedar Rapids Science Station, is a historic building located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States. It served as the city's fire department headquarters and downtown fire station from 1918 to 1985. It replaced a frame structure in the northeast quadrant, and was part of a larger program of building new facilities for the local fire department. The building program was a response to a series of disastrous fires, changing technology, and the city's growth. This fire station served from the era of horse-drawn pumper wagons to the modern era of fire engines, pumpers, and hook and ladder trucks. The two-story, brick Mission and Spanish Colonial Revival structure was designed by local architect Charles A. Dieman. In the mid-20th century a two-story kitchen addition was built onto the back of the building.
Smulekoffs Furniture Store, also known as the Sinclair Building, New Sinclair Building, Warfield–Pratt–Howell Co. building and the Churchill Drug Co. building, is a historic building located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States. In 1901 Thomas Sinclair had the original section of this five-story brick structure built. It housed the wholesale grocer Warfield–Pratt–Howell Co. and another wholesaler, the Churchill Drug Co. It was the second of several large-scale warehouse buildings that were constructed in this section of the city along the Cedar River. A spur line of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad was located at the rear of the building. Rosenbaum Furniture Store bought the building in 1925, and it was converted from warehouse use to retail. In 1941 Smulekoffs Furniture Store took over the building and renovated the main floor. They remained here until 2014. The building is slated for apartments on the upper floors and retail on the main floor. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016.
The Harper and McIntire Company Warehouse, also known as Smulekoff's Warehouse, is a historic building located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States. Harper and Mcintire was a wholesale hardware business that was established in Ottumwa, Iowa in 1856. A branch warehouse in Cedar Rapids was begun in 1921. The four-story, brick, Commercial structure was designed by the Minneapolis architectural firm of Croft and Boerner. Cedar Rapids contractor Theodore Stark & Company and Ferro Concrete Construction Company of Cincinnati were responsible for construction. The building was completed in 1922 in an industrial area where spur lines connected it to the Fourth Street Railroad Corridor. It was originally designed as a seven-story building, but by the time it was put out for bid it was reduced to four-stories with a two-story tower that enclosed a water tank. Two additions were added to be building that facilitated the change to shipping by truck. The east side addition was completed in the 1940s, and the west side addition (1962) was built where the railroad spur track had been located. Smulekoffs Furniture Company took over the building in 1981 and remained until 2014 when they went out of business. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.
The Cedar Rapids Central Business District Commercial Historic District is a nationally recognized historic district located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015. At the time of its nomination it consisted of 60 resources, which included 46 contributing buildings, one contributing structure, 12 non-contributing buildings, and one non-contributing structure. Cedar Rapids was platted on the east bank of the Cedar River as Rapids City in 1841, and it was incorporated under the same name in 1849. Kingston was established on the west bank of the river in 1852. The two smaller communities consolidated in 1870 as Cedar Rapids. The streets were laid out parallel and perpendicular to the river, which flowed from the northwest to the southeast. The Chicago, Iowa and Nebraska Railroad was the first to arrive in the community in 1859 and the tracks were laid on Fourth Street on the eastern edge of the central business district. The first bridge across the river was built at Third Avenue in 1871.
The Cedar Rapids Milk Condensing Company, also known as Knutson Building, and the Chelsea, is a historic building located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States. It was built in 1887, and it is one of the few commercial structures that remains along the west side of the Cedar River from that era. Besides the Cedar Rapids Milk Condensing Company, the building was also used by the Knutsons for their junk business. It was used for storage and it was also used as a haunted house before it could no longer be occupied. The building has been transformed into 18 market-rate apartments called the Chelsea. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2017.
The Historic Ely Elevator, also known as the Woitishek-King-Krob Elevator and Feed Mill, is an "iron-clad" wood-cribbed grain elevator, located in Ely, Iowa. The Historic Ely Elevator was built in 1900 along the Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern Railway. It is a contributing property of the Dows Street Historic District, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Clipper Belt Lacer Company Complex is a complex of seven former factory buildings located at 974-1010 Front Avenue NW in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2023.
