WATERLOO, IOWA
COUNTY SEAT FOR BLACK HAWK COUNTY
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
- On a hot July18th in 1845, two covered wagons stopped on the east bank of the Cedar River at a place known as Prairie Rapids Crossing. The wagons contained the family of George and Mary Hanna. On a high ridge on the west side of the river, they selected their home site and their 18'x 24' log cabin became the first structure of what was to become Waterloo, Iowa. In the summer of 1846, the Hanna's first neighbors arrived. Now familiar names of Waterloo landmarks, they were the Virdens and the Mullans. The Mullans built their log cabin near what is now 166 Falls Avenue, which a few years later, became the site of the first frame house in Waterloo.
- A combination of legend, fact and fancy surrounds the naming of Waterloo in December, 1851 when the town was awarded a post office and a permanent title. The facts are that Charles Mullan managed to secure seven signatures on a petition asking the federal government to establish a post office here. The settlement had a descriptive name, Prairie Rapids Crossing, But Mullan thought the title too cumbersome for a mailing address. He later related that he happened on the name "Waterloo" after thumbing through a U.S. Post Office Guide of the time. There were Waterloos in other states.
- Legend has it that Mullan had an earlier suggestion for the name Waterloo from the first woman settler, Mary Melrose Hanna, who is said to have remarked on resemblance of the river banks of the future town site as to the low water-soaked battle ground of Napoleon's Waterloo, about which she had been reading.
- More fanciful yet is the recollection by some historians that early settlers first referred to the future Waterloo as "the Water-low" because it offered one of the few fording places on the Cedar River.
- In 1853, the town was surveyed and platted and the first store established. On July 27th, 1855, Waterloo became the county seat (formerly at Cedar Falls, Iowa). In 1859, the ferry was replaced by the first bridge, and the first passenger train came into town in 1861 on the line that became the Illinois Central. Waterloo's first city officials were elected on July 21, 1868, a Mayor and Council.
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From its early beginning as a center for sawmills and flour mills, Waterloo has grown into one of Iowa's chief industrial centers, where today more that 20,500 persons, 40% of the city's civilian work force, are employed in the more than 120 industries.
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