Cedar Falls is a city in Black Hawk County, in the mid-northeast of the US state of Iowa. As of the 2020 census, Cedar Falls had a population of 40,713. Along with Waterloo, Cedar Falls is one of the two core cities of the Waterloo – Cedar Falls metropolitan area.
The UNI-Dome is a stadium located in Cedar Falls, Iowa, United States, has a total capacity of 16,324 people, is home to the college football and basketball team Northern Iowa Panthers of the University of Northern Iowa. The stadium opened in 1976, the stadium is fully covered.
The first inhabitants of the area now known as Black Hawk County were
the Sauk and Fox (Meskwaki) tribes, who settled in eastern Iowa after
being displaced by other tribes in the early 1700s.1 European settlement
in Iowa Territory continued into the 1840s, with Scandinavians, Slovaks
Scandinavians, Slovaks, Hispanics, Germans, Greeks, and others settled
in large numbers when Iowa was admitted to the Union in 1847.
The first known non-native settlers of Cedar Falls (then called "Sturgis
Falls") were William Sturgis and his brother-in-law, Erasmus Adams, who
first settled Sturgis Falls in 1845 and settled the area for lumber,
agricultural prairie, drinking, They were attracted to the Cedar River
for its potential for timber, agricultural prairie, drinking,
transportation, and power generation.
In 1850, John and Dempsey
Overman, along with John Barrick, bought the Sturgis family and renamed
the community "Cedar Falls."
In 1853, the Black Hawk County
Commissioners met in Cedar Falls and placed the county seat in Cedar
Falls.
William Sturgis.
At the time of the county seat, Cedar
Falls had 40 residents, but the Overman brothers were the first
developers to donate land for a new courthouse. Initially, county
records were kept at Mullarky's General Store, which was the first of
its kind in Cedar Falls. At the time Cedar Falls was planning to build a
courthouse, there was a movement in Waterloo to move the county seat to
the community of Waterloo, near the center of Black Hawk County. In
1855, Waterloo residents persuaded the state legislature to approve a
referendum on the county seat, and in April 1855, after a bitter
referendum dispute with Cedar Falls, the county seat was moved to
Waterloo. In April 1855, after a fierce referendum dispute with Cedar
Falls, the county seat was moved to Waterloo.
During the 1840s
and 1850s, a steamboat called the "Black Hawk" operated on the Cedar
River between Cedar Rapids and Waterloo. Between 1855 and 1860, the
population of Cedar Falls grew from about 450 to just over 1,500.
Shortly thereafter, the area began to grow, with a series of "firsts,"
including a post office in 1850, a schoolhouse in 1853, and a railroad
in 1861.
In 1863, what is now the University of Northern Iowa
(UNI) began as an orphanage for Civil War soldiers, later renamed Old
Central. Later, the name was changed to Iowa State Normal School in
1876, Iowa State Normal University in 1909, and Iowa State University in
1961.
Then in July 1967, Iowa State University became the
University of Northern Iowa.
In 1911, J.G. Weiss, P.C. Petersen,
W.I. Hurst, and Jens Nielsen combined their technical and financial
skills to form a company to manufacture gear rotary pumps. With Weiss as
president of the new company, which later became Viking Pumps, the
company began producing a limited number of pumps with two employees.
During this period, other prominent landmarks and community
facilities were being built, including Sartori Hospital and the Cedar
Falls Bible Conference.
Construction of the Sartori Hospital
began in 1914 and the facility was dedicated in February 1915 with a
capacity of 30 patients. During the same period, Prohibition was
strongly supported by the community. Overman Park and College Hill Park
were also established, and religion became an important influence in the
community, with the first Cedar Falls Interdenominational Bible
Conference held in 1921.
Between 1950 and 1980, Cedar Falls had
the fastest population growth in Iowa. This was spurred primarily by the
economic growth of metropolitan areas such as John Deere, Russ Packing,
and Chamberlain Manufacturing in Waterloo, a significant increase in
enrollment at UNI, and civic leaders' commitment to improving the
quality of life in the community. Also, from this time until 1990,
student recruitment and UNI's Price Lab School were very important
issues facing Cedar Falls.
Today, the City of Cedar Falls is
proud of its schools, its relationship with UNI, its strong leadership,
and the development the community is experiencing. The City of Cedar
Falls has a strong desire to maintain its identity through leadership,
promote growth and development, and improve services and quality of life
wherever possible.
Cedar Falls straddles the Cedar River, the largest tributary of the
Iowa River, a right tributary of the Mississippi. The city is located at
42°31′40″ north latitude and 92°26′44″ west longitude and extends over
74.8 km2, which is divided into 73.3 km2 of land and 1.5 km2 of water.
Neighboring towns are Waterloo (7 miles downstream southeast),
Hudson (10 miles south), Dike (12 miles southwest), New Hartford (10
miles west northwest), and North Cedar (1.7 miles north ).
The
closest major cities to Waterloo are Rochester, Minnesota (187 km
north), Dubuque at the intersection of the states of Iowa, Wisconsin,
and Illinois (159 km east), Cedar Rapids (99.9 km southeast), and Iowa's
capital, Des Moines (182 km southwest).
The U.S. freeway, which has been expanded, runs through the northern
parts of Cedar Falls. Highway 218, which runs parallel to the Cedar
River. In the center of the city it meets the Ioway Highways 27, 57, 58
and 934. The southern edge of the city is formed by the U.S. highway 20
Several rail lines of the Iowa Northern Railway and the Canadian
National Railway cross in Cedar Falls.
The nearest airport is
Waterloo Regional Airport, which has connecting flights from several
airlines to the major airports in Chicago O'Hare and Minneapolis-Saint
Paul.
As of the 2010 census, Cedar Falls was home to 39,260 people in
13,978 households. The population density was 535.6 people per square
kilometer.
The racial makeup of the population was 93.4 percent
White, 2.1 percent African American, 0.2 percent Native American, 2.3
percent Asian and other ethnic groups; 1.7 percent descended from two or
more ethnic groups. Regardless of ethnicity, 2.0 percent of the
population was of Hispanic or Latino descent.
Statistically, 2.41
people lived in each of the 13,978 households.
17.3 percent of
the population was under 18 years old, 70.3 percent were between 18 and
64 and 12.4 percent were 65 years or older. 51.9 percent of the
population was female.
The median annual household income was
$47,339. Per capita income was $23,730. 21 percent of the residents
lived below the poverty line.
Marc Andreessen (b. 1971) - Co-founder of Netscape Communications -
born in Cedar Falls
Bill Stewart (born 1966) - jazz musician -
studied at Cedar Falls
Roger Jepsen (1928-2020) - Senator from Iowa
(1979-1985) - born in Cedar Falls
Brad Penrith (* 1965) - former vice
world champion in wrestling - studied in Cedar Falls
Tolly Thompson
(b. 1973) - former wrestling champion - born in Cedar Falls
Gerald
Guralnik (1936-2014) - physicist - born in Cedar Falls
John Little
(b. 1984) - basketball player - studied at Cedar Falls
David R. Nagle
(born 1943) - Member of the US House of Representatives (1987-1993) -
studied and worked in Cedar Falls for several years
C. William
Ramseyer (1875-1943) - Member of the US House of Representatives
(1915-1933) - studied at Cedar Falls
Fred C. Gilchrist (1868-1950) -
Member of the US House of Representatives (1931-1945) - attended school
and studied at Cedar Falls
Gil Gutknecht (b. 1951) - Member of the US
House of Representatives (1995-2007) - born in Cedar Falls
Nancy Jo
Powell (b. 1947) - diplomat - born in Cedar Falls
Tim Dodd (b. 1985)
- web video producer and aspiring spaceman - grew up in Cedar Falls