Clinton, IA news and local guide

Joseph Bartlett platted the Town of New York at the site of Clinton in 1836 while searching for gold deposits, and in 1837 Elijah Buell, one of the first European American settlers, founded the town of Lyons nearby, named for the French city. In 1855 the Chicago, Iowa and Nebraska Railroad announced a bridge across the Mississippi at Little Rock Island, and the Iowa Land Company named the town Clinton for DeWitt Clinton, governor of New York. A city charter was adopted in 1857, Lyons Female College opened in 1858, and the population passed 1,000 during the bridge's construction. The line reached Cedar Rapids in 1859, and the single-track bridge was replaced by a double-track one in 1909.

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From the 1850s to 1900 Lyons and Clinton were centers of the lumber industry, together called the Lumber Capital of the World, and in the 1880s and 1890s Clinton was said to have more millionaires per capita than any other city in the country. Lyons merged with Clinton in 1895. By the end of 1900 the northern forests were exhausted and the sawmills closed, but the railroad and river drew manufacturing and heavy industry. Victorian mansions from the lumber era, among them the George M. Curtis House, still stand, and the city acquired Eagle Point Park in 1925. Sources Wikipedia: Clinton, Iowa