 |
|
 |
|
As Sam Brody, then 79 years old, recalled it:
The first school was the subscription kind. It was established by a pioneer teacher who went door to door obtaining pupils. He made many trips to town with his father, to Cedar Rapids to get grain, and to Dubuque for supplies. He recalled threshing grain with a flail, and later on the trampling floor and still later, the crude threshing machines. He remembered how the wolves used to come to the farmyards and kill livestock, if the farmers weren’t quick with their guns.
The first mail came irregularly by stage from Waterloo and Cedar Rapids. The person to whom the letter was addressed paid the postage when it was delivered. After the first few years the mail stage operated on a regular schedule. Center Point was the midway division point in the route between Cedar Rapids and Waterloo.
As recollected by Mrs. Sarah Berry, who arrived in 1852 when she was about fifteen:
When her stepfather reached what is now Urbana, there was a wayside inn (roadhouse), a store, and a post office. "It seemed like the most God-forsaken place in the world". Her stepfather took a farm along a creek several miles from town.
Indians camped along the river at regular intervals, hunting and fishing and making sugar from the sap of the maple trees, but they seldom ever molested the settlers, except to beg from them.
A little log church and a graveyard surrounding it were among the first community places established. The cemetery, just east of town on the road to Center Point, is still there, but the cabin church is gone.
As more settlers came husking, quilting bees, and spelling matches brought the folks together.
According to Mrs. Mary Moore, another who is well versed in the history of the town to which she came in 1868 when she was twelve:
According to Mrs. Moore, Marysville was named for Forsyth’s daughter. The eastern part of what is now Urbana was first known as Manatheka, an Indian name, and the western half was Marysville.
Judge Forsyth, who came in 1841, is reputed to have been one of the earliest settlers, was the one who laid out the town. He had a daughter named Mary and when the question of naming the place was broached, someone suggested Marysville, for the Judge’s daughter. But this wasn’t satisfactory as there was another Marysville and the mail was getting confused, so the government changed the name to Urbana.
Along with the log cabin church, the graveyard, post office, the store, and other "first" buildings there was the first saloon and the first mill. The town soon became a trading center for miles around.
Mrs. Moore’s husband, J. L. Moore, came to Urbana in 1854 with his parents from Indiana when he was five. He was a postmaster of the town during Grover Cleveland’s term as President, and he was famed throughout Benton and surrounding counties for his racehorses. He was also one of the town’s leading merchants and was always active.
First telephone came in 1883.
The first telephone was in Mr. Moore’s store. This resulted in Mrs. Moore being the first telephone operator. It was a phone of the long distance line and connected with Vinton and Cedar Rapids. It was the curiosity to those who came in the store.
Mrs. Moore’s father, H. S. Gee, was a wagon maker and a blacksmith.
Among other community builders of the time were Mayor William Todd, held the office three times, and council members Albert Giese, John Burrell, Nick Drilling, Elmer Cook, and Clark Rice.
Mr. Todd was also an undertaker and a carpenter, one of the first in the state to be a licensed embalmer.
 |
