April 4, 1853.

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Iowa City: Opening Doors For The Blind.
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April 4, 1853 – The state-supported Iowa School for the Blind – with Samuel Bacon as director – opens, offering free public education to all blind Iowans across the state.

In 1853, Samuel Bacon came to Iowa City to oversee the newly-formed, state-supported Iowa School for the Blind. Over the next nine years, Professor Bacon took this “asylum” – which was perceived as a hospital or poorhouse and made it into a fully-functioning educational center that literally changed the way our society responds to visually-impaired citizens of our state.

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April 3, 1951.

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Meet the Iowa City Mayor – William J. “Bill” Holland – Iowa City’s 44th Mayor (1951-1954). Read more at our website.

April 3, 1951 – The Iowa City Press-Citizen reports that William J. “Bill” Holland becomes the first Iowa City mayor to be elected under the new council-manager system, where the mayor is no longer chosen by the citizens, but appointed by the City Council.

In the 1951 City Election, voters chose from a slate of Council members, of which Bill Holland was one, and then, once elected to the council (for two years), Holland was elected mayor – by the council – for the remainder of 1951. Eventually, Holland was appointed for three one-year terms as mayor from April 2, 1951 to January 1, 1954.

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April 2, 1902.

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Hey Iowa City – Let’s Go To The Movies! Read more at our website.

April 2, 1902 – The first theater built specifically to show “movies” opens its doors in Los Angeles.

It all begins in the late 1890’s. Thomas Edison had invented the Vitascope – a creative, new way of projecting pictures onto a large screen – and by the turn-of-the-century, “movie houses” were beginning to pop up around the country. The first theater built specifically to show “movies” opened its door on April 2, 1902, in Los Angeles, and it was an instant success. In 1905, Pittsburgh movie theater owners – Harry Davis and John Harris – introduced 5-cent Nickelodeon movies, and two years later, by 1907, Iowa City had at least three “movie” theaters to call her own.

But that was just the beginning. By 1917 – ten years later – downtown Iowa City had experienced thirteen different movie houses in eleven different locations – all within just a few blocks of each other!

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