October 1, 2023 – The City of Coralville, Iowa celebrates its Sesquicentennial – 1873-2023 – 150 years since being incorporated as a community in Johnson County.

Did you know that where Coralville’s Iowa River Landing is located today, archaeologists have discovered, what is called the Edgewater Park Site – the oldest archaeological dig in Iowa with evidence of domesticated plant use. This means that the fossilized plant remains that have been recovered from this site indicate that the Late Archaic people – hunters and gatherers who camped here – were in the early stages of adapting domesticated plants for food purposes. In other words, these Native Iowans – camping in Coralville – were Iowa’s earliest pre-farmers, learning the earliest practices of how it might be possible to garden along the Iowa River – at least 3,600 years before John Gilbert and the first Johnson County pioneers arrived on the scene! That, my friends, is a lot of Coralville history!

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