April 12, 1893 – William E. Ijams – the teacher who helped start Iowa’s first School for the Deaf in Iowa City – passes away at age 62 in Zanesville, Ohio.

In 1854, with the help of the newspaper editor Edmund Booth, William E. Ijams comes to Iowa City to open Iowa’s first School for the Deaf. The following year, the State of Iowa adds on-going financial support and over the next twelve years, attendance triples in size: growing from twenty-one students to seventy-five.

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