Which town is older Clinton, Fulton, or Camanche? In a span of a couple of years in the mid 1830s, white settlers came to Eastern Iowa and settled all three for the same reasons that for 10,000 years, the Native Americans crossed this area, the narrowing of the Mississippi River. Clinton County has no formal records of settlements, but the best evidence of a Native American settlement is just south of Fulton in Albany with the Hopewell’s Albany Mounds.
The original town in the area was Lyons. Clinton was originally platted as New York and various other towns. Fulton and Camanche all came within a year or two of Lyons as well. With each town having a ferry, a school, and stores, it was off to the races. Lyons and Camanche grew while New York waited for its chance. That chance when the railroad in the 1850s chose to come over.
In 1855, the railroad land company replatted 500 acres of land and called it Clinton, Iowa. With railroad came entrepreneurs, our original entrepreneurs were sawmill owners. By the 1870s, Clinton sawmill owners had entered a business relationship with Weyerhaeuser of the Quad Cities to take over the Northwoods and rule the River with their own log rafts.
By 1907, the sawmills were gone, and Clinton had annexed Lyons to make one town. Camanche survived a devastating tornado in the 1860s and stayed our sister city to the south. Fulton took on strong Dutch roots and developed. But with the railroad, Clinton prospered.
In the early 20th century, Clinton’s population stagnated, but the pieces were being put into place to cause a rebirth. The Chicago Northwestern built up railyards. The Mississippi River saw improvements to transportation. The Lincoln Highway became the first transcontinental highway. Value added agricultural industries like Clinton Corn took root. The tagline is How Clinton Built the West and Now Feeds The World.
The River Cities still relies on this magic formula for success. The factory names have changed, some factories have come and gone, but for over 10,000 years, commerce and travel have occurred on our shared banks and throughout the region and now world.
