In southern Linn County, just north of Shueyville, is a map dot called Western. The town came into existence in 1856 and was named because it had the westernmost college of the United Brethren Church. A Western College Road still runs a fraction of a mile north of the county line today.
The college made it 25 years before relocating to Toledo. The primary reasoning was that it was not on a railroad or telegraph line, but the Toledo Chronicle on July 22, 1880, said Rev. M.S. Drury told a meeting “the country round Western is almost entirely settled by foreigners — Bohemians, principally — and therefore the local patronage is very light.” The college was relocated to Toledo and classes started in 1881.
In 1903, the president of Western’s board of trustees, Leander Clark, made the college an offer: If it could raise $100,000 in three years, and name the college after him, he would donate $50,000. The Toledo Chronicle reported June 18 that the proposition “was received with profound satisfaction by the board.” The endowment committee adopted it “with great enthusiasm, and following which action the members of the board and visitors present while standing, sang ‘Praise God from whom all blessings flow.'”
On January 23, 1906, the articles of incorporation officially changed the name to Leander Clark College. The Chronicle reported two days later:
The large auditorium of the U.B. church was crowded with the numbers of the faculty, board of trustees, students, citizens, and all the loyal friends of Western, who had assembled to participate in this joyful jubilee.
The front of the church was decorated with Leander Clark pennants, but the chief decoration was a beautiful Leander Clark banner, which was suspended over the platform. This banner of cardinal satin embroidered in gold, is the work and the gift of Miss Cronise to the students. Above the banner hung a large artistically framed picture of Major Leander Clark, which is the gift of Major Clark to the college.
A decade later, as seen in the Chronicle, the college had an enrollment of 125 “with over a hundred in the conservatory.”
Leander Clark College, under that name, lasted less than 15 years. It was “suspended for the duration of the war” in June 1918 as a commission looked into a merger with Coe College in Cedar Rapids. The merger was approved in April 1919, with Coe taking control of Leander’s history, and the once-Western College making its way back “home” to Linn County. The college grounds were offered to the state of Iowa “for use in the establishment in Toledo of an orphans’ home” and became the Iowa Juvenile Home.
Coe College’s website has a brief history of Leander Clark College. Coe’s football records split by name, with all-time records of 3-3-1 against Western and 6-2 against Leander Clark between 1894 and 1916. (That includes the ultra-rare score of 4-4 in 1894, when touchdowns were four points apiece.) Many of Leander Clark’s athletics opponents remain today as Division III colleges scattered across Iowa. As far as I can tell, the teams never got a nickname.
Western’s township in southern Linn County is named College, and I assume the township was named for the college though I can’t be sure. The township is the root of the College Community School District, formed in 1954, which is better known as Cedar Rapids Prairie.
Was supposed to run Friday, forgot to make live. — Ed.
UPDATE 1/28: Added final paragraph.
July 22, 2015: A sculpture made of bicycle parts greets RAGBRAI riders as they go through Parkersburg.
