Clarion’s history is
mostly unwritten
The public archives hold only 4 old photos of Clarion. The rest are in attics, shoeboxes and the historical society. Help start the collection.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗Wright County held its first court sessions in 1855 in a privately owned log cabin west of present-day Eagle Grove. In 1858, the county seat was located at Liberty, where a two-story frame courthouse was built. The county seat moved to Clarion in 1866, and the county's first courthouse in Clarion was built across the street from the northeast corner of the public square. That building was later incorporated into the Avondale Hotel.
The present Wright County Courthouse was constructed in 1891 and 1892 at a cost of about $50,000. It was designed by W.R. Parsons & Son and built by E.D. Jones & Co. The courthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981 as part of the County Courthouses in Iowa Thematic Resource.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowStart Clarion’s collection
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Clarion’s history is told.
3 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewClarion, IA, 1907: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Clarion, decade by decade
1970s
1990s
2 historic places in Clarion
2 places in Clarion are on the National Register of Historic Places, the country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.
Where they are
When they were listed
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as Clarion, IA (1907) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom Wikimedia Commons (5) and the Library of Congress (1). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.