Clarence, IA

Clarence is a Cedar County city on US 30 and the historic Lincoln Highway, with the road still doing much of the town’s orienting. The community was first called Onion Grove because wild onions grew along Mill Creek. It moved closer to the railroad, and the name changed to Clarence at the suggestion of Richard Gere, a Clarence, New York native. The city incorporated in 1866.

ATTRMostly Iowa Edits / CC BY-SA 4.0

School lines now connect Clarence with several nearby towns. North Cedar Community School District includes Clarence, Lowden, Mechanicsville, and Stanwood; the district was formed in 1995 by merging earlier local districts. Clarence’s current civic map adds a Main Street business district, volunteer organizations, city services, and the highway traffic passing through Cedar County. The old nickname and the railroad move give the place an unusually specific beginning, while the North Cedar district shows how the town fits into the wider countryside today. The local scoop is a Lincoln Highway city with a strange onion-era name, a railroad relocation, and a shared school system that reaches beyond its own limits.