Sabula, IA

Sabula is a city in Jackson County, Iowa, on an island in the Mississippi River. The 2020 census counted 506 people, and Sabula is Iowa's only island city. U.S. Route 67 ends here, while a roadway between two lakes carries the city back into Iowa and another bridge route leads across the river to Savanna, Illinois. The island has a beach, campground, and harbor with boat docks, so water is part of the daily map rather than just the city limit.

ATTRFarragutful / CC BY-SA 4.0

Sabula was established in 1835, according to the local legend that Isaac Dorman crossed from the Illinois side on a log and settled here. The name is French for sand, a reference to the area's soil. In the late nineteenth century, a pearl-button factory used clam shells harvested from beds near the shoreline; the community became an island only after the Army Corps of Engineers' upper-Mississippi lock-and-dam system was built in the 1930s. Today Sabula is part of the Easton Valley Community School District, formed in 2013 from the East Central and Preston districts. The local scoop is a river city with an unusually literal island geography, a button-making past, and a highway ending at the harbor.