Downtown Mt. Vernon and Lisbon

 

1st Street NW, Mt. Vernon: Downtown with homey feel

Two small towns in eastern Linn County, Mt. Vernon and Lisbon, have retained pleasant traditional downtowns with historic buildings and nearby residential areas. The towns are growing in population, unlike most small midwestern towns, probably because they're within commuting distance of Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. Note that Mt. Vernon has grown more (nearly all in the first decade of the 21st century), and is younger and more middle class than Lisbon.

	POP 2000	POP 2020	% INCREASE	% BACH DEG	MED AGE
Cedar Rapids	120,563	137,710	14.2	35	36.4
Lisbon	1,922	2,233	16.2	27	40
Mt Vernon	3,394	4,527	33.4	49	28.2
IOWA	2,926,324	3,190,369	9	32	38.6
USA	281,421,906	331,449,281	17.8	36	38.8

(data from U.S. Census Bureau)

Cornell College in Mt. Vernon brings in some outside money and youthful energy. The campus begins at 5th Avenue SW, and includes the public library. Cornell's enrollment has grown about 7 percent since 2017-18, defying national trends, from 1009 in '17-'18 to 1074 in '22-'23 ("Cornell College Institutional Profile").

101-103 1st St NE, Mt. Vernon (built 1894)

Fuel Art and Espresso is a friendly coffee house, surprisingly full at mid-morning, with a fair number of groups and a lot of interaction between customers. Another coffee house, Little Scratch, is two doors down at 113. There are a variety of bars and restaurants as well. The Lincoln Wine Bar is among the tonier:

125 1st St NW, Mt. Vernon (built 1893)

Their wood-fired pizza is worth the trip over from Cedar Rapids.

Downtown Mt. Vernon abuts the college and several residential neighborhoods. Two blocks from 1st Street, I found this creative reminder to drivers to keep their eyes out for children coming down the hill on 3rd Avenue. "Pres Hill" is left unplowed after snowfalls for use by sledders.

3rd Avenue and 3rd Street NW, Mt Vernon

I rode my bike over to Lisbon. I live in hope for the interurban trail, but for now 1st Street to Lisbon Road (Main Street in Lisbon) is workable. It follows the route of the original Lincoln Highway. There's a wide sidewalk for an alternative to the street.

I didn't get as good a look at downtown Lisbon because Main Street was closed for Sauerkraut Days!

Gearing up for Sauerkraut Days:
South Washington Street approaching Main

Downtown Lisbon is two blocks' worth of Main Street, with one restaurant, a couple of bars, and (gasp!) no coffee. There's also the public library and an arts space. (Parallel to Main is the perplexingly-named Market Street, which has no businesses on it.) You see the same mix of older and compatible buildings as in Mt. Vernon... 

Downtown living: Lisbon Apts, 145 E Main St (1899)

...and a lot of the houses have capacious front porches.

There are several vacant buildings in the downtown area.

Vacant restaurant, 125 E Main St, Lisbon (1877)

When I returned after Sauerkraut Days, I estimated at least a third, and possibly as many as half of downtown buildings are vacant, though the existing stores are very up-to-date.

Gwen's, at 119 W Main St, was a Lisbon institution in an 1894 building mentioned in a Dan Bern/Dan Colehour song, but it has closed

 A recent city survey found 76 percent of Lisbon respondents favoring a "more prominent Main Street with more commercial opportunities" (City of Lisbon Comprehensive Plan 2021-2041, p. 7). This will be even more of a challenge if the center of the town's gravity shifts towards the highway bypass.

Lincoln Square Park, at the corner of Main and Walnut Streets, commemorates the Lincoln Highway and has a nice picnic shelter

Back in Mt. Vernon, just over the boundary line is a short north-south ped/bike trail...

Just off 3rd Street NE

...that goes by the skate park.

Under Hill Skate Park, 331 B Ave NE, Mt Vernon

This gives a safe alternative to the street for the boys who were just leaving the park when I arrived, and could eventually connect up to the planned Interurban Trail to Cedar Rapids.

Lisbon Future Land Use Map
(City of Lisbon Comprehensive Plan 2021-2041, p. 11)

Development along the recently-constructed US 30 bypass is likely to bring in some new property tax revenue to both Mt. Vernon and Lisbon, although that's not a long term winner (see Strong Towns on "The Growth Ponzi Scheme") and may ultimately draw resources away from the town cores and/or the residential neighborhoods. That's for the towns to figure out, for at present they have downtowns worth keeping.

Abbe Creek School Museum, just west of Mount Vernon

P.S. With traffic having been rerouted twice from the original Lincoln Highway, you don't have to get far out of town before you get a real country road feeling. I drank my coffee on the grounds of this one-room schoolhouse built in 1844, kicked off my sandals to walk in the wet grass, and then walked barefoot across the highway to this cemetery, where about half of the occupants seem to be Keplers.

Abbe Creek Cemetery