The Marble Rock post office opened in 1859, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Beelar's Grove (1855), opened inside today’s city and later closed.
First census: 409 in 18802020 census: 271167 years
Founding year: the first Marble Rock post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).
What stands out about Marble Rock’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Peaked at 660 in 1940; 271 people lived here in 2020.
15 censuses, 1880–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Marble Rock’s Wikipedia page.
Every building
Marble Rock, building by building, 1895–1910
Fire insurance maps drew every building, what it was made of and what it was used for, so insurers could price the risk of fire. Pick a year, then a sheet.
1895Sheet 1 of 1
Edition
Sheets
BrickWoodStone
Sanborn Map Company, via the Library of Congress. Editions published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
The story so far
Marble Rock, in brief
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Marble Rock yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Marble Rock is a city in Floyd County, Iowa, United States, along the Shell Rock River. The population was 271 at the time of the 2020 census. Marble Rock has a city park, historical museums, a powerhouse on the river, and a veterans' memorial. The Marble Rock Historical Society has a website with information about the museums.
Its first post office opened in 1859. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 307 to 271 (-12%).
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
From the old history books
What they wrote about Marble Rock in 1882
Passages that mention Marble Rock, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Floyd County, Iowa1882 · page 1068Read the page →
Read the text
The first store was one of small dimensions on block 1, of the village of Marble Rock, opened by Alan son W. Corey, in the winter of 1855-'6. He afterward removed his store to section 6, when the first store of general merchandise was started at Marble Rock, in 1857, by John Wallace and William A. Judd. The first drug store was opened on Main street, in 1870, by Messrs. Clark and Martin.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
History of Floyd County, Iowa1882 · page 1068Read the page →
Read the text
The first store was one of small dimensions on block 1, of the village of Marble Rock, opened by Alanson W. Oorey, in the winter of 1855-'6. He afterward removed his store to section 6, when the first store of general merchandise was started at Marble Kock, in 1857, by John Wallace and William A Judd. The first drug store was opened on Main street, in 1870, by Messrs. Clark and Martin.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
History of Floyd County, Iowa1882 · page 1137Read the page →
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was a son of Wm. and Julia Wagnor. He resided in Pennsylvania till the spring of 1854, when he went to Illinois, where he resided till the spring of 1856, at which date he came to Floyd County, la., locating in Marble Rock, where he spent about six years working at the carpenter's trade and running the steam saw-mill most of the time. After leaving Marble Rock he rented land south of Marble Rock. In the spring of 1862 he bought thirty acres which joined eighty acres Mrs. Wagner received through the \vill of her
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
History of Floyd County, Iowa1882 · page 1073Read the page →
Read the text
The postoffice of Marble Rock was established about 1855. Previous to that time the nearest postoffice was Waver! j, distant thirty miles southeast. Whoever went for his mail would get the mail for the whole settlement. The tirst Postmaster appointed under the administration of President Franklin Pierce was J. I.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Marble Rock, 1855 to 1972
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (1), the National Register of Historic Places (2), Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System, Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress) and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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