(Corning) The Iowa Culture app highlights historic sites in your neighborhood and around the state. Highlights from all 99 counties are included in the new tour designed by the State Curator, including the French Icarian Village near Corning.
Raelynn Risser, Adams County Economic Development Executive Director, says The Icaria Colony was American history’s longest-existing non-religious and pure communal experiment.
Frenchman Etienne Cabet migrated to the United States, searching for a Utopian Society.
He took off for America in 1848, landed in New Orleans, received his citizenship after an unsuccessful settlement in Texas, and headed up the Mississippi River to Illinois.
The separation group built a schoolhouse, reception hall, and a central dining hall (which is still standing today).
The historical marker is on Highway 34, three miles east of Corning; follow the markers to the site where you will find a refectory, where the people dined, a schoolhouse, artifacts, and a cemetery. Additionally, the Icarian site is filled with the history of the Icarian Colony, which lasted from 1852-1879.
(Photo: Courtesy of Adams County Economic Development)
