Atop the bluffs, tidy frame farmhouses dot the landscape, with white barns, silos, and farmland aroma accompanying US-18 and US-52 as they loop inland south toward Guttenberg (pop. 1,987), another postcard-pretty old river town whose downtown lines the Mississippi. In fact, it’s one of the few Mississippi riverfronts where the river itself is not hidden away behind levees, and a long green riverside park, just a quick two blocks east of the main highway, makes the downtown area a particularly pleasant place to stroll.
Guttenberg is indeed named in honor of Johannes Gutenberg, 15th-century inventor of printing from moveable type. Local legend has it that an official of French descent purposely added the extra “t” after German residents won a vote to change the town’s name from the original Prairie la Porte. Germanic surnames still predominate the local phone book, and the two main streets, which run perpendicular to the Mississippi, are named Schiller and Goethe.
On the north side of town, where the GRR takes an up-close look at the prairie’s geological underpinnings as it cuts down to the river’s edge, the first of Guttenberg’s two Phillips 66 stations stands adjacent to the reliable Rausch’s Cafe (563/252-2102). From the downtown area, it’s a quick walk upriver to the concrete walls of Lock and Dam No. 10. Besides giving a sense of the massive engineering that attempts to tame the Mississippi, the locks are also home to an aquarium (daily in summer; free; 563/252-1156) that offers a quick biology lesson through displays of live specimens of many of the river’s fish and invertebrate species.
There are great views to be had in the first few miles of Iowa’s GRR route south of Guttenberg. About 10 well-signed miles south of Guttenberg, you can take the Cassville ferry (see below) across the Mississippi from Millville and visit the unique Dickeyville Grottoes, or stay on the Iowa side and cruise through the Germanic eyeblink towns that dot the rolling uplands between Guttenberg and Dubuque: Midway along, tiny Balltown in particular is worth a stop to sample the food and decor at Breitbach’s (563/552-2220), a bar and restaurant that’s so old President Millard Fillmore issued the permit allowing it to open.
