Archaeology of Disaster: The July 4, 1876 Rockdale Flood

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The small unincorporated town of Rockdale is located along Catfish Creek just south of Dubuque, Iowa. Rockdale developed into an important milling center until most of the town was destroyed in a catastrophic flood on July 4, 1876. The 1876 Rockdale flood is still considered one of the worst natural disasters in Iowa history. In April 2023, Commonwealth (now Chronicle Heritage) was contracted to conduct trenching excavations within the City of Dubuque’s proposed new sewer that bisects the historic platted town parcels to determine whether intact features remained below years of flood deposits. It was originally speculated that that the area of the platted town parcels may have been scoured and destroyed by the 1876 flood and then by continuous major flooding events. However, excavations revealed an intact foundation determined to be Joseph Becker’s Saloon, along with an assemblage dating to the 1876 flood and its immediate aftermath.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow