The population was , at the census , making it the second-most populous city in Iowa. Cedar Rapids is the economic hub of Eastern Iowa, located at the core of the Interstate corridor. The Cedar Rapids metropolitan area is also part of a combined statistical area with the Iowa City metropolitan area. The location of present-day Cedar Rapids was in the territory of the Fox and Sac tribes at the time of European American settlement. The first settler on the site of the future city was Osgood Shepherd, who built a log cabin which he called a tavern in or next to the Cedar River then known as the Red Cedar at what is now the corner of First Avenue and First Street Northeast.
Shepherd was a squatter who claimed the land without legal title and also a reputed ne'er-do-well, who, if he was not a horse thief himself, definitely consorted with them. Early on, it appears that he "jumped the claim" of another squatter, Wilbert Stone, who had built a cabin and platted out a town, some distance south of Shepherd's cabin, that he called Columbus.
Shepherd drove Stone across the river, claiming that Stone had built his cabin on Shepherd's land, then sold Stone's cabin to a buyer named Hull. Shepherd later tried the same tactic with perhaps the first settler on the west side of the river, Robert Ellis, but Ellis happened to be chopping wood at the time and warned that someone would be dead if Shepherd did not retreat.
The true founders of the city were George Greene , Nicholas Brown, and a few others. Brown had experience as a miller and Greene had surveyed much of eastern Iowa, [ 12 ] so both saw the value of the spot Shepherd had claimed. It was right next to the rapidsβa prime spot to build a millβthe last set of rapids on the river before the Cedar fed into the Iowa River, meaning that goods milled on the spot could be carried by boat down river to the Mississippi.
In , they formed a partnership that bought out Shepherd's claim and platted out a town they called Rapids City. Brown immediately constructed a primitive dam and then built the town's first mill. His crude dam soon washed away, prompting Greene to induce Alexander Ely, an engineer from Michigan, to build a proper dam that created a mill race capable of powering several mills.
