Irving B. Weber (December 19, 1900 – March 16, 1997) was a local athlete, businessman, and historian in

Iowa City, Iowa Iowa City, offically the City of Iowa City is a city in Johnson County, Iowa, United States. It is the home of the University of Iowa and county seat of Johnson County, at the center of the Iowa City Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the time ...

. He was the first athlete at the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...

to make the All-American Swimming Team. He joined Sidwell's Ice Cream Company in Iowa City and later became one of its owners. He later organized the firm and four other independent producers of ice cream into the Quality Chek'd Dairy Association. Beginning in the 1970s, his weekly Saturday newspaper articles in the

Iowa City Press-Citizen The ''Iowa City Press-Citizen'' is a daily newspaper published in Iowa City, Iowa, United States that serves most of Johnson County and portions of surrounding counties. Its primary competitors are ''The Gazette'' of Cedar Rapids, which has a new ...

under the title "Irving Weber's Iowa City" were what led to his greatest renown in the community as a local character. While not considered a literary stylist on a par with

Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel ''In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous Eng ...

Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...

, his articles regularly informed readers about odd byways of Iowa City history, teaching about both lost and still-extant historic structures and the mores of another age. The articles were collected in various bound paperback volumes that were sold to benefit the local Iowa City

Lions Club The International Association of Lions Clubs, more commonly known as Lions Clubs International, is an international non-political service organization established originally in 1916 in Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , ...

. His name was later memorialized in the Irving B. Weber Elementary School, which opened its doors in 1994. There is a bronze statue depicting Weber, located on Iowa Avenue in downtown Iowa City. The statue was donated by Steve Maxon and Doris Park in 2003, along with sponsors; Iowa City Host Noon Lions Club, Iowa City Public Art Program, Quality Chekd Dairies, and Friends of Irving Weber.

External links

Irving Weber's Iowa City Digital Collection
part of th
Iowa Digital Library
features the complete set of Weber's newspaper columns. {{DEFAULTSORT:Weber, Irving 1900 births 1997 deaths American food industry businesspeople Writers from Iowa City, Iowa 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers 20th-century American businesspeople Historians from Iowa 20th-century American male writers University of Iowa alumni