Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Shellsburg Shellsburg, IA

Shellsburg is a city in Benton County, Iowa, founded in 1854 with just 24 lots and two streets, Main and Pearl.

Shellsburg was the third town site surveyed in Benton County and was laid out by proprietors Jacob and Christiana Cantonwine and Emanuel S. and Mary Fluke.

Two theories compete for Shellsburg's name: that the town was first called Sellsburg for pioneer John Sells before a compromise changed it to Shellsburg - a Sells street still runs by the city park - or that Jacob Cantonwine named it for Schellsburg, Pennsylvania, the state he came from.

Before the railroad era, Shellsburg was a thriving station on the Cedar Rapids and Vinton stagecoach line, and a post office opened in town on November 24, 1856.

The first train traveled through Shellsburg in December 1869, and the railroad turned the town into one of the business centers of Benton County.

Shellsburg's 1875 brick schoolhouse still stands today, the third school building on its site after an original log schoolhouse and an 1870 frame building.

The Shellsburg Bridge, a concrete-filled spandrel arch bridge built in 1915 over Bear Creek at the south end of Pearl Street, carries a 60-foot span with molded balusters and incised spandrel panels, and it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.

The 2020 census counted 961 people in Shellsburg, living in 385 households.

Shellsburg's population peaked at 983 in the 2010 census, and the town is part of the Cedar Rapids Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Shellsburg Elementary School, part of the Vinton-Shellsburg Community School District, serves students in grades K-5 in Shellsburg.