Visitor Center
THE CORALVILLE LAKE ADMINISTRATION BUILDING AND VISITOR CENTER ARE CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.**Phones and email are still active.
Welcome to the Coralville Lake Visitor Center! While here, visitors can journey through Coralville Lake’s history which began 375 million years ago during the Devonian Period of the Paleozoic Era. Visitors can examine actual fossil specimens removed from the Devonian Fossil Gorge, located below the spillway of Coralville Dam, and enjoy a 15 minute video about the floods of 1993 and 2008 which exposed the gorge and made it viewable to all.
Moving forward in time, visitors can learn about glaciers that helped shape Iowa’s landscape and the Native American populations that once lived among the beautiful tallgrass prairies and oak savannas that filled Iowa’s landscape before it was transformed for agricultural purposes.
The Coralville Dam, which creates Coralville Lake, was constructed by the Rock Island District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1948 and 1958. Today, the Corps manages the lake and its surrounding area as a multiple use project providing flood control, low flow augmentation, fish and wildlife management, water quality and recreation.
The Coralville Lake Visitor Center is located at 2850 Prairie Du Chien Rd NE, Iowa City, IA 52240. It is open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. (closed holidays) and weekends only May 1 to October 31. For more information, contact the Coralville Lake Project Office at 319-338-3543 or Coralville.lake@USACE.army.mil, or visit: www.mvr.usace.army.mil/Missions/Recreation/Coralville-Lake/.
We look forward to seeing you!