In 1920, women across America earned the right to vote after the 19th Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution. A year later, Iowa City elected its first female mayor: Emma J. Harvat, a name now seemingly lost to time.

Harvat continues to be lauded to this day, but the fast turnaround of female achievement took shape in another woman besides Harvat, and one person in Iowa City with a keen experience in history is working to ensure she is remembered.

Adelaide Joy Rogers was another name on the city’s ballot in 1921. Republicans nominated Harvat for an at-large position on the City Council and Rogers for a role as a park commissioner. Rogers lost her bid for park commissioner, and Harvat’s name was elevated in the halls of Iowa City history as the first female mayor, while Rogers’ name was seemingly forgotten.

Kevin Boyd, former chair of Iowa City’s Historic Preservation Committee, contributed the name suggestion to Parks and Recreation after the department opened submissions for name suggestions to the public for a new park it is building per the next segment of its Park Master Plan, which the City Council approved in 2017.

Boyd said in an interview with The Daily Iowan that the name had been on his mind for some time. When Parks and Recreation requested community submissions, Boyd said he wrote up a proposal to nominate Rogers’ name.

“I thought it was a fitting place to honor her in history,” he said.

He said Rogers is a figure who history nearly forgot. She was born in 1868 to a family of early pioneers in Johnson County. Throughout her life, she was an active volunteer in the area. She helped educate children at the Children’s Hospital who otherwise could not attend classes.

During WWI, Rogers was a Red Cross volunteer. She also advocated for and helped provide physical education access to women. On the ballot, she used her maiden name, which was unusual for the time, Boyd said.

Boyd said his aspiration to see someone like Rogers memorialized originated from wanting more diversity in civic representation of the Iowa City community.

“In order for us to make sure that our civic space reflects our community, we sometimes need to dig deeper to find people who have been leaders but who were often left out of history because they were not the people writing it,” he said.

Boyd said his research required effort, and there are not many resources on Rogers available online like there are for Harvat. Boyd looked through the DI and the Iowa City Press-Citizen newspaper archives for information. In his proposal, he cites the sources of his information throughout his search.

In its Oct. 1 formal meeting, the Iowa City City Council approved the new park to be named after Rogers.

Adelaide Joy Rogers Park will be constructed on 1001 Shannon Dr., which is set to be completed in 2025.

The 2024 Iowa City Parks Improvement Plan, which includes the construction of Adelaide Joy Rogers Park, also details construction renovations to three other parks, a project totaling $593,000.

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The three parks being renovated are Calder Park, College Green Park, and Brookland Park, according to the master plan. Accessibility options are being added to some, while others, like College Green Park, are receiving aesthetic reworks, such as a restructured basketball court including a marker for Caitlin Clark’s famous record-breaking shot.

Juli Seydell Johnson, director of the Parks and Recreation Department, said most renovations are done according to community input. The department held meetings in May and sent postcards to residents near the Adelaide Joy Rogers Park site to gauge community response.

From that community response, it became a priority to make the parks more accessible, and Adelaide Joy Rogers Park is near Iowa City’s trail system and Iowa City West High School. To abate the concerns of nearby neighbors, the parks department planted trees in enough time that they would provide blockage between the park and their backyard, Johnson said.

She said equipment decisions are largely made by community input matching construction proposals from willing contractors.

“We hear from neighbors who want certain things, and we look for proposals that include that kind of thing,” Johnson said.

Johnson believes these renovations will be beneficial for the Iowa City community overall.

“I think there’s a lot of excited people out in the neighborhood,” she said. “Overall, the sentiment is positive about getting a new playground and a place for our kids to play.”

Johnson said the four parks currently being worked on are not the final parks the project plans to address. The Parks and Recreation Department plans on finishing the project with a final phase by 2030. It will be delayed as the park budget will all go to the City Pool Redesign Project in 2025.

In the Oct. 1 council meeting, Councilor Josh Moe applauded the park presentation for its focus on new accessibility options and Rogers’s memorialization, saying he’s excited for the park.

“I very much appreciate the focus on making these parks accessible,” Moe said.

Boyd is also excited to help create the opportunity for recognition of a name that held significance over a century ago.

“In order for us to have civic spaces that honor our history and our civic leaders,” he said, “we sometimes have to dig a little deeper and find people that didn’t make it to the front of the history books.”