‘River City’ celebrates its ‘Music Man’

Tens of thousands of people packed the streets of this northern Iowa city 40 years ago to honor a native son and the film premiere of “The Music Man.”

When ABC airs its version of Meredith Willson’s musical Sunday, there won’t be any fanfare, but the spirit of the story lives on in the city that served as the model for River City, Iowa.

“We resist the idea that some of the river cities, Dubuque and Burlington, are calling themselves River Cities, because that’s not their name,” said Art Fischbeck, 82, a history buff.

“This is River City,” says Mark Lykke, owner of River City Auto Supply, one of more than a dozen Mason City businesses that use River City in their names.

A “Music Man” streetscape opened downtown last year. Modeled after the 1962 movie, it includes a “Pleez-All” pool hall -- the place swindling salesman Harold Hill claimed was the source of trouble in River City -- and a replica of Mrs. Paroo’s porch, where Hill arranged a lovers’ rendezvous with Marian the librarian, to take place at a footbridge (one about a block away has been named for Willson).

There’s also a music museum, recording studio and practice rooms.

“Music has been as much a part of this community as athletics,” said Carl Miller, a streetscape organizer.

The streetscape was built next to Willson’s boyhood home. Willson wrote several musicals, including “The Unsinkable Molly Brown,” but his best-known -- and the one perhaps nearest to his heart -- was “The Music Man,” which debuted on Broadway in 1957 and was a smash hit, starring Robert Preston.

Willson’s gravestone in Mason City reads: “Meredith Willson, 1902-1984. The Music Man.”