Dike City Map Poster

About Dike

Dike was founded in 1882 by a group of businessmen from Cedar Falls, Iowa. The town was named after the nearby Rock River Dike. The city is located on the Rock River, which flows through southern Minnesota and northern Iowa before emptying into the Mississippi River at Rock Island, Illinois. The river has been dammed to form Lake McBride for flood control purposes; it also forms part of an extensive system of lakes that includes Clear Lake and Rathbun Lake (the latter formed by a second dam). These three lakes are connected via channels dug between them to allow boating traffic throughout this chain of lakes; they are popular with recreational boaters during summer months. A fourth lake—Lake Rathbun—is located just north-northwest of Dike along U.