Surfs Up? You Can Go on An Island Getaway Without Leaving Iowa Iowa! What, we have islands. Well, an island anyway. If you're not already aware, Iowa does in fact have an actual island city: Sabula. Sabula is an island, but it didn't use to be Sabula was not an actual island until the lock and dam system was constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers on the upper Mississippi in 1939, according to a story from the Island City Harbor. The construction of Lock and Dam Number 13 between Clinton, Iowa, and Fulton, Illinois permanently flooded. That essentially created what is now the small island town of Sabula.