Carver-Hawkeye Arena donor was Illinois grad

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By Steve Batterson | Wednesday, January 09, 2008 |

Carver-Hawkeye Arena at the University of Iowa is named after a Quad-City area industrialist who graduated with a degree in engineering from the University of Illinois.

Roy J. Carver donated $9.2 million during his lifetime to Iowa, including $2 million to help fund construction of the arena that bears his name.

Carver’s passion was not basketball. It was wrestling, a sport he competed in at the collegiate level, and his donation was intended as much as anything to help provide new facilities for an Iowa wrestling program that was growing at the time.

He did not live to see the facility completed. Carver died in 1981 at the age of 73, less two years before the facility hosted its first event.

Born in 1908, Carver took a job as an inspector for the state of Illinois after earning his college degree in 1934. Four years later, he founded Carver Pump Co., which was located in Matherville, Ill.

A large government contract he received during World War II forced Carver to seek additional space and the company relocated to the site of a former sauerkraut factory in Muscatine, Iowa.

In 1954, he diversified his holdings with a company that eventually became Bandag, Inc., which went global with its revolutionary process for re-treading tires. Carver eventually bought world rights to market the product.

While he maintained residences around the globe, Carver generously donated to projects throughout the region.

He gave $1.5 million toward to the cost of the Carver PE Center at Augustana College, $4.6 million toward construction of a new library at Augustana, $750,000 toward construction of the UNI-Dome at the University of Northern Iowa and $250,000 to fund improvements at the Davenport Museum of Art, a predecessor of today’s Figge Art Museum. Carver also financed construction of a swimming pool at Muscatine High School.

Carver’s contributions to Iowa included gifts to the College of Medicine, the Museum of Art, Hancher Auditorium and covering the cost of an artificial turf at Kinnick Stadium.

He reportedly had an estimated wealth of $154 million at the time of his death, one quarter of which was devoted to a charitable trust that continues to donate to worthy causes.

Steve Batterson can be contacted at (563) 383-2290 or sbatterson@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.