Until the 2008 flood, the concentration of local and county government on the island served to unify the city on both sides.

(May had been granted the title for some service to the governor of New York and he always used it thereafter; interestingly, though, when called up to actually fight during the Civil War, he paid another man to serve in his stead).

His original dream was to start a town called May Island (about the same time he started another town, called Mayfield, south of Cedar Rapids), but that plan quickly proved unworkable due to the island's tendency to flood and due to its inaccessibility—there were still no bridges across the Cedar.

To this end, he persuaded the Iowa State Legislature to rename Kingston "West Cedar Rapids," thereby planting the idea that the two towns were really just two halves of a greater whole.

May then left Cedar Rapids to pursue ventures elsewhere, but returned to check on his investment periodically.

Then, as now, there were ill feelings between the east- and west-siders in Cedar Rapids, and the city's leaders hoped that placing the seat of government in the "neutral territory" of May's Island would help ease the tensions.