[4] The Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern Railway built a 66 miles (106 km) branch from Iowa City to What Cheer via Riverside in 1879.

[6] According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 1.72 square miles (4.45 km2), all of it land.

In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Kirk himself tells Dr. Taylor he is from Iowa.

In March 1985, when the city was looking for a theme for its annual town festival, Steve Miller, a member of the Riverside City Council who had read Roddenberry's book, suggested to the council that Riverside should proclaim itself to be the future birthplace of Kirk.

Additionally, at least two Star Trek novels had material based in the real city of Riverside.

Best Destiny, an immediate sequel to the events shown in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, depicted Kirk's childhood in Riverside.

The younger Kirk was also depicted, walking around the farmhouse owned by his family in Riverside.

Nearby are the (fictional) Riverside Quarry, where young Jim Kirk destroys a 20th-century Chevy Corvette in an act of vandalism, and the Riverside Shipyards, identified by name by Captain Christopher Pike as the construction site of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), and an embarkation point for Starfleet Academy recruits, including an older Jim Kirk.

During a September 28, 2004, town meeting, the city learned that its residents had become the unwitting stars of a Spike TV reality show called Invasion Iowa inspired by the Kirk connection.

Over a week earlier, actor William Shatner had arrived in the city under the guise of filming a science fiction movie called Invasion Iowa.

The Voyage Home Riverside History Center is also colloquially referred to as the "Star Trek Museum".

The museum features a veterans display and a room dedicated to the history of Riverside.

[15] The museum also has displays featuring Leonard Nimoy, the various Star Trek franchise television shows, NASA, William Shatner's visit to Riverside,[16] and others.

Walter Koenig, who played Pavel Chekov in the original series, visited the Museum when it first opened on June 27, 2008, where he participated in the ribbon cutting ceremony.