The Iberia Junior Academy was founded by two remarkable people, Professor G. Byron Smith and his wife Mabel White Smith. In 1910, there were three buildings including the girl's dormitory, girl's cottage, and the academic building.
The first Normal school's main building burned in October of 1917. The old building consisted of five recitation rooms, a chapel, library, and both chemical and biological laboratories. They had a herbarium with over 500 plants, ocean specimens, 300 microscopic slides and the library had 6,000 volumes with an additional 1,000 added in 1912, Many of these items were lost in the 1917 fire.
On May 28, 1919, ground was broken for a new academic building which is the present structure on the site today. With today's public school system, the Iberia Academy stands as a silent representative to early schooling in the area.
Iberia once had a canning factory on the corner of Main and Thompson Street. In January of 1908, the Iberia Mill and Electric Light Company was organized. Only two years earlier, July 11, 1906, a two thirds majority passed a vote on a telephone franchised for Iberia. Iberia's first bank is still her only bank, the Bank of Iberia. It was organized on October 20th, 1899. The Iberia jail dates back almost 75 years and stands as one of Iberia's historic landmarks. Iberia had a bandstand in the 1890's located over an old well in the middle of Lombar and Main Streets.
There are two stories of Iberia's nickname of "Rocktown." One story is that during the Civil War there was a skirmish that occurred outside the Iberia's fort and when the two sides opposing each other ran out of ammunition, their tempers continued to flare and in anger they continued their fight by throwing rocks at each other.
Judge Jenkins in his "History of Miller County," relates a different version. A young black republican (a title attached to anyone who had voted for Abraham Lincoln) came into town walking beside his ox-cart loaded with grist for the local mill. His ox-cart was equipped with rocks he had placed between the barrels of meal and when one of the young ruffians of Iberia decided to scare him with his gun, the young republican quickly knocked him to the ground with a very powerful, accurate throw. Others joined in the fight, but the young man with his rock equipped ox-cart stood off the attack. He left town proudly and apparently none the worse for his adventure.