Christian School. Mason City is also the home of the Worldwide College of Auctioning founded in 1933 by the well-known auctioneer Col. Joe Reisch and subsequently owned/operated for many years by Col. Gordon E. Taylor. Postsecondary education Mason City is home to several institutions of higher education, including the North Iowa Area Community College (formerly Mason City Junior College), a branch of Buena Vista University which is located on the NIACC campus, and Purdue University Global formerly known as Kaplan University. Hamilton College, a business school, has operated in the city since 1900. Media Movies and documentaries The town is featured prominently in the first episode of the 12-part documentary film How Democracy Works Now. In the 1989 movie UHF the character Stanley Spadowski (played by Michael Richards) is seen wearing a Mason City t-shirt. Mason City served as the inspiration for the fictional town of River City, Iowa, in The Music Man, a musical that was composed and written by Mason City native son Meredith Willson (although the 1962 film, which had its world premiere in Mason City, was shot entirely at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California). Television Radio Newspapers Globe Gazette – daily newspaper Infrastructure Surface transportation The majority of Mason City is served by Iowa Highway 122 and U.S. Route 65. U.S. Route 18 now bypasses the city to the south. Interstate 35 (eight miles to the west) serves the city as well. Rail service Mason City is home to the Iowa Traction Railway. The IATR is one of the last surviving electric interurban railroads in the U. S., and the only one that still uses electric locomotives to haul freight in regular service. Mason City also is served by the Canadian Pacific Railway and Union Pacific Railroad. The Canadian Pacific track is part of its US subsidiary the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad ( former I&M Rail Link and Milwaukee Road trackage. The Union Pacific's track was inherited from the Chicago and North Western Transportation Company when it bought it in the 1990s. Much of the trackage is composed of the old Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railroad's (aka Rock Island Railroad ) While the Iowa Northern Railway does not operate in the city of Mason City, it does serve other communities in the Mason City micropolitan statistical area. The Iowa Northern has facilities in Manly, Iowa. Airports The city also hosts Mason City Municipal