Small Town Solutions: Staying Vital in Rural Iowa

Businesses band together for southern Iowa’s Humeston

By |

HUMESTON, Iowa – Terrie and Tom Woods enjoy road trips to small Midwest towns and their locally owned stores, which explains why the retired Sherwood, Arkansas, couple ended up in Humeston in mid-May. “We just like small towns,” Terrie Woods said about being eight-and-a-half hours away from home and searching through Civil War-themed fabric at Snips of Thread Quilt Shop and The Yarn Pantry. With support from the Solutions Journalism Network

A group of downtown shop owners in this southern Iowa town of 465 people love stories like  that. They see it as a sign that their efforts are working when collaborating to make Humeston a vibrant place, even though the town lost population in the 2020 census from the 494 counted in the 2010 census. 

“Our businesses work well together to promote Humeston,” Leigh Ann Coffey, a local real estate agent, said. “We’re not in competition with each other.”

Their pitch: good products, good service and the charm of small-town shops.

Small Town Solutions: Staying Vital in Rural Iowa

Denver, Iowa, aiming for new heights after pandemic

By |

DENVER, Iowa – The Bremer County community of Denver, which has dubbed itself “The Mile Wide City,” in contrast to its altitudinally enhanced Colorado counterpart, had quite a mountain to climb out of the pandemic, business, school and community leaders said. But it climbed out. “Denver was fortunate,” said Gene Leonhart, a former longtime mayor, who still serves on the city Planning and Zoning Commission. With support from the Solutions Journalism Network

Leonhart and others who were interviewed for the IowaWatch project, “Small Town Solutions,” said the city had a lot going for it headed into the pandemic. IowaWatch spent four months checking into towns that buck the declining trend of other rural areas and show signs of a growing population, a strong sense of community, activities and schools. 

Voters in the Denver Community School District, on the cusp of that pandemic, approved a bond referendum for a new high school and middle school building — just a few years after building a new community recreation, arts and events center, called the Cyclone Center, so named after the school teams’ mascot.

Small Town Solutions: Staying Vital in Rural Iowa

Political divisions mingle with Bloomfield’s push for vitality

By |

BLOOMFIELD, Iowa – A lot of people were paying attention to Bloomfield, in southern Iowa, a few years ago. “Bloomfield sets sustainable design example for Iowa,” a Jan. 1, 2016, Des Moines Register headline read above a story about a new solar power project to supplement the power Bloomfield’s municipal utility buys from Southern Iowa Electric. 

With support from the Solutions Journalism Network

“Governor Reynolds, Lt. Governor Gregg Celebrate Bloomfield’s New Solar Project,” the Iowa Department of Economic Development and Gov. Kim Reynolds’ office titled an Aug. 1, 2018, news release. “Bloomfield has demonstrated exactly the type of innovative and forward thinking we hoped to foster when we released the Iowa Energy Plan in December 2016,” Reynolds said in that release.

Small Town Solutions: Staying Vital in Rural Iowa

Coalville, Iowa, fine with growth without city government

By |

COALVILLE, Iowa – Ask people who live in Coalville if they see a need to incorporate this town of 651 residents southeast of Fort Dodge. They’ll say no. With support from the Solutions Journalism Network

Doing so would mean setting up city government with, at minimum, a city council. “We have all the services and amenities that we want,” Webster County Supervisor Chairman Mark Campbell, who lives between Coalville and Otho, said. “And, we can easily run in (to Fort Dodge) and, yet, get to go home and relax with a country setting.”

The lack of city government has not lessened interest in living in Coalville.

Small Town Solutions: Staying Vital in Rural Iowa

La Porte City ‘rumbles’ through pandemic

By |

LA PORTE CITY, Iowa – This town emerged from the pandemic “ready to rumble” – literally. The city of La Porte City completed a $3 million “streetscape” renovation of Main Street downtown while many businesses were shut down in 2020. It included a restoration of the raised-brick pavement in the street that autos and carriages rode over for generations. With support from the Solutions Journalism Network

“People wanted the bricks back because they like that rumble,” Mayor Dave Neil, a former Iowa state labor commissioner and member of the Iowa Board of Regents, said. But there have also been losses due to the coronavirus.

rural issues

How a handful of Iowa towns thrive, rise above rural decline

By |

A handful of small Iowa towns with populations of less than 5,000 and not part of a larger metro area, bucked the trend and grew their populations in the 2020 census data just released. Growing small towns have one or more factors working in their favor, a summer-long IowaWatch investigation revealed for this special report.

rural issues

Tips for vitalizing small town Iowa

By |

We asked leaders in several rural Iowa towns for ways small Iowa towns could be vital. Jobs are a given, although those interviewed said having jobs, alone, does not guarantee vitality if other dynamics are not present in town.