Why did Iowa's growth stalled?
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  Why did Iowa's growth stalled?
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iceman
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« on: February 09, 2021, 06:26:30 AM »

Back in the 1890s and 1900s, Iowa was the 10th most populous state (It had the same population as Indiana and Michigan at that point!). It had more people than Wisconsin or Minnesota. Thereafter, it's growth seemingly was put to a halt and it's population was stable ranging around 2.5-3.1 million from 1940s to present.
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Brittain33
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« Reply #1 on: February 09, 2021, 07:02:18 AM »
« Edited: February 09, 2021, 07:10:18 AM by Brittain33 »

I just looked at trends in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and I think the answer is that Iowa never developed any large cities much over 200,000, so when rural areas declined, there was no Omaha, Wichita, or Kansas City to balance them out with large, growing suburbs. This perhaps raises the question why Des Moines and the small cities in the east never got very big, and I can’t answer that.

Rural decline did send large numbers of people from Iowa to Southern California the same way all of the Plains states lost small farms.
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Alcibiades
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« Reply #2 on: February 09, 2021, 07:14:03 AM »
« Edited: February 09, 2021, 09:02:12 AM by Alcibiades »

Basically what Britain33 said: apart from the general stall in population growth in rural and Midwestern areas, Iowa experienced a lot of emigration, contributing to much of the rapid population growth in Southern California; Long Beach was known as ‘Iowa by the Sea’ and a massive Iowa Day celebration was held annually in Griffith Park.

I wonder if part of the reason why Iowa became surprisingly Democratic considering its demographics at the end of the 20th Century and beginning of the 21st is because lots of the right-wingers had left for SoCal in a self-selected manner.
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Nyvin
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« Reply #3 on: February 09, 2021, 09:07:18 AM »

They stuck with farming, there was no large scale manufacturing base in Iowa.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #4 on: February 09, 2021, 11:55:40 AM »

Back in the 1890s and 1900s, Iowa was the 10th most populous state (It had the same population as Indiana and Michigan at that point!). It had more people than Wisconsin or Minnesota. Thereafter, it's growth seemingly was put to a halt and it's population was stable ranging around 2.5-3.1 million from 1940s to present.
There used to be a belief that the rain would follow the plow. Farmers would settle an area, and the plowed earth would attract rain. This doesn't work in western Iowa. But anyhow by around 1900, Iowa had filled up. It takes a certain amount of acreage to farm. This increases as you move beyond subsistence. You might be able to grow enough food to feed your family, but not pay for a tractor, or truck, or television, or materials for your house and barn, nor enough left over to support a school for your children, or roads to get your crops to market.

Any children beyond two, are going to have to homestead in Nebraska or the Dakotas. Being flatter and prairie lands, Iowa did not have the hydro-power for mills, and Ohio had a fifty-year head start. Iowa may have been handicapped by being developed concurrently with rail. There was less need for towns - loading docks at the railroad station were sufficient for supplies. So there were less opportunity for tinkerers who might develop small factories that would grow into large factories that could supply jobs for masses of workers.

Minnesota and Wisconsin are less well suited for agriculture than Iowa. Further north, they have shorter growing seasons, and in areas with glacial till they are less suitable for farming. Forested areas require a lot of work before they can be farmed.
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Idaho Conservative
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« Reply #5 on: February 10, 2021, 02:09:35 PM »

They stuck with farming, there was no large scale manufacturing base in Iowa.
Their economy is only 3.5% agriculture (and fishing, hunting, and forestry).  22.9% manufacturing. 
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Nyvin
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« Reply #6 on: February 10, 2021, 04:12:04 PM »

They stuck with farming, there was no large scale manufacturing base in Iowa.
Their economy is only 3.5% agriculture (and fishing, hunting, and forestry).  22.9% manufacturing. 

We're talking about 100 years or so ago here.
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Torie
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« Reply #7 on: February 10, 2021, 08:29:36 PM »
« Edited: February 10, 2021, 08:33:59 PM by Torie »

Aside from remaining dependent on agriculture and agriculturally related manufacturing, and outside of Cedar Rapids, on a much smaller scale, lacked promoters that made Dallas what it was when it was no reason to be there based on topography and rivers and harbors and so forth, one factor was that farms got bigger and bigger due to economies of scale. Another factor was that farming was most profitable around 1900 per acre. My great grandfather bought 10 arable acres in the 1870's, for $500 an acre, today in inflation adjusted dollars maybe 12K per acre. Today it is worth but maybe 6K per acre, propped up by subsidies. The dirt back then was as if it were gold. Today, it is on "welfare."

Ultimately with his profits and his Civil War pension coming in, the farm grew to 200 acres or arable land, plus 200 acres of upland  forest and pasture land just south of Winterset. That was enough of a profit generator to be able to give his six children who survived to adulthood (4 children did not survive to adulthood),   either a farm or a college education, their choice. My grandmother was one of the two of six who chose a college education, where she met my grandfather. The other of the six who chose  college became a lawyer. About 10 years ago I sold off the arable land (my grandmother bought her siblings out on her mother's death). The clan, the five of us,  still holds the balance. I hope next summer if still alive to wander the upland hills and forest and fields one more time. It has personal echoes of history, up close and personal, some of the stories such as George Washington Carver one that I have shared here, revived once more in my mind. Someday, it will be subdivided, but not while I remain on this mortal coil.

The point is this was all possible with one man, a plow and a horse. Overhead was low, the profits large.

Today, Madison County Iowa was where my great grandparents farmed, today has but about 400 operating farms. The rest (total population 15,000) service those farmers or commute to Des Moines. And finally an astronomically higher percentage of the nation's population make their living off something that is not related to agriculture.

In the 1930's, they used to have Iowa picnics in Long Beach, CA that would attract 30,000 people to chat about their Iowa experiences, and catch up. The emigration out of Iowa has been going on for a long time, with not much immigration. It has no glamour, and the money is elsewhere. But it has value to me in those special fields, and memories.
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RINO Tom
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« Reply #8 on: February 10, 2021, 09:10:09 PM »

I just looked at trends in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and I think the answer is that Iowa never developed any large cities much over 200,000, so when rural areas declined, there was no Omaha, Wichita, or Kansas City to balance them out with large, growing suburbs. This perhaps raises the question why Des Moines and the small cities in the east never got very big, and I can’t answer that.

Rural decline did send large numbers of people from Iowa to Southern California the same way all of the Plains states lost small farms.

Just FTR, Des Moines is growing quickly.

2000: 481,394
2010: 569,633 (+18.3%)
2019: 699,292 (+22.8%)

For comparison, Omaha is 975,454 (with ~122k on the Iowa side) and Wichita is only 644,888.  There was an article in 2018 saying that Des Moines is actually the fastest growing metro area in the Midwest, though I am not sure if that is still the case.  From 2010 to 2020, only Minnesota (+6.7%) and Indiana (+ 4.2%) grew faster than Iowa (+3.8%) in the Midwest, too, especially compared to states like Illinois (-1.9%) or Michigan (+ .8%).
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Brittain33
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« Reply #9 on: February 11, 2021, 07:53:36 AM »

I just looked at trends in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and I think the answer is that Iowa never developed any large cities much over 200,000, so when rural areas declined, there was no Omaha, Wichita, or Kansas City to balance them out with large, growing suburbs. This perhaps raises the question why Des Moines and the small cities in the east never got very big, and I can’t answer that.

Rural decline did send large numbers of people from Iowa to Southern California the same way all of the Plains states lost small farms.

Just FTR, Des Moines is growing quickly.

2000: 481,394
2010: 569,633 (+18.3%)
2019: 699,292 (+22.8%)

For comparison, Omaha is 975,454 (with ~122k on the Iowa side) and Wichita is only 644,888.  There was an article in 2018 saying that Des Moines is actually the fastest growing metro area in the Midwest, though I am not sure if that is still the case.  From 2010 to 2020, only Minnesota (+6.7%) and Indiana (+ 4.2%) grew faster than Iowa (+3.8%) in the Midwest, too, especially compared to states like Illinois (-1.9%) or Michigan (+ .8%).

That’s interesting. From this chart, it looks like the metro area grew slowly from 1950 to 1990, barely increasing 25,000 a year, and then starting in 1990 growth accelerated.

https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/22973/des-moines/population

Kansas City metro grew much faster from 1950 to 1970, paused, and then resumed fast growth. Omaha metro also had fast growth in the Baby Boom era and after a pause, rapid growth.

https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/23028/kansas-city/population
https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/23090/omaha/population

Wichita was much flatter in the postwar period. In retrospect, not much of a contrast with Des Moines.

https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/23179/wichita/population

So perhaps the next question is why other metros boomed after WW2 while Des Moines, and with it Iowa, lagged... and what changed 30 years ago to shift Des Moines onto a growth track.


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Orser67
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« Reply #10 on: February 11, 2021, 09:04:08 AM »

I just wanna say, there are a lot of really good posts in this thread
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muon2
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« Reply #11 on: February 11, 2021, 09:55:20 AM »

I have fairly deep roots in IA - my father's family is from the Cedar Rapids area and I spent two years of my youth living in Des Moines. The stalled growth doesn't seem to be related to industry. IA has maintained significant facilities in food production and distribution, heavy manufacturing (John Deere makes its tractors in Waterloo/Cedar Falls), and even aerospace (Collins, formerly Rockwell, employs almost 10 K in Cedar Rapids). Newton IA lost the Maytag plant, but now hosts wind turbine manufacturing that employs about as many people. Des Moines has long had a good share of insurance firms with major offices.

What I think is missing is that neither Des Moines nor Cedar Rapids became a major transportation hub for Midwestern agribusiness. Those roles fell to Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City, and Omaha. It seems that a junction between railroads and a major river or Great Lake was necessary. Davenport and the Quad Cities might have fit the bill, but historically the main rail lines crossed the Mississippi north of the Quad Cities at Clinton or to the south at Burlington. Even today the Amtrak stop for Des Moines is in Osceola, 40 miles to the south.
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Torie
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« Reply #12 on: February 11, 2021, 10:28:17 AM »
« Edited: February 11, 2021, 12:03:27 PM by Torie »

In college I took a course on urban theory or something like that. A couple of things I remember were central place theory, that used SW Iowa as a paradigmatic example. The place was mostly an arable flat plain. So where did town end up being placed and how big did they get? There were market town nodes, mostly county seats, with the county sizes actually designed so that one could get to the county seat with no longer than a three hour carriage ride of something like that. Then there was a larger urban node with more services, that was located where one could get to in a day by horse, and stay overnight. That larger node was the city of Atlantic.

Of more relevance here, a theory was advanced that when a city got up to about 400K population, that its growth that had a forward inertia to it, so that it would continue to grow, without much likelihood  of population decline. It had enough services and infrastructure to be a lower cost place for more industry and services to come in. At that time, around 1972 or so, the Des Moines urban area was about right on the cusp at 400K, and the Quad Cities a bit short at 350K. I thought to myself, well I will get to see how well that theory works out.  I now know Des Moines kept growing at a steady rate, with spurts, while the Quad Cities seem pretty stagnant at about 380,000 or so. Will the Quad Cities if and when it struggles over the 400,000 finish line start to grow more reliably. Stay tuned. I may not be around to find out perhaps, but hopefully most of you will.

I did not know the Des Moines MSA has had such robust growth lately, When we sold the ancestral farmhouse just south of Winterset about 18 months ago, I was surprised by how much it had appreciated in recent years, by about 60% or so. Now I know why, as Winterset to a substantial extent is now an exurban node to the robustly growing Des Moines area, and NE Madison County is now beginning to get suburban spillover, with a new bridge over the Raccoon River, and a Microsoft data plant being built right on the county line.

I guess you can tell I found the class interesting, no? Smiley

Below is an image of info to bring up a paper on the issue.



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RINO Tom
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« Reply #13 on: February 11, 2021, 01:39:22 PM »

I just looked at trends in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and I think the answer is that Iowa never developed any large cities much over 200,000, so when rural areas declined, there was no Omaha, Wichita, or Kansas City to balance them out with large, growing suburbs. This perhaps raises the question why Des Moines and the small cities in the east never got very big, and I can’t answer that.

Rural decline did send large numbers of people from Iowa to Southern California the same way all of the Plains states lost small farms.

Just FTR, Des Moines is growing quickly.

2000: 481,394
2010: 569,633 (+18.3%)
2019: 699,292 (+22.8%)

For comparison, Omaha is 975,454 (with ~122k on the Iowa side) and Wichita is only 644,888.  There was an article in 2018 saying that Des Moines is actually the fastest growing metro area in the Midwest, though I am not sure if that is still the case.  From 2010 to 2020, only Minnesota (+6.7%) and Indiana (+ 4.2%) grew faster than Iowa (+3.8%) in the Midwest, too, especially compared to states like Illinois (-1.9%) or Michigan (+ .8%).

That’s interesting. From this chart, it looks like the metro area grew slowly from 1950 to 1990, barely increasing 25,000 a year, and then starting in 1990 growth accelerated.

https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/22973/des-moines/population

Kansas City metro grew much faster from 1950 to 1970, paused, and then resumed fast growth. Omaha metro also had fast growth in the Baby Boom era and after a pause, rapid growth.

https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/23028/kansas-city/population
https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/23090/omaha/population

Wichita was much flatter in the postwar period. In retrospect, not much of a contrast with Des Moines.

https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/23179/wichita/population

So perhaps the next question is why other metros boomed after WW2 while Des Moines, and with it Iowa, lagged... and what changed 30 years ago to shift Des Moines onto a growth track.

I'm honestly not sure about the mid-Twentieth Century stuff, but I think part of the "disconnect" between people's analyzing of these trends is that Iowa is not as rural as many people think and it definitely doesn't embody some of the "stereotypes" of other "rural states" like Arkansas in the Deep South or West Virginia in Appalachia.  These are 2016 numbers for Iowa's population, as I haven't updated my spreadsheet since then, but I imagine the breakdown to be similar still:

Eastern Iowa: 1,322,231 (42.18%)
- 267,799 in Cedar Rapids metro (20.25% of the region)
- 172,474 in Quad Cities metro, Iowa side only (13.04% of the region)
- 170,015 in Waterloo/Cedar Falls metro (12.86% of the region)
- 168,828 in Iowa City metro (12.77% of the region)

Central Iowa: 1,241,382 (39.62%)
- 634,725 in Des Moines metro (51.11% of the region and 20.25% of the state)
- 97,090 in Ames metro (7.82% of region)

Western Iowa: 570,620 (18.20%)
- 122,703 in Omaha metro (21.50% of the region)

So, in each of those regions, the following percent of people live in what I would consider to be decidedly not rural areas:

Eastern Iowa: 58.92%
Central Iowa: 58.93%
Western Iowa: 21.50%

Obviously, counties aren't a perfect cutoff so not all of those metros are "Urban" or "Suburban," but I also left off a few places (like Dubuque) that aren't really rural at all, so I bet it balances out.  Added up, about 52% of Iowans live in what is very clearly not a rural area.  This is obviously low compared to Illinois or Minnesota, but it is still a majority, which I feel is worth noting.  Additionally, with areas like Des Moines and Iowa City/Cedar Rapids growing quite rapidly for Midwestern metros, the percent is going to keep going up.
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Torie
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« Reply #14 on: February 11, 2021, 02:22:33 PM »

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DINGO Joe
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« Reply #15 on: February 11, 2021, 09:11:56 PM »
« Edited: February 11, 2021, 09:21:33 PM by DINGO Joe »

My random 2cents from 50 years of generally sentient treks back to the ancestral lands (Fayette Co) plus Dubuque, Mt Vernon, and Ft. Dodge and in-between and beyond.

As noted, once upon a time there were many farms and many kids generated on those farms and those kids couldn't all farm and many didn't want to.  Iowa historically educated their kids and had high literacy rates and sent their kids out into the world.  Farms became fewer and bigger and there was even a move by farmer to live in "town"  tiny places but tidy with a main street and simple businesses--mechanics and mills and the taps and if big enough a grocery store.  As farms became fewer and people moved into towns most farm houses were torn down because that's valuable land they're sitting on.   The tidy towns started to house former farmers and eventually fewer people and then started looking rough around the edges and then not so tidy and the main street went vacant and then the buildings fell and/or were torn down.  Farmers that were left actually started living on farms again, though in much large complexes to hold their increasingly elaborate machinery and their houses looked fancy too.  Of course these places are few and far between the unshiny remnants of towns and gives much of rural Iowa an almost feudal look to it. 

Drugs were a problem even in rural areas

Methland

And there was a concern that all the smart people were leaving,  leaving all the dumb ones behind

Hollowing Out the Middle

On the flip side there are the cities in Iowa.  Really can't speak to the irregular growth and what caused it or to why other metros passed Iowa on by.  muon has what seems a pretty accurate rundown of the metros and who they employ, though many smaller hubs seem haven't been so lucky (Ft. Dodge, Mason City, Ottumwa, Ft. Madison, Keokuk come to mind).  Des Moines and Cedar Rapids-Ia City have been so successful that they've provided stability to small towns in their orbit (Waterloo, Dubuque, and the Quad Cities haven't) thus a Solon or Kalona look and are doing better than say an Oelwein. 

There is one industry in Iowa that should be noted because Iowa is the largest producer and most of the production facilities are in rural areas--ethanol.  The political and economic ramifications of this are substantial but not the point of this thread at the moment, but think about the electric car for a minute.

Anyway, Iowa as noted has the haves (cities--mainly metro Des Moines and Cedar Rapids-Ia City and the have not rural areas.  Once upon a time the rural areas produced waves of kids but now rural Iowa is old, very old like WV old (with the exception of food processing towns with lots of immigrants and their kids.  Conversely, city Iowa is young, quite young.  If you wanted to know the difference between IA and WV in a nutshell then you'd note that while rural IA and rural WV are old, Kanawha Co, WV, the largest in WV, is old too with 21.2% of the population 65 and older while Polk Co, IA it's only 13.5%  that's a big honking difference.  Nationally, the % of people 65+ is 16.5%  Iowa only has 7 counties below the national avg, but they are Polk, Story, Dallas, Warren, Johnson, Linn, and Woodbury (meatpacking)

Of course, there another difference between growing Iowa and declining Iowa who they vote for and we all know what that difference is.



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RINO Tom
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« Reply #16 on: February 11, 2021, 11:09:39 PM »

^ Overall, I’m sure there’s a correlation, but the fastest growing county in Iowa voted for Trump twice.

~But Trends~ incoming.
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DINGO Joe
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« Reply #17 on: February 12, 2021, 11:56:14 AM »

^ Overall, I’m sure there’s a correlation, but the fastest growing county in Iowa voted for Trump twice.

~But Trends~ incoming.

Well. it went from Romney +12 to Trump +2 so it's almost there.
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Torie
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« Reply #18 on: February 12, 2021, 01:18:19 PM »
« Edited: February 12, 2021, 01:22:03 PM by Torie »

Thanks to Dingo Joe, I just bought a used copy of Hallowing Out. So far as I know, not one of the still living descendants of my grandparents and their siblings (9 of those, so God knows how many descendants), now live in Iowa. Yes, you guessed it - most of them ended up in California.

Interestingly, I am not very well liked in some quarters in Winterset. The word is that there is this rich Hollywood gay asshole lawyer who won't sell the land. It did not help that I sold the river bottom cropland to a guy also not well liked, because he "overpays" for land, and has to boot about 20 Hispanics (oh the horror, the horror of it all) on his payroll who process the seeds in his factory from his natural plant crops that are used for plantings on land that is the land conservation program that is otherwise subject to erosion. We buy some of his seeds for those of the  upland fields that are part of that program. The hood seems a bit hostile to both brains and diversity. Sad!
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« Reply #19 on: February 19, 2021, 12:49:52 AM »

In 1840, the last Census before statehood, Iowa had 43K. By 1850 it had 192K.

During the 1850's Iowa increased by 482K, to a total of 674K, more tahn tripling in population. The largest counties were all on the Mississippi River: Dubuque, Lee, Scott, and Clayton.

Counties over 10K were everything from Winneshiek to Van Buren and counties to the east, with the exception of Buchanan, plus the three southern tiers as far west as Appanoose, Wapello, and Warren. Warren provided a connection to Polk - Des Moines became the state capital in 1853. Notably not reached by 1860 was Black Hawk (Waterloo).

By 1870, 520K had been added with the population reaching 1.194M. This was the largest numerical gain in Iowa history, despite settlement being stalled during the Civil War, the first half of the decade.

10K counties was as far west (by tier): Decatur, Lucas, Madison, Dallas, Boone, Black Hawk, Bremer, Floyd, and Winneshiek. The narrower tiers, the 2nd from the south and the most northern are somewhat disadvantaged since they might be as densely settled, but have a smaller population due to their smaller area.

Outliers include Hardin (Grundy had not reached 10K); Webster (Fort Dodge); Pottawattamie (Council Bluffs); and Fremont (extreme southwestern corner). I assume this was because it was on the Missouri River. It has never developed any cities. Shenadoah is on the eastern county line, but in Page County.

The most populous counties were Dubuque, Lee, Clinton, and Linn. Linn (Cedar Rapids) is the first interior county to make the list.

By 1880, another 424K were added and the total reached 1.624M.

The southern five tiers were complete above 10K with the exception of Guthrie, Audubon, and Monona. But the four northern tier had only advanced to Webster, Franklin, Cerro Gordo, and Mitchell. Woodbury (Sioux City) on the Missouri River also reached this threshold. A typical county once it reached 15K or so was to add a few thousands more, perhaps due to expanding families, or taking up of less arable land that been picked over.

Largest counties were Dubuque, Polk, Scott, Pottawattamie, Linn, Clinton, Lee, and Des Moines. These 8 were bunched from 33K to 43K. You have 5 Mississippi River counties, 1 Missouri River, and Linn (Cedar Rapids), and Polk (Des Moines). The latter two are of course located on the Cedar and Des Moines rivers.

By 1890, 288K had been added, fewer than the previous 3 decades, but Iowa had reached 1.912M and was 10th most populous state. All but 11 counties had reached 10K, all in the three northern tiers: 1N: Worth, Winnebago, Emmet, Dickinson, Osceola, and Lyon; 2N: Hancock, Palo Alto, Clay; and 3N: Humboldt and Pocahontas.

The largest counties were: Polk (Des Moines), Woodbury (Sioux City), Dubuque (Dubuque), Linn (Cedar Rapids), Pottawattamie (Council Bluffs), Scott (Davenport), Clinton (Clinton), Lee (Fort Madison-Keokuk), and Des Moines (Burlington). Only the first five had any sort of dynamic growth. The four lesser counties associated with river crossings had less growth, perhaps just that from natural population increase.

By 1900, 319K had been added, and Iowa reached 2.231M. All counties but Osceola, Dickinson, and Emmet had all reached 10K. These three counties, smaller than average because they are the northernmost tier adjacent to Minnesota did eventually reach 10K in 1920.

Counties with more than 35K in 1900 were:

82K Polk +26% (Des Moines)
56K Dubuque +13% (Dubuque)
55K Linn +22% (Cedar Rapids)
54K Woodbury -2% (Sioux City)
64K Pottawattamie +15% (Council Bluffs)
51K Scott +19% (Davenport)
44K Clinton +6% (Clinton)
40K Lee +5% (Fort Madison, Keokuk)
36K Des Moines +2% (Burlington)
35K Wapello +16% (Ottumwa)

Statewide growth was 17%, so only 3 urban centers were keeping pace with the state. Several of the river crossing had quite paltry growth, and they have failed to capitalize on their location. They would have had railroad jobs in switch yards, particularly if shipping was more piecemeal, or if load limits required smaller trains across the bridges. Conversion from coal to diesel, and more unit trains, would reduce the need for trainmen. Burlington would be unknown now if it had not found its way to be the 'B' in BNSF.

Omissions from a modern perspective are Black Hawk (Waterloo, a late bloomer); Johnson (Iowa City, U. of Iowa); and Story (Ames, ISU).
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« Reply #20 on: February 19, 2021, 11:36:34 AM »
« Edited: February 19, 2021, 11:42:06 AM by Torie »

My great grandparents arrived in Madison County around 1870 or so. I notice it had about 14K then, about the same population it had in 2000. It's peak population was about 18,000 in 1900, and its low was about 11,500 in 1970. In the 2020 census it will be around 16,500, still under its peak population. Winterset, the county seat, is another story. It's population in 1870 was around 1,500, or about 11% of the county's population. In 2020, it will be around 5,500 (an historic high), or about a third of the county's population.

Other than that the county is beginning to grow again a bit, unlike most smaller rural counties in Iowa, due to its proximity to Des Moines, I assume that the increase in the percentage of a county's population that is in the county seat is typical in Iowa. Heck, on the now much bigger farms than back when in Madison County, it is not all that common to see even a farm house on it. Much of the outside the county seat population is in relatively fancy homes with acreage that is for its scenic beauty and not crops. Some I know are owned by upper middle class retirees, who made their money elsewhere, and returned home, or like the ambiance of the place, which is very indeed very scenic with considerably topography (rather than a flat featureless plain), with a cute county seat. Some of these gentry, and some of the resident professionals, meet every Friday morning in the local diner on the town square to shoot the breeze. About half are liberals, and half conservatives, although this was in the pre Trump era. The educational divide and partisan preferences is I think the dominant factor these days in that hood.

My reputation in town among those who live off farming is that "gay rich Hollywood lawyer" who will never sell the land. I don't think they mean that  as a compliment.  Just a surmise on my part. Adding to my "charisma" is that I got busted for possession for pot there (that is a whole other story). A few months later, the police chief wanted to buy this little house on a bluff over the Middle River (awesome place where I would have lived myself after very substantial renovations), if I wanted to spend much time there, but alas I do not). I told him that if I sold to him, one condition would be that he was never, ever again to mess with my stash. He laughed.

Oh, one other thing. Most of the lawyers in town don't like me much either, and the feeling is mutual. I find most of them terminally obtuse and incompetent. Sad!

Even with my bum heart, I love every day of my life. There is always another adventure out there in store for me, and more stories for me to file away, and bore people with later.  Cheesy
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jimrtex
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« Reply #21 on: February 19, 2021, 08:07:06 PM »

The counties in red reached their maximum population in 1900.



Some had gradual decline, others have had greater declines over time. The main difference is whether they had a small town or not. Over time the farm population has moved into town, so now the town might have more than half the county population. Iowa developed concurrently with the railroads. The railroad made it possible for farm products to be shipped back east (i.e. Chicago) and supplies to be shipped to the farmers. This had the effect of concentrating population around train depots.

Those which reached their largest population in 1900 are in agricultural areas, particularly in southwest and northeast Iowa. Iowa generally developed east to west and south to north. The agricultural areas in the northwest were still being filled in in 1900, either with new homesteaders taking the remaining, less favorable land, or expanding families of first generation homesteaders.

In 1900, the largest cities in Iowa were:

Des Moines 62K
Dubuque 36K
Davenport 35K
Sioux City 33K
Council Bluffs 26K
Cedar Rapids 26K
Burlington 23K
Clinton 23K
Ottumwa 18K
Keokuk 14K
Muscatine 14K
Waterloo 13K
Fort Dodge 12K
Marshalltown 12K
Fort Madison 9K
Oskaloosa 9K
Boone 9K
Spencer 8K
Iowa City 8K
Creston 8K
Mason City 7K
Cedar Falls 5K
Centerville 5K
Oelwein 5K
Atlantic 5K

Place of Birth:

IA 1318K
IL 142K
de 123K
OH 88K
NY 58K
PA 54K
IN 48K
WI 46K
MO 34K
se 30K
ie 28K
no 26K
gb(en) 21K
NE 20K
dk 17K
KS 13K
MN 13K
cz(boh) 11K
MI 11K
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jimrtex
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« Reply #22 on: February 19, 2021, 08:32:02 PM »

My great grandparents arrived in Madison County around 1870 or so. I notice it had about 14K then, about the same population it had in 2000. It's peak population was about 18,000 in 1900, and its low was about 11,500 in 1970. In the 2020 census it will be around 16,500, still under its peak population. Winterset, the county seat, is another story. It's population in 1870 was around 1,500, or about 11% of the county's population. In 2020, it will be around 5,500 (an historic high), or about a third of the county's population.

Other than that the county is beginning to grow again a bit, unlike most smaller rural counties in Iowa, due to its proximity to Des Moines, I assume that the increase in the percentage of a county's population that is in the county seat is typical in Iowa. Heck, on the now much bigger farms than back when in Madison County, it is not all that common to see even a farm house on it. Much of the outside the county seat population is in relatively fancy homes with acreage that is for its scenic beauty and not crops. Some I know are owned by upper middle class retirees, who made their money elsewhere, and returned home, or like the ambiance of the place, which is very indeed very scenic with considerably topography (rather than a flat featureless plain), with a cute county seat. Some of these gentry, and some of the resident professionals, meet every Friday morning in the local diner on the town square to shoot the breeze. About half are liberals, and half conservatives, although this was in the pre Trump era. The educational divide and partisan preferences is I think the dominant factor these days in that hood.

My reputation in town among those who live off farming is that "gay rich Hollywood lawyer" who will never sell the land. I don't think they mean that  as a compliment.  Just a surmise on my part. Adding to my "charisma" is that I got busted for possession for pot there (that is a whole other story). A few months later, the police chief wanted to buy this little house on a bluff over the Middle River (awesome place where I would have lived myself after very substantial renovations), if I wanted to spend much time there, but alas I do not). I told him that if I sold to him, one condition would be that he was never, ever again to mess with my stash. He laughed.

Oh, one other thing. Most of the lawyers in town don't like me much either, and the feeling is mutual. I find most of them terminally obtuse and incompetent. Sad!

Even with my bum heart, I love every day of my life. There is always another adventure out there in store for me, and more stories for me to file away, and bore people with later.  Cheesy
Oddly, Madison, Warren, Marion dropped in population in 1890. Adair and Dallas were still filling in, so they continued to increase. The first three rebounded in 1900 to reach a peak.  Several counties around Polk have rebounded based on being close to Des Moines, this is particularly true of Dallas, but is also true of Warren, and even Jasper. If you have an interstate it is an easy commute from up to perhaps 50 miles, as long as we aren't talking white-out blizzard. Madison might reach a new all-time high in 2030, 130 years after the previous high.

Madison has greatly benefited from the way I-35 jogs around Des Moines, as it begins to angle off toward Kansas City. The old highway south from Des Moines went through Indianola, and wasn't really going anywhere (Columbia, Little Rock, Lafayette) is not going to be a major route. I-35 is right on the Madison-Warren line
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Torie
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« Reply #23 on: February 20, 2021, 09:21:41 AM »
« Edited: February 20, 2021, 10:37:54 AM by Torie »

Yes, the rather sharp population decline in percentage terms in the 1880's is puzzling. I don't know what happened and googling around has not revealed the answer. It may be that in the 1880's the farm development had been maxed out, but cheaper rail rates and high corn prices caused a temporary bubble during the 1890's that caused the temporary spike up in the census of 1900.

I know that the farm price parity point for ag subsidies was around 1900, and that by inference my great grandparents must have made good money off their farm in the 1890's, because they retired to town in 1906, having bought more upland acreage that included the historic home to which they retired, and hired others to work the land from there on out. So it must have been a very prosperous time for farming.
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RINO Tom
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« Reply #24 on: February 20, 2021, 11:01:08 AM »

^ Overall, I’m sure there’s a correlation, but the fastest growing county in Iowa voted for Trump twice.

~But Trends~ incoming.

Well. it went from Romney +12 to Trump +2 so it's almost there.

Lol, this is not like a replacement for the fact that it’s a Republican-leaning county.
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