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History · Aurelia

Aurelia’s post office opened in 1870, and 31% of its homes were built before 1940

Below: maps from 1969 on and the census since 1880.

1870first post office
0on the National Register
31%homes built before 1940
1famous people
Add an old photoShare a memory
Quick answers

How Aurelia began

When was Aurelia founded?

1870

The Aurelia post office opened in 1870, the earliest record of the town by name.

First census: 225 in 18802020 census: 968156 years
Founding year: the first Aurelia post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Aurelia’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Aurelia are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.Old housesHalf of Aurelia’s homes were built before 1958.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Aurelia’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Aurelia’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
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The story

How Aurelia came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Aurelia.

Read it all →

Aurelia was founded in 1873 as a stop along the Illinois Central Railroad branch connecting Sioux City, Iowa, to Chicago, Illinois. This was the only railroad connecting the two Midwestern hubs and so gave birth to many railroad towns. Aurelia was named for the youngest daughter of the owner of the railroad, John Insley Blair, who died in 1866. The location of Aurelia was only set after a last minute change in the railroad design that saw it redirect to go through LeMars and Cherokee, rather than connect Sioux City directly to Storm Lake. Almost 70% of Aurelia's population is people over age 50. Its newspaper is the Aurelia Star which was founded in March 1881 as the Aurelia Sentinel.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

From the old history books

What they wrote about Aurelia in 1889

Passages that mention Aurelia, cut from the printed page as they were published.

Then he was placed at Aurelia, and for two years had charge of the church work at Aurelia, Sloan, Onawa, Sioux Rapids, and a country church in Pocahontas County. lie soon succeeded in effecting organization at Aurelia. In 1879 Duncombe and Badger, in Webster County, were given him instead of Sloan …
Biographical history of Cherokoe County, Iowa1889 · page 417Read the page →
Read the text

Then he was placed at Aurelia, and for two years had charge of the church work at Aurelia, Sloan, Onawa, Sioux Rapids, and a country church in Pocahontas County. lie soon succeeded in effecting organization at Aurelia. In 1879 Duncombe and Badger, in Webster County, were given him instead of Sloan and Onawa, which were organized into

Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
(proper) to re-locate the seat of justice; one of these attempts was in June, 1879, when the eastern portion of the county tried to remove it to the little village of Aurelia, which thing was of course foolish, from the fact that that town is in the extreme eastern portion of the county. However, t…
Biographical history of Cherokoe County, Iowa1889 · page 253Read the page →
Read the text

(proper) to re-locate the seat of justice; one of these attempts was in June, 1879, when the eastern portion of the county tried to remove it to the little village of Aurelia, which thing was of course foolish, from the fact that that town is in the extreme eastern portion of the county. However, the number of signatures to the remonstrance outnumbered the

Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.

Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.

Timeline

Aurelia, 1870 to 1969

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 19th century
  2. 1870Post officeThe Aurelia post office opens
  3. 1891Born herePaddy Siglin is born here
  4. 20th century
  5. 1969On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
By decade

Aurelia, decade by decade

Today2 recent
AureliaIowaPopPlot2021AureliaIowaPopPlotIAMap-doton-Aurelia2004IAMap-doton-Aurelia
On the map

Aurelia on the map, 1969 to 1985

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Aurelia. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

Aurelia on the 1969 USGS mapAurelia on the 1985 USGS map1969Aurelia sheet · 1:24,000

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Aurelia.

People over time

Aurelia, census by census

02004006008001,0001,20018801900192019401960198020002020Peak: 1,143

Between 225 and 1,143 people in every census since 1880.

15 censuses, 1880–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Aurelia’s Wikipedia page.

Places that used to be

Old corners

Aurelia’s post office has been open since 1870.

Hamlets and corners on the map
Southern Acres Mobile Estates

US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).

Questions about Aurelia’s history

What year was Aurelia founded?

The Aurelia post office opened in 1870, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
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Sources

Where this page comes from

Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →

From Wikimedia Commons (2), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.