The Eldon post office opened in 1871, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Williamsburgh (1868), opened inside today’s city and later closed.
2020 census: 783155 years
Founding year: the first Eldon post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).
What stands out about Eldon’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Eldon yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Eldon is a city in Wapello County, Iowa, United States. The population was 783 at the time of the 2020 census. It is the home of the small Carpenter Gothic style house that served as the backdrop for Grant Wood's 1930 painting, American Gothic. Eldon got its start in the year 1870, following construction of the Keokuk and Des Moines Railway through the territory. It was incorporated in 1872. Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold, who was born in nearby Ottumwa, operated Roseanne and Tom's Big Food Diner in Eldon from 1993 to 1995. Eldon is also the home of the Wapello County Fair which began in 1868.
Its first post office opened in 1871. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 927 to 783 (-16%).
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
On the National Register
4 historic places in Eldon
The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.
National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.
From the old history books
What they wrote about Eldon, 1878–1914
Passages that mention Eldon, cut from the printed page as they were published.
The history of Wapello County, Iowa, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, &c., a biographical directory of citizens, war record of its volunteers in the late rebellion, general and local statistics ... history of the Northwest, history o1878 · page 527Read the page →
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The town of Eldon is surveyed upon the bank of the Des Moines River, on Section 27, Town 71 north. Range 12 west, being in the civil township of Washington. The history of this section is an exceedingly interesting one.
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History of Wapello County, Iowa1914 · page 301Read the page →
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In earlier days he was one of the promoters and manager of the St. Louis, Iowa & Northern Railroad Company, the land for which VN-as surveyed from Eldon south to Union, Missouri, and which would have been a success if it had not been defeated bv the powerful influence of the Wabash and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railroads, whose lines the new road had to cross.
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History of Wapello County, Iowa1901 · page 140Read the page →
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The Catholic, Methodist Episcopal, Congregational and Baptist churches are well represented in Eldon. Eldon is justly proud of its public schools. The postoffice was established at EH don in 1870. E. T. Cummins was the first postmaster.
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The history of Wapello County, Iowa, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, &c., a biographical directory of citizens, war record of its volunteers in the late rebellion, general and local statistics ... history of the Northwest, history o1878 · page 528Read the page →
Read the text
The town of Eldon has many peculiar advantages. It is located in a rich township, well wooded, well watered, and underlaid by rich coal deposits. The Des Moines River, has, while running the distance of the town, a fall of several feet. Manufacturing might be carried on with profit to those who invested their capital in such enterprises.
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
Eldon, 1868 to 1911
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
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 (4), Wikidata (2), the National Register of Historic Places (4), 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.
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