Founding year: the first Kalona post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Kalona’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Kalona is more historic than 34% of U.S. towns, #110 of 140 in Iowa. Its share of homes from before 1940 holds the grade up; its National Register listings pull it down.
C
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Kalona’s overall grade.
Iowa towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical Iowa town has 9.1 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Kalona’s 0.0 sits below most of its state (17% of Iowa towns have fewer) while its 0 listings outnumber those of 23% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from D to B−. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±5.4 points). The founding year is the first post office, not a stated founding date.
Founding year: the first post office (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
What stands out about Kalona’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Amish settlement in what is now the Kalona area began in the 1840s, placing the Amish among the first European settlers in the area. The split between Old Order Amish and Amish Mennonites occurred in the 1860s in most places, but it was not until the 1880s that the formal split occurred in Iowa, even though a process of sorting out between conservatives and change-minded Amish had begun a decade earlier or so in Iowa. Most Amish Mennonites later assimilated and lost their Amish identity. The Beachy Amish broke away from the Old Orders in the 1920s.
The Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern Railway built a 66-mile branch from Iowa City to What Cheer via Kalona in 1879.
Passages that mention Kalona, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Washington County, Iowa from the first white settlements to 1908. Also biographical sketches of some prominent citizens of the county1909 · page 151Read the page →
Read the text
Kalona stands on land owned by John G. Myers, and was laid out August 6, 1879. Nine days later S. E. Parker had up a stone building. There was a world of strife between Richmond and Kalona to secure the Muscatine Western railway. Kalona won, and the road ran through it in 1879.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
History of Washington County, Iowa from the first white settlements to 1908. Also biographical sketches of some prominent citizens of the county1909 · page 152Read the page →
Read the text
Kalona is a lively stock shipping point, crowding West Chester closely. The country all around it is unsurpassed. In the season farmers gather in to the enormous barn and buy and sell stock. Market day is as lively as any thing in that line in a big city in Ireland. The town is incorporated, and in every respect it is up to date. A big fire, that at the time seemed calamity pure and simple, turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It is now well built, beautifully built, and an enormous volume of business is done there.
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.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Kalona. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
1969Kalona 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 Kalona.
People over time
Kalona, census by census
Grew from 211 people in 1890 to 2,630 in 2020, more than tenfold.
14 censuses, 1890–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Kalona’s Wikipedia page.
Places that used to be
Old corners, places now gone and burying grounds
Kalona’s post office has been open since 1879.
Hamlets and corners on the map
Mayflower Mobile Home ParkMeadow Brook Mobile Home Park
Gone or out of use
KalonalocaleSummit Schoolschool
1cemetery inside Kalona
Sharon Hill
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Questions about Kalona’s history
What year was Kalona founded?
The Kalona post office opened in 1879, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Kalona rank for history?
Kalona is more historic than 34% of U.S. towns, #110 of 140 in Iowa. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
How old are the homes in Kalona?
17% of Kalona’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±5.4 points), against a typical 22% for an Iowa town; the median home was built in 1979.
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).
From Wikimedia Commons (10), Wikipedia, 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.
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