When the Chicago, Milwaukee, and Saint Paul railways made the decision to come to the junction of the Calamus and Indian Creek valleys, the people began moving to the railroad. J. W. Maxwell and F. M. Baldwin had purchased some land near the railroad, and gave the land upon which the first town of Maxwell was platted. The town was after the donor and because he was the first to move there. Soon, large buildings were moved from Iowa Center and Peoria City to what is now the site of the town of Maxwell. The first building was the railroad depot. Several new buildings were constructed, the largest of which was occupied by the Mercantile firm of Maxwell and Baldwin and is now occupied by Logsdon's Grocery Store.
were Iowa Center and Cambridge, and east of the southern part of Story County was Edenville. The road hit Edenville and called it Rhodes. It also hit Cambridge, but it missed Iowa Center, and its construction was followed by the location of Collins, Maxwell and Huxley and also Elwell, which never got so good a start as the other towns named. While the railroad management did not ask for subsidies, it was interested in town 418
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Maxwell shares with Story City the distinction of having one of the two third class postoffices in the county. The postoffices at Ames and Nevada being second class and the four being all there are of presidential rank.
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Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Maxwell, 1882 to 1901
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 the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, 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.
