Iowa towns

An EF-3 tornado destroyed homes, businesses and lives in Minden on April 26, 2024. The traumatic experience shifted the perspective of the community's long-time mayor.

The Kalona Historical Village is continuously expanding its exhibits, including transporting a barn from 20 miles away and acquiring an out-of-state box car to convert into a museum.

Saturday is the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Since then, nearly 500,000 Ukrainian refugees have come to the U.S., and one woman has helped bring dozens of them to a northwest Iowa county.

The largest pencil collection in the world belongs to a man in Iowa. Aaron Bartholmey of Colfax recently learned his collection of 69,255 pencils set a Guinness World Record.

The western Iowa city will kick off the annual bike ride across the state this weekend. Its local businesses hope to profit off the thousands of visitors.

Thousands of cyclists will pass through Iowa’s small towns on the 49th annual RAGBRAI next week. Some of those towns are using it as an opportunity to change their communities for the better.

A lack of child care options is stunting the growth of some rural towns. In order to stay alive, the town of Marcus in northwest Iowa is addressing that need.

COVID-19 and its impact on meatpacking workers, the future of mask mandates in schools and the campaign trails emerging for 2022 are all stories that IPR will continue to follow into the new year.

If we believe that a strong press is key to a thriving democracy, what does the shuttering of local newspapers and shrinking of staff necessitate from Iowans looking to stay informed?

40 percent of Iowans live outside a metro area. For these small towns, what are they doing to survive and thrive amid trends of population loss?