Rural Iowa towns take steps to bring people back in
There are more than 900 towns in the state of Iowa, and many of them support a very small population.
That includes Dysart, a town of nearly 1,400 people, that sits along Highway 21 in Tama County.
Roger and Dee Roseke have lived in Dysart for seven years. They chose the town after spending decades in Davenport.
“One day, I looked at Dee and I said, ‘You know, what’s the sense of us being clear over here on the east side? We need to find someplace closer to our children,’” Roger Roseke said. “We just got tired of the big town. We wanted something small.”
The family packed up and moved to Dysart without knowing a single soul, and they haven’t left.
“They’ve got the doctor here in town. Everything you need right here in town,” Dee Roseke said. “The friendliness is what’s really kept us here. It’s a great town.”
The members of the young Gingrich family agree. They moved back to Dysart after spending five years in Minneapolis.
“Everything up there is 100 mph, super fast pace of life. We kind of felt like we wanted to get back connected with our community that we grew up in,” Taylor Gingrich said.
Gingrich has a 3-year-old daughter and a 1-year-old son. He said he wanted them to have a childhood like the one their parents had.
“We wanted to offer her the same environment we had growing up, and the only place to do that is back here in small-town Iowa,” he said.
Gingrich works from home, and his wife is a dentist in town. They said virtually everything they need is within Dysart’s 1.25 miles. But residents in many other small towns don’t feel the same way.
Only 39 towns in the state of Iowa have populations that exceed more than 10,000. As more and more people are shifting away from the small towns, they are heading toward more urban areas.
Since 2017, only nine of Iowa’s 99 counties have seen population growth, which leaves smaller downtowns nearly deserted.
“It really is becoming vacant,” Dysart Mayor Pam Thiele said. “We had the normal service-oriented businesses of a small town -- the insurance offices, real estate office. We’re a rural farming community. That still is very much our focus. That’s our root.”
The city kept that in mind as it started renovation projects in 2006, beginning with the city’s community building and then moving on to fixing sidewalks and updating buildings.
“Everything started fitting into place,” Thiele said. “We’re seeing, even now, (that) one project leads to another.”
That includes projects such as KE Black Mercantile, a shop owned by a mother and daughter, that started out selling coffee and a few kitchen items and turned into much more.
“She just said, ‘No tables, Mom. They can just drink coffee and walk around the shop,'” owner Mary Huffman said.
But the tables came and then breakfast and then lunch. The shop was once home to an insurance agency and now has historic pieces from that business spread throughout. Many other shops in Dysart took the same steps, but the city was still looking for a way to keep improving. That’s when it reached out to Main Street Iowa.
“We know that we have to appeal to all ages,” Thiele said. “We want to make sure we’re addressing all the needs.”
Main Street Iowa did a walk-through on Dysart’s main street to make recommendations. Now, Dysart is considering taking the steps to become a main street community.
The tax-funded Main Street Iowa wants to be a catalyst for small towns. It uses more than $2 million to fund grants and offer advice and other help to selected towns. That is on top of $1.7 billion in private donations that have been received since program started.
“The reality is that businesses are happening. Cash registers are ringing. People are moving in,” Main Street Iowa state coordinator Michael Wagler said.
That is something proven in Mount Vernon. The city just celebrated 10 years with the main street program and $10 million in private investment.
“There’s a lot happening in our community right now, and it’s all because of what was begun with the Main Street idea,” said Joe Jennison, Mount Vernon/Lisbon director of Main Street. “It’s almost like a little bit of elbow grease in a downtown like ours brings more work. One building owner completes their building, (and) then the next-door building says, ‘Well, I’m going to do that.’”
That mentality brought 28 retail shops, 36 service buildings, nine restaurants and historically renovated lofts, all within 12 blocks.
“Main Street has definitely worked for Mount Vernon, and I’ve seen it work in other communities across the state,” Jennison said. “They give us the fuel and the knowledge to do the work ourselves.”
Jennison said the city is opening 130 lots for development over the next few years, and he encourages other small towns to put in the work to see success.
It’s not just Dysart and Mount Vernon taking the steps toward restoration. The Iowa Economic Development Authority recently provided multiple towns in eastern Iowa -- including Cascade, Dyersville and Maquoketa -- with $100,000 each. Oxford Junction took in $5,000 to start.
Dysart plans to move forward by incorporating art and focus groups to town. It hopes to see growth that doesn’t end.
“We never want to stand still. We always want to keep looking at what we can improve upon,” Thiele said.