HOLSTEIN, Iowa (Iowa Media Wire) — More than a hundred years ago, a group of immigrants saw the area that is now Holstein and decided it would be their new home.
By the 1860’s both Ida Grove and Cherokee were established towns, with many farmers in between the two settlements. Until one man set up shop in the middle of nowhere.
“Mr. Thielmann built essentially a dance hall, blacksmith shop, general store, tavern, everything included type of building about a mile or so outside of our present location of Holstein, and this rapidly kind of gained travelers,” said Emily Todd, the director of the Stubbs Memorial Library.
It wasn’t until 1875, when a group of German hunters from Davenport, Iowa, came to the area that the population grew rapidly.
“There wasn’t a town here yet, and they kind of convinced each other. This is a place that we can restart and have for our own and so they moved over here in late 1870s and Holstein became an unincorporated town of about 400 people by 1882,” Todd said.
Not long after, the settlement got its name.
“This area before it properly gets the town name of Holstein is called the “German Settlement”, the first mayor of Holstein gave Holstein its name. He actually was one of those residents from New Holstein, Wisconsin. So that’s kind of how Holstein got its name and also because most of the German immigrants who had come here were from the Holstein area of Germany,” said Todd.
For a point in time, Holstein was put on the map for a 100-foot bar.
“In the 1910s, the Iowa State passed a new law about how many bars a town could have per population, which meant that unfortunately, Holstein could only have one. So the way to get around that one bar limit was to have the longest bar in town and essentially and in the state actually,” said Todd.
The bar was eventually disbanded, and over the years the town of Holstein would continue to change but not its German heritage.
“I would say the German presence is still there very subtly, but over time, KinderFest is probably as well as the library kind of best displays that German heritage as it was. The facade of the library was chosen in 1974 when it was built, so to kind of reflect that German heritage so it has a Bavarian Alpine look to it on the outside,” said Todd.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 1,400 people live in Holstein, Iowa.