Arcadia, IA

Arcadia is a Carroll County city in western Iowa, with 525 residents in the 2020 census. Isaac Newton Voris laid it out in 1871 under the name Tip Top, a nod to the high ground on the divide between waters flowing toward the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. A Chicago and North Western switch station had already put the site on the railroad map; the name Arcadia, borrowed from the Greek region, arrived around incorporation in 1881.

A fire in 1880 destroyed most of the business section, leaving two buildings and a town that rebuilt quickly. German churches, the Deutsche Verein, a schoolhouse from 1873, and the Catholic church added the institutions of a growing farm community. Today Ar-We-Va Community School District serves the area, while Arcadia’s streets connect Carroll County fields to the railroad routes that first gave the town momentum. Arcadia is an Iowa city where a high divide, a railroad switch, a devastating fire, and German-American community life meet.