Avoca, IA

Avoca was laid out in 1869 when the Rock Island railroad reached the valley, and the railroad still gives the city its shape. Early settlers used other names for the place before an excursion party looking across the valley settled on Avoca, after the River Avoca in a Thomas Moore poem. The city sits between the West Nishnabotna River and its east branch, within Iowa’s Loess Hills, so the local picture is a mix of rail town and river valley. Avoca also has a school story that reaches back to the 1957 merger that formed the Avo-Ha district, a reminder that nearby rural places have long shared institutions.