Coon Rapids, IA

Coon Rapids is a Carroll and Guthrie County city where the Middle Raccoon River has been doing the heavy lifting since the beginning. Crocket Ribble and Jacob Cretsinger established the place in 1863 with a saw and gristmill, and the railroad later turned the river settlement into a regional trading center. In the twentieth century, Garst Seed Company gave Coon Rapids an agricultural story that reached far beyond town. Today the Riverside Trail follows the river, and Whiterock Conservancy opens thousands of acres of prairie, woods, ponds, and working land nearby. Coon Rapids is an Iowa river town that grew from a mill and kept finding new uses for its landscape.