Curlew, IA

Curlew began beside the Des Moines and Fort Dodge Railroad in 1882, and the town's name was chosen for the shorebird seen by a railroad president and hunter. The rail line helped seed a chain of Palo Alto County communities along northwest Iowa's connections to larger markets. Today the city remains within the Emmetsburg Community School District, which consolidated with Curlew in 1954. County roads lead toward Emmetsburg, the county seat on Five Island Lake, while the broader county still organizes movement around rail, farm shipping, and the Des Moines River corridor. Curlew's small grid is a railroad settlement folded into a regional school and agricultural network.