Elk Horn, IA

Elk Horn is a Shelby County city where the 2020 census counted 601 residents. The city took its name from Elk Horn Creek, while Danish immigrants arriving in larger numbers during the 1870s gave the town its strongest cultural thread. Elk Horn was platted in 1901 and incorporated in 1910, but the Danish story reaches back to the nineteenth century and remains visible in food, language, architecture, and local events.

ATTRBDeeds / CC BY-SA 3.0

Elk Horn is home to the Museum of Danish America, a 35-acre campus with exhibits, a genealogy center, a restored immigrant home, prairie grounds, and a Danish windmill built in Denmark in 1848 and reassembled in town in 1976. Students attend Exira-Elk Horn-Kimballton Community School District, which has a campus in Elk Horn. The city’s bakery goods, museum grounds, and windmill give a rural Iowa stop a distinct Scandinavian feel. Elk Horn’s appeal comes from the way a small farming community kept its Danish history in everyday view. Visitors often pair the museum with the windmill and downtown bakeries.