Lone Tree, IA

Lone Tree is a Johnson County city along Iowa Highway 22, platted in 1872 and named for a giant elm that stood on a rise south of town. Local lore says buffalo could graze beneath its branches; the tree eventually succumbed to Dutch elm disease, but the name stayed. The Lone Tree Historical Museum carries the town’s late-1800s and early-1900s story in a three-story house filled with period rooms and farm equipment. Lone Tree is Iowa City-area geography with a lost landmark still doing the naming work.