Mediapolis, IA

Mediapolis is a Des Moines County city in the Burlington, Iowa-Illinois micropolitan area. It began in 1869 as a railroad station for Kossuth on the Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Minnesota Railway between Burlington and Wapello. The name combines "Media" with "polis" to describe a middle city, since the station sat halfway between those two communities. From 1875 into the mid-twentieth century, Mediapolis was a railroad junction where a line toward Washington met the original north-south route.

ATTRNyttend / Public domain

The railroad gave Mediapolis its position and name; the school district now supplies the most visible institutional center. Mediapolis Community School District sits on the north side of town and operates elementary, middle, and high schools for the city and a large rural area around it. Its teams are the Bulldogs and Bullettes, and current campus work includes an elementary addition and new softball field. Mediapolis is a small rail-founded city whose present-day routines run through a regional school campus, and the old station story accounts for its position between Burlington and Wapello.