Milo, IA

Milo is a Warren County city in central Iowa, with 778 residents in the 2020 census and a place in the Des Moines-West Des Moines metropolitan area. The town grew with the railroad in the late 1870s, when the Chariton, Des Moines and Southern Railroad bought land in Belmont Township and laid out a new settlement. It was first called Belmont, then became Milo in 1879 as trains began moving through.

Rail service ran through Milo from 1879 to 1961, giving the city a long connection to grain, passengers, and the farm communities around Warren County. Southeast Warren Primary School now occupies a central place in the local map, with the district’s other schools in Lacona and Liberty Center. Main Street, the old rail corridor, the school, and prairie roads keep the railroad-town pattern visible for generations. Milo is an Iowa city where a branch line, a renamed settlement, a consolidated school district, and open Warren County farmland meet locally.