Paullina, IA

Paullina is an O’Brien County city in northwest Iowa, laid out when brothers Henry and D. Edward Paullin bought nearly 7,000 acres and helped bring the railroad to the area. The town plat was filed at the end of 1881, the first council met in 1883, and the 2020 census counted 982 residents. Rail tracks no longer run through town, but the old pattern survives in Commerce Street, Railroad Street, and the co-op and grain elevator on Main Street. Agriculture remains the reason Paullina matters beyond its city limits.

South O’Brien Community Schools keep grades 7–12 in Paullina, while younger students attend in Primghar; Zion–St. John Lutheran School adds another local education connection. The 1878 Heritage House, Mill Creek Park and Paullina Lake, and the Wonderland Theater give the city places to step out of the farm-and-school routine. Paullina serves as a shopping, employment, education, and recreation center for South O’Brien County, with a small-town grid still carrying the outline of the railroad bargain that started it.