Pleasantville, IA

At the 2020 census, Pleasantville was a Marion County city of 1,676 people about 25 miles southeast of Des Moines. William Wesley Jordan owned the original townsite when the community was surveyed and established on August 1, 1849; before Jordan, the land reportedly changed hands for one horse and $30. The railroad arrived in 1879, turning Pleasantville into a shipping point and an active business stop between Knoxville and Des Moines. That mix of farm traffic, rail movement, and a main square is still the skeleton of the town.

ATTRAshton B Crew / CC BY-SA 3.0

Pleasantville has a memorable way of turning trouble into a local nickname. Fires repeatedly hit the old main street in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and residents rebuilt until the row became known as Smokey Row. The name later followed a coffee house that began downtown and grew into a company headquartered in Pleasantville, with other locations around Iowa. The city's Webb Shadle Memorial Library sits just off the square, while the community school district keeps the town's daily rhythm close to home. Pleasantville feels like a place that keeps making a gathering spot out of whatever survives.