Portsmouth, IA

Portsmouth is a city in Shelby County, Iowa, United States. The 2020 census counted 182 residents. The first permanent settlement at Portsmouth was made by William Williams, who built a log cabin home there in the 1860s. Portsmouth had its start in the year 1882 when the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railway platted the town along its tracks. The district serves the towns of Harlan, Defiance, Earling, Panama, Portsmouth and Westphalia, the unincorporated communities of Jacksonville and Corley, and the surrounding rural areas. The short version is that Portsmouth carries an earlier story into the places people know and use now. That is the local read on Portsmouth: its past remains attached to the places people use now.