Raymond, IA

Raymond is a Black Hawk County city whose story starts with a railroad stop. It was platted in 1867 as a shipping point on the Illinois Central Railroad, and that rail connection helped put the community on the farm-to-market map east of Waterloo. Today Raymond is part of Waterloo Community School District, whose service area includes Raymond along with Waterloo, Evansdale, Elk Run Heights, Gilbertville, and surrounding Black Hawk County communities. The city retains a separate municipal name but shares much of its daily school and shopping orbit with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls area. Raymond is a compact Iowa place where a railroad-era settlement pattern still sits inside a larger regional school district.