Riceville, IA

Riceville straddles the Howard–Mitchell county line in northeastern Iowa, a small city laid out in 1855 by Leonard, Dennis, and Gilbert Rice and incorporated as a town in 1892. Its streets sit in the rolling farm country of the Upper Iowa region, where county roads connect Riceville with Osage, Cresco, and the surrounding countryside. The city operates in two counties but keeps a single local center, school network, and set of businesses for the people who live around it.

Riceville has an unusually modern agricultural story alongside its nineteenth-century plat. Link Energy, a family-run farm operation, uses a two-million-gallon methane digester to generate about 600 kilowatts of electricity from manure, waste egg products, and meat-packing and locker waste. The system also produces biogas, dairy bedding, and biosolids for fertilizer, making the farm part of the city's working landscape in a very literal way. Riceville is also associated with educator Jane Elliott, diplomats John and Larry Dinger, and Olympic runner Ray Conger. With 806 residents in 2020, the city remains small, but its history reaches from pioneer platting to new forms of farm energy.