Stone City, IA

Stone City is a Jones County census-designated place on the Wapsipinicon River, where limestone bluffs and old stone buildings give the small community its unmistakable look. The settlement began as a quarry town after dolomite was identified in the area in 1850. Henry Dearborn, John Green, and other quarry operators supplied Anamosa Limestone for buildings across Iowa and beyond. By the late nineteenth century, hundreds of workers and their families had gathered around the quarries, turning the riverbank into a busy company town.

ATTRKepper66 / CC BY-SA 3.0

Stone City took a second turn in the 1930s when Grant Wood established an art colony there with other artists and writers. His 1930 painting Stone City made the river, hills, fields, and limestone buildings part of the community's wider image. Jones County maintains a one-acre river access site in town, and the Stone City Historic District preserves the quarry-era streetscape. The old quarry buildings, wooded Wapsipinicon shore, and Grant Wood connection make Stone City feel like a place where geology and art share the same address.