Woodbine, IA

Woodbine grew along the Boyer River after it was platted in 1866 beside the Chicago & North Western Railroad. The town’s name came from a flowering vine that early settler Anna Butler remembered from England, and the first river-era businesses included a sawmill, corn mill, woolen mill, and later a flour mill. Today the local history sits in layers: Lincoln Highway’s long brick stretch, the old depot and CNW caboose, and Merry Brook Rural School Museum in an 1870s one-room schoolhouse. Applefest, held each September since 1988, ties those pieces to a town that still knows how to turn its old road and river story into a yearly gathering.