The Johnston Brief
On paper, Johnston is one of the metro's newer cities: it did not incorporate until 1969. But the ground it sits on has a much longer story than that date suggests, running from a pioneer sawmill on Beaver Creek through an electric interurban railway, a sprawling Army camp, and the hybrid-seed-corn company that grew into a global giant. Here is the whole arc, start to now.
Long before Johnston was a city, it was farm country along Beaver Creek on the northwest edge of Des Moines. According to the City of Johnston, the area's first settlement dates to 1846, when Ezekiel Hunt built a sawmill in what is now the western part of town. Over the following decades the community went by several names, including the Beaver Creek Settlement, Ridgedale, and Huntsville, before the name that stuck arrived with the railroad: Johnston Station.
Johnston owes its name to a train. The City of Johnston dates the Interurban Railroad, an electric line carrying both commuters and freight, to 1907; it ran from Carlisle through Des Moines, Johnston, and on up to Perry. The settlement that grew around the local stop became known as Johnston Station, named after John F. Johnston, one of the line's station agents. The interurban tied the little farm community into the growing capital city just to the southeast, and the Johnston name outlasted the railroad itself.
Unlike towns named for the person who platted them, Johnston takes its name from a station agent on the interurban line, John F. Johnston, per the City of Johnston's official history. The stop was Johnston Station first; the city came much later.
Camp Dodge, the headquarters of the Iowa National Guard, sits on the north side of Johnston and is by far the oldest large institution in town. Sources place its beginnings in the early 1900s: construction of the post began around 1907, and in 1917 it was turned over to national authorities and expanded dramatically into a regional training center for World War I, spread across roughly 4,500 acres. (The City of Johnston marks the camp's establishment in 1908; the difference is a matter of when you count the ground breaking versus the formal founding.) The camp is named for General Grenville M. Dodge, the Council Bluffs railroad engineer and Civil War general.
Johnston's other defining institution grew out of a field experiment. In the 1920s, Henry A. Wallace, the Iowa farm editor and future U.S. Vice President, joined a group of Des Moines businessmen to sell the new hybrid seed corn; their Hi-Bred Corn Company was incorporated in Iowa in 1926. The company, later Pioneer Hi-Bred, built its research and operations in Johnston and went on to become the world's leading producer of seed corn. Today, as part of Corteva Agriscience, the company still runs a major campus in Johnston and, per the City of Johnston, employs more than 2,000 people there, more than a century after Wallace's first hybrid rows.
Johnston's growth is a second-half-of-the-20th-century and 21st-century story. It went from a couple thousand residents at incorporation to a mid-sized suburb of more than 24,000, one of the more established communities on the northwest side of the metro.
Johnston incorporated as a city in the fall of 1969. According to the City of Johnston, Mayor Harold Southerwick gaveled in the first Johnston City Council meeting on September 8, 1969, when the new city counted 2,236 residents. The following spring, in April 1970, Johnston annexed the Johnston Station area following an agreement with neighboring Urbandale, knitting the old rail-stop community into the new city.
The Johnston Brief is a free weekly email: what's happening this week, new places to eat, deals, and things to do. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
From 2,236 residents at incorporation to more than 24,000 today, Johnston has become one of the metro's established northwest suburbs, and it is still shaped by the institutions that built it. Camp Dodge and the Iowa National Guard remain on the north side, the Corteva (Pioneer) seed campus is one of the area's biggest employers, and the Johnston Community School District anchors family life. The throughline is the same one the interurban set in motion in 1907: a community just up the road from the capital, close enough to be part of Des Moines and far enough to be its own place.
The Iowa Gold Star Military Museum at Camp Dodge tells the story of Iowans in military service, from the Civil War through today, and is a fitting stop given the camp's century-plus history on Johnston's north side. Check current hours and access before visiting, since it sits on an active National Guard installation.
Johnston incorporated as a city in the fall of 1969. According to the City of Johnston, Mayor Harold Southerwick gaveled in the first Johnston City Council meeting on September 8, 1969, when the new city had 2,236 residents.
Johnston is named for John F. Johnston, one of the station agents on the Interurban Railroad that ran through the area in the early 1900s. The community that grew up around the stop was first known as Johnston Station.
Camp Dodge is the headquarters of the Iowa National Guard, on the north side of Johnston. Construction of the post began around 1907, and it was greatly expanded in 1917 as a World War I training camp on roughly 4,500 acres. It is named for General Grenville M. Dodge, a Council Bluffs railroad engineer and Civil War general.
Yes. The seed company that became Pioneer Hi-Bred traces to the Hi-Bred Corn Company, founded by Henry A. Wallace and a group of Des Moines businessmen and incorporated in Iowa in 1926. Its research and operations grew in Johnston, and today, as part of Corteva Agriscience, it employs more than 2,000 people at its Johnston campus.
Johnston has only been an incorporated city since 1969, but the area was settled far earlier. The City of Johnston traces the first settlement to a sawmill built along Beaver Creek by Ezekiel Hunt in 1846.
Johnston has grown from 2,236 residents at its 1969 incorporation to more than 24,000 today, making it one of the larger suburbs on the northwest side of the Des Moines metro.
The Interurban Railroad was an electric commuter and freight line the City of Johnston dates to 1907, running from Carlisle through Des Moines, Johnston, and Perry. Johnston grew up around one of its stations and took its name from a station agent, John F. Johnston.