Part of a series for the Des Moines Register’s 175th anniversary that examines Iowa’s past and future demographics.
In 1837, Joel C. Garretson built a cabin in the woods in what is now Henry County. The following summer, a government surveyor noted the residence, and the original 80 acres Garretson settled on became his.
Garretson, whose ancestors came to America in 1657 from Holland and originally settled in Delaware, became one of the first settlers of European heritage in Iowa. His homestead is now part of the 600-acre East Grove Farms, which is still in his family more than 185 years later.
“He came from Ohio. It was the lure of new horizons,” said Joel Garretson, the fifth generation to live on the farm.
Many would follow Joel C. Garretson to the wide open expanses of Iowa.
Iowa’s rural heritage was shaped by the immigrants and descendants of immigrants who settled the virgin prairies, wetlands and woodlands. With the state’s land mass now mostly converted to row cropping, Iowa is considered to be the state with the most altered topography.
Now in its 175th year of publication, the Des Moines Register is looking back at the people who built the Iowa we live in today and looking ahead at the people who will build its tomorrow. Immigration was the key to Iowa’s early growth, and it perhaps will be the most vital component in the future, but it will look decidedly different than it did almost 200 years ago, demographers say.
Rural Iowa is expected to see an influx of people with different ancestry and skin color than the white Europeans who settled the state and have predominated in rural areas ever since, said David Peters, professor of agricultural and rural policy at Iowa State University.
Even Iowa’s Native Americans were from somewhere else
Evidence of Indigenous population in Iowa goes back millennia. But even the Meskwaki people who were in Iowa when white settlers arrived were newcomers of a sort.
The Meskwaki originally lived in the St. Lawrence River region in Ontario and Quebec, Canada, as well as in parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont and nearly the entirety of the state of Michigan.
War with the French sent the tribe trekking to Iowa in 1735, according to Johnathon Buffalo, historical preservation director for the Meskwaki.
There, they found bison and other big game such as elk, along with fertile soil to grow corn, squash and beans, Buffalo said.
Through a series of concessions in 1845 under the name of Sac and Fox, the Sauk tribe that had migrated from Wisconsin and the Meskwaki lost all of their Iowa lands and were removed to a reservation in east-central Kansas.
Some Meskwaki, however, managed to evade the forced move, and others, not happy in Kansas, where the soil was not nearly as fertile, returned to Iowa and began purchasing land near Tama in 1857, becoming the first tribe in the United States to acquire property as part of tribal land reclamation, Buffalo said.
The tribe now owns over 8,000 acres and businesses including a casino, hotel and bank, and is a sovereign nation with its own laws, language, court system and schools, Buffalo said.
“We are an ancient people who live in a modern world, yet still are connected to the ancient ways. We still have the taste of mastodon in our blood,” Buffalo said.
European immigration fed Iowa’s 19th-century population boom
The Black Hawk War with Indigenous people in 1832 opened the Iowa territory for settlement to immigrants primarily with European heritage, and come they did — an increasing number directly from the old country. Once Native Americans had been extirpated from the eastern portions of Iowa near the Mississippi, the new settlers began flooding into the state.
Iowa’s population grew 345% from when the first census in Iowa was taken in 1840 until the next in 1850. With white settlers lured by the prospects of available land to farm, Iowa grew another 251% in the following decade and another 77% by 1870, when the state first topped 1 million people.
By 1890, Iowa boasted the 10th-largest population in the United States, with the settlers forming a mostly rural and agrarian society.
It would not be until the 1960 census that most Iowans were living in towns or cities rather than rural settings, and not until the 2000 census that farming was no longer the most frequently listed occupation for Iowa men.
Immigration in Iowa came in three main waves. In the late 1840s, political revolutions in central Europe brought immigrants from Germany who settled in Mississippi River cities like Dubuque and Davenport, but also in many rural Iowa communities. Also in the 1840s, Irish immigrants came to America seeking a new life due to the potato famine. The new opportunities presented in Iowa also drew immigrants from Great Britain, Canada, Holland and Scandinavia.
A second wave of immigration occurred from the late 1800s up to World War I, with people coming from Italy, Russia and Eastern Europe, attracted by industrial jobs including coal mining, which lured many Italians and Croatians.
The Immigration Act of 1924 set quotas for various countries of origin, and immigration slowed. By 1950, Iowa fell to the 20th-largest state and 40 years later, in 1990, it had the 30th-largest population. It ranks 31st today.
But immigration hasn’t stopped. Iowa’s third wave began in the 1970s, when Gov. Robert Ray set up a state agency to work with private organizations to help refugees displaced by civil wars or natural disasters find new homes. As a result, Iowa saw Vietnamese, Bosnians, Ethiopians and others from Africa and Asia put down roots in the state.
Jobs in meatpacking plants drew migrants from Mexico, South America and the Caribbean, and they became a significant segment of the population in cities including Perry, Storm Lake, Marshalltown and Denison.
Though Iowa’s growth is slow, immigration still propels it
The U.S. Census Bureau projects only modest growth in Iowa’s population in the next 25 years, estimating it will reach 3.4 million by 2050 from the 3.2 million counted in the 2020 census.
But diversity in what is currently the sixth-whitest state is expected to grow, with more than one of every four Iowans, 26.4%, expected to be of other backgrounds by 2050. That’s a major shift from the 4% the U.S. Census recorded in 1990 and 14.4% counted in 2020.
Iowa’s population remains dominated by people with western European ancestry. German is the predominant heritage at 31.3%, followed by Irish (12.7%), English (10.4%), Norwegian (4.1%), Italian (1.8%), French (1.6%) and Polish (1.2%).
From 2000 to 2014, however, the Hispanic population increased by over 110% and that growth is expected to continue, approaching 500,000 Latino residents by 2050, according to an analysis by the World Population Review.
Iowa’s early immigrants left a lasting impression, with Dutch heritage on display in Pella, Danish ancestry celebrated in Elk Horn and Norwegian in Decorah, and museums in Davenport and Cedar Rapids dedicated to German and to Czech and Slovak heritage, respectively.
Just as immigration propelled Iowa’s initial growth, it will be the vital factor in the very survival of rural Iowa, said Peters, the Iowa State professor.
Like many others, Peters looks at a rural Iowa that has become increasingly diverse as migrants have moved in at the same time as the existing population is aging, dropping out of the workforce, leaving the state for retirement or eventually dying.
Without immigration, Peters warns, rural Iowa will not have the population it needs to survive.
“It’s these rural areas that are diversifying, diversifying because whites are leaving, and the only growing segment are people of color, not all immigrant, but largely immigrant,” Peters said.
The immigration pattern Iowa experienced in the past will be similar in the future, with recent immigrants the largest share, Peters said. The immigrants will have different complexions, he said, but like those in the past, they will come because they see opportunity.
“In the 1870s, no American with any prospects would move out to the middle of Iowa,” Peters said. “They would stay in the city out east. So who moved out there? The poor from Europe, that’s the only shot that they had.
“And you kind of see the similar thing today, and that people move out to rural Iowa because that’s where there’s opportunities for them,” he said. “And they tend to be immigrants because there’s better chances for them to become successful in rural Iowa, just like 120 years, 150 years beforehand.”
“So it is kind of the long-term story of Iowa, just where people are coming from has changed,” Peters said.
A much more diverse rural Iowa? Expert sees it on the horizon
Peters predicts that by 2060, rural Iowa will be much more diverse, even moreso proportionately than the state’s urban areas.
He said two major trends are occurring that will change the way rural Iowa looks: Younger white people are moving to larger cities, which have more employment opportunities, and older white people, members of the baby boomer generation who make up much of the rural population today, are dying.
“By 2060, I would imagine that most, or many, of the rural Iowa communities will be maybe 50% white, non-Hispanic, and then sort of other people of different races or of Hispanic (origin),” he said. “I see that as very likely, maybe not every community, but most of rural Iowa will be much more diverse than it is now, given what we see in the trends.”
He said the only thing that could change the current pattern of lower white population and higher diversity in rural Iowa would be an environmental disaster elsewhere in the U.S. that would force people into the interior of the country.
As the baby boomers who predominate in rural Iowa dwindle, the population will decrease, Peters said.
“You’re going to see that shift happen really rapidly because the boomers have managed to stay in rural Iowa,” he said. “We’re talking maybe 10 years before they either pass on or have to move to where their kids or grandkids are. Maybe they move somewhere warmer.”
Peters said today’s rural economy is being carried by people of color and senior citizens. Iowa is second only to Vermont in the proportion of adults 65 and older still in the workforce, at 23.9%, according to 2023 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
So in a state where immigration shaped the past and is vital to the future, he said, immigration policy at the federal and state levels could play a big role in Iowa’s future.
“If we restrict immigration a lot, that’s going to be most keenly felt in rural America, because if you only allow immigrants in that can pay a lot of money, they’re usually going to be the ones that have a lot of technical expertise, and no one’s going to pay $30,000 to get into the United States to go work in a meatpacking plant for $13 (an hour), right?” he said. “Immigrants are going to flow into the large cities where they can command high salaries, and they’re going to be highly skilled.”
He said rural Iowa also has suffered stagnation because of an entrenched older generation resistant to change, while others end up leaving. But he senses attitudes starting to shift.
“People that are trying to make a living in rural Iowa have come to this realization that they need immigration, that they need to find ways to revitalize rural Iowa,” he said. “I’ve been here since 2008, and I think that the needle has moved quite a bit.”
Politics and immigration policy aside, Buffalo said there are reasons why Iowa may not top the list of desired places for immigrants.
“Iowa tries to kill you,” Buffalo said, citing the natural challenges of tornadoes, floods, derechos, bitter cold, blizzards and sweltering, humid heat.
“It teaches you to be prepared, to work hard” he said. “If you can live in Iowa and still enjoy it, you’re an Iowan.”
Kevin Baskins covers jobs and the economy for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at kbaskins@registermedia.com.
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Publish date : 2024-07-29 04:41:00
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