Pekin is a small

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in northwestern Jefferson County,

Iowa Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...

, United States.

History

The

Burlington and Western Railway The Burlington and Northwestern Railway (B&NW) was a narrow gauge railroad system in Iowa that operated during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It connected Burlington, Iowa with branches to Washington and Oskaloosa, Iowa. In ...

arrived in Pekin in late 1882. This was a

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with Minimum railw ...

line, widened to

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...

in 1902 and taken over by the

Chicago, Burlington and Quincy The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad was a railroad that operated in the Midwestern United States. Commonly referred to as the Burlington Route, the Burlington, CB&Q, or as the Q, it operated extensive trackage in the states of Colorado ...

, and then sold to the Minneapolis and St. Louis in 1934. Pekin's population was 32 in 1902. In 1909, Pekin was just one city block with a church and 14 vacant lots, a vacant block north of the Depot and passing siding. The lack of development may be due to the fact that Pekin was not much more than a mile (2 km) northwest of

Linby Linby is a small village and civil parish in Nottinghamshire, England. The nearest town is Hucknall which is immediately to the south-west. The village grew up around the mills on the River Leen, from which Linby's name is derived. Small stre ...

, a village founded in 1902 at the point where a new Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul line crossed the Burlington and Western. Pekin's population in 1925 was 109.

Education

Pekin is the location of a regional school system,

Pekin Community School District Pekin Community School District is a rural state school, public school district headquartered in Pekin, Iowa, Pekin, an unincorporated area in Jefferson County, Iowa, near Packwood, Iowa, Packwood. It serves the following incorporated communi ...

, which draws students from Hedrick, Martinsburg,

Ollie Ollie is a given name and a nickname, often as a shortened form of Oliver (given name), Oliver, Olive (given name), Olive, Olympia, Olga (name), Olga or Olivia (given name), Olivia. Variants include Olie, Oli, Oly (disambiguation), Oly and Olly (di ...

, Packwood, Richland, and Farson, as well as from the surrounding countryside. The school is built upon the former Linby Naval Outlying Landing Field (OLF # 07815 / Auxiliary Field #6 (Ottumwa)), built in 1943 for training purposes.1948 Des Moines Sectional Chart
"

Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields is a website detailing information and first hand memories about airports in the United States which are no longer in operation, or are rarely used. The website was started by Paul Freeman in 1999 as he had d ...

: Western Iowa", see section on Pekin for US Government pictures, plots and history of the airfield. This airfield was one of 15 satellite airfields used during WW2 by Naval Air Station Ottumwa, which conducted primary flight training from 1942 to 1947. There are four concrete runways in a diamond shape, each about 200' wide by 2000' long. Prevailing winds made take-off and landing difficult so it was little used. It was closed at some point between 1948 and 1955. Sale of the airport to the regional school system was contingent on the runways being retained in case the government ever needed them again. The high school was built on one of the runways and the first classes were in 1961. Today, some of the runways are used for school parking and maintenance equipment, and is also used for training practice for surrounding police departments. The school teaches math, science, English, and other subjects common in public schools. For eighteen years, only the high school students went to the regional school, which is located a mile south of Pekin, but in 1978, all grades, K-12, began to study at the regional school, with local buildings being permanently closed.

References

External links

Pekin Schools

Wikimapia satellite view
{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Iowa Unincorporated communities in Jefferson County, Iowa