Yarmouth is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

in northwestern Des Moines County,

Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to th ...

, United States.

History

The village was laid out by Andrew C Kline after arriving here in 1876 and opening a general store. Around the same time, a

blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such as gates, gr ...

set up shop here. In 1881, around the time the

Burlington and Northwestern 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. Inc ...

arrived, the La Vega post office, originally about a mile to the east, was moved here and renamed Yarmouth. By 1885, the village had close to 100 residents, and included 3 general stores, a

drug store A pharmacy (also called "drugstore" in American English or "community pharmacy" or "chemist" in Commonwealth English, or rarely, apothecary) is a retail shop which provides pharmaceutical drugs, among other products. At the pharmacy, a pharmaci ...

, blacksmith shop, billiard hall, and two churches. In 1897, Yarmouth had a stock yard across the tracks from the depot, two grain elevators, and the Starker Brother's Lumber Yard and Corn Cribs. The post office was across the street from a bank, and there was a Baptist and a Methodist Episcopal church, along with perhaps 20 houses. Many of the vacant lots were owned by the Narrow Gauge Land Company. In 1902, Yarmouth's population was 55. By 1905, There was a Masonic lodge, Federal Lodge No, 445, and the Mutual Telephone Company of Yarmouth was in business.

Geography

Yarmouth is located on a broad low ridge that has been identified as a

terminal moraine A terminal moraine, also called end moraine, is a type of moraine that forms at the terminal (edge) of a glacier, marking its maximum advance. At this point, debris that has accumulated by plucking and abrasion, has been pushed by the front edge ...

of the

Illinoian glaciation The Illinoian Stage is the name used by Quaternary geologists in North America to designate the period c.191,000 to c.130,000 years ago, during the middle Pleistocene, when sediments comprising the Illinoian Glacial Lobe were deposited. It preced ...

. The land to the west is pre-illinoian, while the land to the east of this ridge is Illinoian

glacial till image:Geschiebemergel.JPG, Closeup of glacial till. Note that the larger grains (pebbles and gravel) in the till are completely surrounded by the matrix of finer material (silt and sand), and this characteristic, known as ''matrix support'', is d ...

. Geological investigation of wells drilled in Yarmouth led to the discovery of a

paleosol In the geosciences, paleosol (''palaeosol'' in Great Britain and Australia) is an ancient soil that formed in the past. The precise definition of the term in geology and paleontology is slightly different from its use in soil science. In geolo ...

on top of the pre-illinoian surface and buried under the terminal moraine. This has been named the Yarmouth paleosol, and the interglacial era during which this soil layer was built was formerly called the Yarmouth interglacial. 205th Avenue passes north–south through Yarmouth at an elevation of 810 feet above sea level; this forms part of Des Moines County Highway X31.Des Moines County GIS Mapping App
accessed Sept. 2020

Demographics

References

External links

* University of Iowa Library Digital Collections *

Photo of Yarmouth depot in Aug. 1951. Unincorporated communities in Iowa Unincorporated communities in Des Moines County, Iowa {{DesMoinesCountyIA-geo-stub