Iowa's 9th congressional district existed from 1873 to 1943. The district was configured four times, first as part of a nine-district plan, then twice in eleven-district plans, then again in a nine-district plan. In the nine-district plans, the Ninth District encompassed the northwestern corner of Iowa, but in the eleven-district plans it encompassed

Council Bluffs Council Bluffs is a city in and the county seat of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, Pottawattamie County, Iowa, United States. The population was 62,799 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the state's List of cities in Iowa, te ...

and nine surrounding counties.

Phase one: 1873–1883

Based on the 1870 census, Iowa's

U.S. House The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...

delegation increased from six to nine members, requiring the

Iowa General Assembly The Iowa General Assembly is the legislative branch of the state government of Iowa. Like the federal United States Congress, the General Assembly is a bicameral body, composed of the upper house Iowa Senate and the lower Iowa House of Repre ...

to reapportion the districts. Because the northwestern area of the state was relatively less populous, its congressional district (the ninth) was by far the largest, encompassing more than a quarter of the state's 99 counties, and running from the

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

border on the north and the

Missouri River The Missouri River is a river in the Central United States, Central and Mountain states, Mountain West regions of the United States. The nation's longest, it rises in the eastern Centennial Mountains of the Bitterroot Range of the Rocky Moun ...

on the west to Story County, location of the state's geographic center. In this phase, the Ninth District included

Hamilton Hamilton may refer to: * Alexander Hamilton (1755/1757–1804), first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States * ''Hamilton'' (musical), a 2015 Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda ** ''Hamilton'' (al ...

, Story, Boone, Webster,

Humboldt Humboldt may refer to: People * Alexander von Humboldt, German natural scientist, brother of Wilhelm von Humboldt * Wilhelm von Humboldt, German linguist, philosopher, and diplomat, brother of Alexander von Humboldt Fictional characters * Hu ...

, Kossuth, Emmet,

Palo Alto Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...

Pocahontas Pocahontas (, ; born Amonute, also known as Matoaka and Rebecca Rolfe; 1596 – March 1617) was a Native American woman belonging to the Powhatan people, notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. S ...

Calhoun John C. Calhoun (1782–1850) was the 7th vice president of the United States. Calhoun can also refer to: Surname * Calhoun (surname) Inhabited places in the United States *Calhoun, Georgia * Calhoun, Illinois *Calhoun, Kentucky * Calhoun, Louis ...

Greene Greene may refer to: Places United States *Greene, Indiana, an unincorporated community * Greene, Iowa, a city * Greene, Maine, a town ** Greene (CDP), Maine, in the town of Greene * Greene (town), New York **Greene (village), New York, in the to ...

, Carroll, Sac, Buena Vista,

Clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

, Dickinson,

Osceola Osceola (1804 – January 30, 1838, Vsse Yvholv in Muscogee language, Creek, also spelled Asi-yahola), named Billy Powell at birth, was an influential leader of the Seminole people in Florida. His mother was Muscogee, and his great-grandfa ...

, O'Brien,

Cherokee The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...

, Ida, Crawford, Monona, Woodbury,

Plymouth Plymouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Devon, South West England. It is located on Devon's south coast between the rivers River Plym, Plym and River Tamar, Tamar, about southwest of Exeter and ...

Sioux The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin ( ; Dakota/ Lakota: ) are groups of Native American tribes and First Nations people from the Great Plains of North America. The Sioux have two major linguistic divisions: the Dakota and Lakota peoples (translati ...

, and

Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

counties. It included the growing cities of Sioux City, Fort Dodge, and Ames. During this period, the district was represented by Republicans Jackson Orr of Boone County, S. Addison Oliver of Monona County, and Cyrus Carpenter of Webster County.

Phase two: 1883 to 1887

The 1880 census caused Iowa to receive two more seats in the House, requiring reapportionment of the state into eleven districts."Congressional Map of the State of Iowa - Official Census 1885"
Iowa Official Register 1886
at pp. 12-13). The former Ninth District in northwestern Iowa was generally divided to create the new 11th and 10th districts. When southwest and south-central Iowa were divided among four districts rather than three, the new Ninth District was created. It included Crawford County (of the old Ninth District) and

Harrison Harrison may refer to: People * Harrison (name) * Harrison family of Virginia, United States Places Australia * Harrison, Australian Capital Territory, suburb in the Canberra district of Gungahlin Canada * Inukjuak, Quebec, or "Port H ...

, Shelby,

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, Pottawattamie,

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Mills Mills is the plural form of mill, but may also refer to: As a name * Mills (surname), a common family name of English or Gaelic origin * Mills (given name) *Mills, a fictional British secret agent in a trilogy by writer Manning O'Brine Places U ...

, Montgomery, and Fremont counties (of the old Eighth District). It included Council Bluffs in Pottawattamie County, across the Missouri River from

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the List of cities in Nebraska, most populous city in the U.S. state of Nebraska. It is located in the Midwestern United States along the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's List of United S ...

and the historical starting point of the

transcontinental railroad A transcontinental railroad or transcontinental railway is contiguous rail transport, railroad trackage that crosses a continent, continental land mass and has terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks may be via the Ra ...

. Only two elections were held under this configuration. Voters elected Democrat

William Henry Mills Pusey William Henry Mills Pusey (July 29, 1826 – November 15, 1900), an American banker, was a one-term Democratic U.S. Representative from Iowa's 9th congressional district in southwestern Iowa from 1883 to 1885. Born in Washington County, Pennsyl ...

, then replaced him with Republican

Joseph Lyman Joseph Lyman (September 13, 1840 – July 9, 1890) was a American Civil War, Civil War soldier, lawyer, and judge. In the 1880s, he was a two-term Republican Party (United States), Republican U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Representative fr ...

, both of Council Bluffs.

Phase three: 1887 to 1933

The Iowa General Assembly soon readjusted the boundaries of the eleven-district map, allegedly to increase the number of Republican victories."The Congressional Districts," Waterloo Courier, 1886-04-14. Those boundaries would remain in place for 45 years. Fremont County was shifted from the Ninth into the Eighth District, thereby setting the stage for the stunning 1886 upset of incumbent Eighth District Republican Congressman

William Peters Hepburn William Peters Hepburn (November 4, 1833 – February 7, 1916) was an American Civil War officer and an eleven-term Republican congressman from Iowa's now-obsolete 8th congressional district, serving from 1881 to 1887, and from 1893 to 1909. ...

by Fremont County's Independent Republican, Albert R. Anderson. Crawford County was added to the Tenth District, and two counties from Iowa's 7th congressional district ( Guthrie and Adair) were added to the Ninth. Lyman retained his seat after reapportionment, and he was followed by Joseph Rea Reed, Thomas Bowman,

Alva L. Hager Alva Lysander Hager (October 29, 1850 – January 29, 1923) was a three-term Republican Party (United States), Republican United States House of Representatives, U.S. Representative from Iowa's 9th congressional district in the 1890s. Biograp ...

, Smith McPherson, Walter I. Smith, William R. Green, Earl W. Vincent, and Charles Swanson. All were Republican lawyers except Bowman, a Democratic newspaperman. All were from Council Bluffs except Hager (from Adair County), McPherson (from Montgomery County), Green (from Audubon County), and Vincent (from Guthrie County). The General Assembly's 45-year failure to reapportion congressional districts resulted in malapportionment, which was particularly severe in certain districts in Iowa. Residents of three other southern Iowa districts (the

1st First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

, 6th, and

8th Eighth is ordinal form of the number eight. Eighth may refer to: * One eighth, , a fraction, one of eight equal parts of a whole * Eighth note (quaver), a musical note played for half the value of a quarter note (crotchet) * Octave, an interval b ...

) gained in per capita influence as the districts' population growth slowed or reversed.Editorial, "A Brilliant Idea," Waterloo Evening Courier, 1921-01-26 at 6. The 9th district did not decline in political influence as much as districts that were oversized for too long (like the 10th and 11th) and districts with Iowa's largest cities (like the

2nd A second is the base unit of time in the International System of Units (SI). Second, Seconds, The Second, or (The) 2nd may also refer to: Mathematics * 2 (number), as an ordinal (also written as ''2nd'' or ''2d'') * Minute and second of arc, ...

, 3rd and

7th Seventh is the ordinal form of the number seven. Seventh may refer to: * Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution * A fraction (mathematics), , equal to one of seven equal parts Film and television *"The Seventh", a second-season ep ...

). Instead, it was one of three Iowa districts that, by 1920, deviated less than a ten percent from the ideal "one person, one vote" population.

Phase four: 1933 to 1943

The 1930 census reflected that Iowa, like other rural

Great Plains The Great Plains is a broad expanse of plain, flatland in North America. The region stretches east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and grassland. They are the western part of the Interior Plains, which include th ...

states, had not grown as much as states such as

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, causing Iowa to lose seats in Congress for the first time. It lost two seats, forcing the Republican-dominated 1931 General Assembly to adopt a nine-district plan. As in 1872, the Ninth District included Sioux City and the northwestern corner of Iowa, but this time it included only thirteen counties (Dickinson, Clay, Buena Vista, Sac, Ida, Cherokee, O'Brien, Osceola, Lyon, Sioux, Plymouth, Woodbury, and Monona).Iowa Official Register 1933-34
at p. 6. The first election under the nine-district plan, in 1932, coincided with the

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...

landslide, causing a northwestern Iowa Democrat (

Guy M. Gillette Guy Mark Gillette (February 3, 1879March 3, 1973) was an American politician and lawyer who served as a Democratic U.S. Representative (1933–1936) and Senator (1936–1945; 1949–1955) from Iowa. Throughout his Senate service, Gillette was ...

of Cherokee County) to win a congressional race for only the second time ever. When Gillette ran for the U.S. Senate he was succeeded by another Democrat,

Vincent Harrington Vincent Francis Harrington (May 16, 1903 – November 29, 1943) was a Democratic U.S. Representative from Iowa. Harrington was commissioned in the United States Army Air Forces after the Pearl Harbor attack, resigned from Congress when President ...

of Sioux City. When Harrington could not complete the term he won in 1940 after he resigned to join the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1942, Republican Dickinson County Judge Harry E. Narey served the final six weeks of his term. The district was eliminated after the 1940 census. All of the district was renamed the 8th district with the exception of Monona County, which was placed in the 7th district.

List of members representing the district

References