County Past
Home › Iowa › Pocahontas County

Pocahontas County, Iowa

Historic newspapers, landmarks, and county history layers for genealogists and local historians.

—newspaper titles
—digitized titles
3historic places
—earliest paper
1851formed
7,078pop. 2020
26cemeteries
—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 3 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1974. Most listings are in or near Pocahontas, Laurens.

Summary generated automatically from the source data on this page.

Newspapers

Library of Congress

Newspaper directory data for Iowa is not yet loaded on this site. Browse Pocahontas titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

3 of 3 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

3 listed properties
PropertyCityTypeListed
Laurens Carnegie Free LibraryLaurensBuilding1974
Pocahontas County CourthousePocahontasBuilding1981
Saints Peter and Paul Catholic ChurchPocahontasBuilding1994

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Property links open NRHP nomination files at the National Archives.

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Pocahontas was formed in 1851 (1851-01-15) from unknown / original county.

POCAHONTAS created from Non-County Area 9 attached to POLK.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Pocahontas County population from 1860 to 2020 (Census historical series).

16k8,1841031860188019201940196020002020
1860188019001920194019501960198020002020
1033,71315,33915,60216,26615,49614,23411,3698,6627,078

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau historical county population (Forstall 1790–1990) and public-domain / CC0 county population series through 2020.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

26 cemeteries and 3 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 26 of 26 listed
NameLatLon
Calvary Cemetery42.84038-94.83688
Calvary Cemetery42.73411-94.65976
Cedar Township Cemetery42.58101-94.83732
Clinton - Garfield Cemetery42.80565-94.51999
Dover Township Cemetery42.68908-94.85254
Elfsborg Lutheran Cemetery42.61711-94.68731
Elfsborg Lutheran Cemetery42.61691-94.68719
Grant Township Cemetery42.65797-94.70008
Laurens Cemetery42.84371-94.83272
Lizard Cemetery42.5874-94.47939
Marshall Cemetery42.76337-94.89289
Old Rolfe Cemetery42.84031-94.47652
Palmer Cemetery42.61707-94.58938
Powhatan Cemetery42.85586-94.57986
Saint Columbkille's Cemetery42.64691-94.84453
Saint Johns Catholic Cemetery42.73298-94.46202
Saint Johns Lutheran Cemetery42.62715-94.52014
Saint Josephs Cemetery42.63447-94.6191
Saint Margarets Cemetery42.80569-94.52205
Saint Paul Lutheran Cemetery42.61778-94.58937
Saint Pauls American Lutheran Cemetery42.56092-94.53912
Summit Hill Cemetery42.73164-94.65955
Swan Lake Cemetery42.85112-94.89276
Swedish Mission Bethany Cemetery42.61379-94.67717
Washington Cemetery42.83615-94.7092
Zion Cemetery42.58225-94.82987
Historical populated places — 3 of 3
NameLatLon
Blanden42.5772-94.56137
Lizard42.6347-94.51109
Rolfe42.83747-94.4772

Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain). Cemeteries from the 2021 NationalFile archive; historical places from GNIS HistoricalFeatures topical extract.

Historical markers

HMdb link

Marker text and photos from the Historical Marker Database (HMdb) are not embedded here. HMdb allows non-commercial reuse with attribution, but commercial/compensated use needs written permission; this is a commercial site, so we only link out.

Search HMdb for Pocahontas County, Iowa

Terms: hmdb.org/copyright.asp. Linking is encouraged by HMdb.