Fort Dodge

Iowa: gypsum-processing plant

Fort Dodge, city, seat (1856) of Webster county, north-central Iowa, U.S. It is situated on both sides of the Des Moines River at its juncture with Lizard Creek, about 90 miles (145 km) northwest of Des Moines. It originated around Fort Clarke, which was established in 1850 to protect settlers from the Sioux, and was renamed the following year for Henry Dodge, U.S. senator from Wisconsin who had fought in the Black Hawk War and other conflicts with Native Americans. When the fort was abandoned in 1853, Major William Williams bought the land and buildings and laid out the town the next year. The community developed as a market-processing centre for the surrounding farmlands and for the area’s large gypsum deposits; gypsum quarried near Fort Dodge was used for a statue that was purported to be a petrified prehistoric man in the celebrated Cardiff Giant hoax.

The manufacture of gypsum products remains important, as does the production of farm machinery, veterinary pharmaceuticals, and chemical fertilizers. Transportation (trucking) is also a major component of the economy. The city’s Fort Museum includes a replica of Fort Williams (a stockade built near the Minnesota border in 1862) and of a frontier village. Fort Dodge is home to the main campus of Iowa Central Community College (1966) and the Blanden Memorial Art Museum. Nearby are Dolliver Memorial State Park (south), Brushy Creek State Recreation Area (southeast), and Kalsow Prairie (west), the latter containing a tract of virgin prairie. Inc. city, 1869. Pop. (2000) 25,136; (2010) 25,206.