The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗Aurelia was founded in 1873 as a stop along the Illinois Central Railroad branch connecting Sioux City, Iowa, to Chicago, Illinois. This was the only railroad connecting the two Midwestern hubs and so gave birth to many railroad towns. Aurelia was named for the youngest daughter of the owner of the railroad, John Insley Blair, who died in 1866. The location of Aurelia was only set after a last minute change in the railroad design that saw it redirect to go through LeMars and Cherokee, rather than connect Sioux City directly to Storm Lake. Almost 70% of Aurelia's population is people over age 50. Its newspaper is the Aurelia Star which was founded in March 1881 as the Aurelia Sentinel.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Start Aurelia’s collection
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Aurelia’s history is told.
0 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Famous people from Aurelia
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Aurelia, decade by decade
2000
Nothing in Aurelia is on the National Register yet
That’s true of most small towns. It doesn’t mean Aurelia has no history, only that no one has written up a nomination. The closest listed place is Roy C. and Lena (Johnson) Seaman House in Cherokee, 6.1 miles away.
Aurelia and the nearest listed places
Closest to Aurelia
How a place gets listed
Then & now
When neighbors add old photos, retakes from the same spot appear here side by side.
Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom Wikimedia Commons (2). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.