The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗The first settlers came to Norwalk area about 1846. One of them, Samuel Crow, settled near the North River. The first construction on the site that is now Norwalk began with a log cabin built by Samuel Snyder. The following year more families settled in the little town known as Pyra. A post office was established in the town on June 18, 1856. George W. Swan laid out the town and erected a hotel. Mr. Swan, who was born in Norwalk, Connecticut and was associated with a newspaper in Norwalk, Ohio, changed the town's name to Norwalk. The first railroad into town was constructed in 1882 a narrow gauge line from Des Moines to Cainsville, Missouri. In the 1890s the railroad was acquired by a subsidiary of the Burlington Railroad and was widened to standard gauge. Its primary use was for shipping the farmers’ livestock to various markets. The line was abandoned in 1947, after a flood had severe…
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Start Norwalk’s collection
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Norwalk’s history is told.
0 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Norwalk, decade by decade
2000
Nothing in Norwalk is on the National Register yet
That’s true of most small towns. It doesn’t mean Norwalk has no history, only that no one has written up a nomination. The closest listed place is Fort Des Moines Provisional Army Officer Training School in Des Moines, 4.8 miles away.
Norwalk and the nearest listed places
Closest to Norwalk
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 (4). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.