(30) Ringgold County 4.14.2023

Ringgold County started off with a rare Iowa sighting- the Greater Prairie Chicken at the Kellerton Chicken Prairie Preserve! Although they were only visible through a looking scope, it was still quite the site to see. We all thoroughly enjoyed seeing these previously extinct to Iowa birds! This is the only place in Iowa to see them so definitely worth the drive.

Just outside of Kellerton is the Lesanville Bed and Breakfast, which holds a few of the original buildings from the Lesanville ghost town. You can call to schedule a tour of the buildings or stay at the bed and breakfast and tour the buildings that way. Something neat to come back to or possibly stay at! We weren’t able to do either on this trip.

We made our way to Mount Ayr and stopped at The Mill Coffee Shop and General Store. It was a cute little shop with delicious scones; unfortunately, the coffee wasn't quite as good 😊

We found this relic on the courthouse town square so couldn’t resist taking a photo!

The RAYR Market was grilling out on the square so we enjoyed some fresh hot bbq! The Market itself has a lot of local meat and dairy products; such a cute little market! There were a few other boutiques that we perused as well!

 

We headed to Redding—not California—but the Iowa Redding, on the search for some Amish stores, but they must have all closed down because the only thing left was this park on the town square. We weren’t too sad about going out of the way to Redding though because we also happened upon this prairie burn, which was pretty cool to observe. There was the J&L Country Store that we stopped at but it ended up just being a “bent and dent” type store so it didn’t have what we were looking for.

We then made our way to Diagonal for a tour of the Diagonal Printing Museum. Although this was pretty similar to a lot of the other county museums we’ve gone to, the woman who gave us the tour knew a ton of the local history so we really enjoyed getting to hear some of the more detailed history of Diagonal. 

We found out there is extensive Bohemian roots and we also really enjoyed the Knowlton diorama that a local woman made to preserve the history of this Iowa ghost town. There were a ton of pictures on the walls showing how the woman replicated for the diorama.

 

Diagonal also has a standing “Tractor Pull” track complete with bleachers—so far the only standing tractor pull track that we’ve seen in Iowa!

 

We definitely had to stop at the “Marshalltown Cemetery” that is NOT in Marshalltown, Iowa, where Travis was born and raised. The town of Marshall was a stagecoach stop that died once the railroads were established. 

We then tried to visit the Dragoon Nature Center and were super excited because it’s a new building with live animal exhibits, but unfortunately it was closed that day for “staffing transitions.” We peaked in the windows, and it definitely looks like a really neat conservation center so definitely check it out if you’re in the area—but maybe you should call ahead to make sure they’re there!

After this let down, we made our way to Beaconsfield to see the location of the first Hy-Vee Supply Store in 1930! The town of Beaconsfield is trying to raise money to restore it to its former glory 😊 We also found out that Beaconsfield is the home of astronaut Peggy Whitson who spent 665 days in space!

 

One thing we noticed during our travels through Ringgold County were all the cattle farms. They farm cattle more than crops here because of the hilly terrain. It’s definitely a different landscape than a lot of Iowa and very beautiful looking out at the rolling hills spotted with cows- cows are also Angie’s favorite animals so she really enjoyed it 😊

 

We weren’t originally planning on going to Ellston but had a little extra time since the Dragoon Nature Center was closed. We ended up stopping to play at the park and happened to see these old buildings next to it. Upon a closer look we found out they were the Cornwall Home/Rural School House/Pioneer Museum that is open on Sundays from 1-4pm June-August. We hadn’t found anything about this in our research on Ringgold County so it could be something fun to come back to and check out.

 

We made our way back to Mount Ayr for a little bit of dinner. We decided to stop at the Dari Treat, but unfortunately it was a bit of a let down for both the food and ice cream. Thankfully we were headed to the Princess Theater afterwards to watch the new Super Mario Brothers movie, so we just ordered a large bucket of popcorn to make up for it! 

So ended our adventures in Ringgold County!

Return Rating: 2

Other things to see/do:

• Fife’s Grove Park, Mt. Ayr
• Poe Hollow Park, Mt. Ayr
• Lesanville, east of Mt. Ayr
• Dragoon Nature Center, Mt. Ayr
• Cornwall Home/Rural School House/Pioneer Museum, Ellston