(62) Kossuth County 12.6.2025

December 06, 2025

(62) Kossuth County 12.6.2025

Kossuth—the county of counties, arguably the largest county in Iowa, only because it “ate” another county (Bancroft). Three times an attempt has been made to make another county out of north Kossuth but alas Kossuth remains a single, large county. We decided it would be best to start our day in the northern portion in the “ghost county” to really get a feel for Kossuth County. We took a stroll down the main street in Bancroft and stopped at this beautiful church.

We headed back to the southern portion of the county and stopped in Titonka for their “Christmas in Titonka” event. We enjoyed perusing the vendor fair and enjoyed traditional baked goods from this region (kringla and rosette among our favorites). We even got to take a ride in a fire truck- in all of the counties we’ve been to, this was a first!

Travis’ one wish Titonka was to take a “bison” picture in front of a “Titonka” sign, so here we are- how appropriate 😊

Roadside stop on our way out of town: the Last Indian battle in Iowa!

We passed through Burt on our way

And ended the day in Algona. We couldn’t resist stopping Volume J. We’ve been to numerous train depots in our county adventures but have never been to one that has been turned into a bookstore. It was beautifully done, and we all decided we could have spent the whole afternoon there if a winter storm wasn’t on its way!

We went to main street Algona and did some antiquing

Before heading over to AK’s Chrome Kitchen which we would highly recommend- all of our dishes were delicious!

We also stopped at the Feedmill Coffee Co- another great place for a treat in Algona!

Onto the main two exhibits for Kossuth County: the Algona Prisoner of War Museum and the Algona POW Nativity Scene (which are in two separate locations). As it is the Advent season, our activity for the day was to visit a Nativity and we’ve been waiting to get to see this one. Both the museum and the Nativity Scene did not disappoint. The museum was really well done with lots of personal stories about the different POW’s and had uniforms to try on, you could hold the different weaponry and even climb into a military jeep from WWII. And although the Nativity scene is just that, the size and detail was amazing. Definitely worth the day trip to see even if it meant driving home in a snow storm!