page_title: Colfax Township, Dallas County, Iowa
section_title: Kennedy Station
hierarchical_section_title: Colfax Township, Dallas County, Iowa / History / Kennedy Station
caption_attribution_description: Kennedy Station, Iowa
context_page_description: Colfax Township is a township in Dallas County, Iowa, United States. As of the 2000 census, its population was 403.
context_section_description: In 1879 the railroad was constructed through Colfax Township of Dallas County, Iowa. Kennedy Station, named from Francis A. Kennedy who owned the land, became a thriving and prosperous community. Its livelihood centered on the train depot. With no other close-by businesses, a small community sprang up, including a small post office, the depot, a grain elevator, a lumberyard, a stockyard, a blacksmith, and three residences. The population soon grew to nineteen.
  As an important gathering place, the blacksmith shop kept busy with shoeing horses, building hayrack and buggy wheels, and fixing just about anything that broke. This business was much appreciated by the farmers from the surrounding area.
  The country store burned down in 1932. Then as roads improved, the population began traveling to the nearby towns of Adel and Redfield to obtain their much needed supplies. By 1958 the community was nearly gone, with only the grain elevator as a reminder. Today, even that landmark has disappeared. 
  “My interest in Kennedy Station is personal, for my childhood years were spent on a farm overlooking the area,” remarked Hazel Whitney of Redfield, Iowa.
  The train was always extremely important to the little settlement. Hazel explained, “They unloaded a lot of grain in Kennedy. You have to remember Kennedy was a community without trucks, and you had to hitch up horses to wagons and haul the grain to market. I can remember when we rode the train to the State Fair in Des Moines because we didn’t have cars.”
  Kennedy was a rural community and many memories touch upon that agricultural existence. Ruby Wicks remembered one particular incident: “My brother and three sisters were shocking in the field. It was a very hot day, 106 or 107 degrees, and we kept getting thirsty. We kept our water in a stone jar under a shock of oats to keep it cool. We were busy working while the train went through. The conductor saw us girls out there and he threw us each a piece of ice to put in our jar of water. We thought we were in heaven with ice cold water to drink.”
  — Ann Pearson, The Town That Almost Was, Wildrows, Vol.4, No.1 Spring 1981
caption: Kennedy Grain Elevator
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