Emergency Crime Scene and Biohazard Cleanup in Algona, IA

Algona is the county seat of Kossuth County, which at about 973 square miles of land is the largest county in Iowa, and it was named for Hungarian patriot Lajos Kossuth.

Algona was founded in 1854 by brothers Ambrose and Asa Call, among the first settlers of Kossuth County, and its name comes from an Algonquian word meaning 'Algonquin waters.'

The 2020 census counted 5,487 people in Algona living in 2,429 households, including 1,369 families.

During World War II, Camp Algona just west of town held nearly 10,000 German prisoners of war between 1943 and 1946 and served as the main camp for 34 branch POW camps across Iowa, Minnesota and the Dakotas.

German prisoners at Camp Algona built a large Nativity scene of 65 half-life-size figures and donated it to the town when the war ended; it is still displayed each year at the Kossuth County Fairgrounds, and the Camp Algona POW Museum preserves the camp's story, which was also dramatized in the 2022 film 'Silent Night in Algona.'

Downtown Algona's Henry Adams Building, designed by famed architect Louis Sullivan in 1913, is counted among Sullivan's celebrated 'Jewel Box' bank buildings.

Ambrose A. Call State Park, named for one of the town's founders, sits about two miles southwest of Algona along the East Fork Des Moines River.

Algona was home to Methodist-sponsored Algona College from 1869 to 1875, one of several short-lived frontier colleges in Iowa.

In the 1890s Algona took part in the Orphan Train movement and welcomed nearly 100 orphaned children sent west from New York City, many of whom stayed as lifelong residents.

From 1902 to 1906 Algona hosted the Algona Brownies, a barnstorming baseball team that began as one of the era's rare interracial teams and won the Western championship in 1903.