Biohazard and Pathogen Disinfection in Amana, IA

Amana, also known as Main Amana, is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Iowa County — it is not an incorporated city and has never had its own municipal government.

Amana is the largest and best known of the seven Amana Colonies villages, alongside East Amana, High Amana, Middle Amana, South Amana, West Amana, and Homestead.

The Amana Colonies were settled by German Radical Pietists known as the Community of True Inspiration, who first lived near Buffalo, New York, before moving to the Iowa River valley beginning in 1855 in search of isolation for their communal way of life.

The Inspirationists bought about 26,000 acres in Iowa County and laid out the first colony village in 1855, holding their land, workshops, and kitchens in common.

Amana's residents lived a fully communal life until the "Great Change" of 1932, when they voted to end communal ownership and reorganize under the for-profit Amana Society, which still owns much of the colonies' land and businesses.

Amana Colony residents dug a six-mile-long millrace canal by hand and ox team in 1861 to power the village's woolen and flour mills.

The Amana Colonies were designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965, and their historic buildings are protected as one of Iowa's most famous heritage districts.

The 2020 census counted 388 people in the Amana CDP, down from 442 in 2010, spread over about 1.1 square miles along Price Creek in the Iowa River valley.

Amana is a major tourist destination known for its family-style German restaurants, craft and furniture shops, woolen mill, and the Millstream Brewing Company, Iowa's oldest microbrewery-era brewery operation in the colonies.

Children in Amana attend Amana Elementary School, located in the village, as part of the Clear Creek Amana school district.