24/7 Trauma and Biohazard Cleanup in Calamus, IA

Calamus is a small city in Clinton County, Iowa, sitting on US 30 — the historic Lincoln Highway, America's first transcontinental highway for automobiles.

Calamus is the only town in Olive Township, and it took its name from Calamus Creek, named for the sweet flag — Acorus calamus — that grew in great quantities along it.

After a post office was established at the Syracuse crossroads in 1858 and the site proved too swampy, the town was platted at its present location in 1860 by R. S. Dickinson and Colonel Milo Smith.

Calamus was legally incorporated in 1876, and E. F. Owens was elected its first mayor.

Calamus had 356 residents at the 2020 census, living in 165 households, and the town's population peaked at 452 back in 1980.

Olive Township earned the title of Iowa's 'banner township' during the Civil War, when 79 local men volunteered for the Union Army before the draft was even ordered.

Norwegian immigrants began settling the Calamus area in 1853 — the eighth Norwegian settlement in Iowa — and the Calamus Lutheran Parish still unites Our Savior's Kvindherred Lutheran Church and Faith Lutheran Church.

Calamus students belong to the Calamus-Wheatland Community School District, formed by a merger on July 1, 1990, and attend Calamus-Wheatland High School in nearby Wheatland.

Four county parks surround Calamus — Sherman Park, the Syracuse Wildlife Area, Ringneck Marsh Wildlife Management Area, and the Mockridge County Wildlife Preserve — and the Wapsipinicon River Water Trail offers canoeing and kayaking nearby.

When Calamus voters approved a school building bond in 1964, it passed with 92.8 percent of the vote — an all-time record margin in Iowa at the time.