Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Colfax, IA

Colfax is a city in Jasper County, Iowa, about 24 miles east of Des Moines, laid out in 1866 and named for Schuyler Colfax, who served as vice president under Ulysses S. Grant.

Colfax was incorporated on August 10, 1875, making it one of the youngest incorporated towns in Jasper County at the time.

Colfax became famous as "Spring City" after a well drilled for coal in 1875 struck highly mineralized water instead, revealing the first of fourteen mineral springs near the town.

For roughly four decades after 1875, thousands of visitors came to Colfax to take the healing waters, and nine hotels offering mineral baths and spa treatments opened alongside four companies that bottled the spring water for sale.

Coal was Colfax's other boom industry — the Watson No. 1 Mine southeast of town was the first large-scale coal mine in Jasper County, and the Colfax Consolidated Coal Company, formed in 1902, opened Mine No. 8 in 1905, one of the best-equipped mines in Iowa.

The mineral springs resort trade that made Colfax prosperous died out as the Great Depression swept the country in the 1930s.

Colfax received funding in 1912-1913 to build a Carnegie library, and that library is still in use today.

Colfax had 2,255 residents in the 2020 census, living in 874 households, up 7.7% from 2010.

Colfax's population peaked at 2,524 in the 1910 census, at the height of its coal and mineral springs era.

Local students attend the Colfax-Mingo Community School District, created when the Colfax and Mingo districts consolidated on July 1, 1985.