Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Eddyville, IA

Eddyville is one of the few Iowa cities where three counties meet within the city limits: the community straddles Wapello, Mahaska, and Monroe counties.

Around 1839, following the Black Hawk War, a Sauk village led by Chief Hard Fish (Wish-e-co-ma-que) was established on the Eddyville site along the Des Moines River.

In 1840 or 1841, before Iowa was a state, Jabish P. Eddy was permitted to open a trading post in Hard Fish's village, where pioneers could trade and ford the Des Moines River.

J. P. Eddy became the area's Indian agent and set aside some of his own land for the town that took his name; the area opened to white settlement in 1843 and Eddyville was formally incorporated in 1857.

The first commercial coal mines in Wapello County were opened near Eddyville, with several coal banks - including the Roberts Mine directly across the Des Moines River - in operation by 1857.

Local oral history holds that a two-story house that once stood at the northwest corner of Seventh and Vance Streets in Eddyville served as a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Eddyville had 970 residents living in 398 households at the time of the 2020 census.

Eddyville's population peaked at 1,230 residents in the 1900 census.

Cargill operates a large corn processing plant in Eddyville that dominates the town's skyline and produces ethanol, high fructose corn syrup, and gluten, while Ajinomoto and Wacker Chemie also run plants in town.

Eddyville sits on the east bank of a bend in the Des Moines River about 15 miles northwest of Ottumwa, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built levees to protect it after major floods in 1947 and 1965.