24/7 Trauma & Biohazard Cleanup Near South Eldon Eldon, IA

Eldon is a small city in the southeast corner of Wapello County, eleven miles southeast of Ottumwa on the northeast bank of the Des Moines River.

Eldon is world-famous as the home of the American Gothic House - the little Carpenter Gothic farmhouse that Grant Wood used as the backdrop for his 1930 painting American Gothic, one of the most recognizable images in American art.

The house, known locally as the Dibble House, was built in 1881-1882 by Charles and Catherine Dibble, and Wood spotted its distinctive Gothic window while passing through Eldon in 1930 on his way to an art exhibition.

Eldon brands itself "Home of the Gothic House" - the Dibble House window even appears in the city's logo - and the American Gothic House Center next door welcomed roughly 16,000 visitors a year before the pandemic.

Eldon got its start in 1870, following construction of the Keokuk and Des Moines Railway through the territory, and it was incorporated in 1872.

Eldon hosts the Wapello County Fair, which has been running since 1868 - older than the town itself.

Beyond the Gothic House, Eldon has three more National Register of Historic Places listings: the McHaffey Opera House, the Eldon Public Library (its Carnegie library), and the Big 4 Fair Art Hall, plus a preserved historic Rock Island Railway depot.

In the 1990s Eldon had a brush with TV fame when Roseanne Barr and Ottumwa-born Tom Arnold ran Roseanne and Tom's Big Food Diner in town from 1993 to 1995.

The 2020 census counted 783 people in Eldon living in 361 households - a far cry from its railroad-era peak of 2,091 residents in 1920.

Eldon students attend the Cardinal Community School District, whose Comets teams draw together Eldon, Agency, Batavia, and the unincorporated communities of Selma and Bladensburg from a campus just north of town.