24/7 Trauma and Biohazard Cleanup in Ellsworth, IA

Ellsworth was platted in October 1880 by John I. Blair for the Western Town Lot Company, the real estate division of the Toledo and Northwestern Railroad, and the new railroad town drew its first buildings and residents from the nearby settlements of Callanan and Lakin's Grove.

Ellsworth is named to honor the memory of Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth of the Chicago Zouaves, the Union officer killed in Virginia in the early days of the Civil War, a naming explanation confirmed in a 1908 book published by the Chicago and North Western Railway about the origins of its town names.

Ellsworth's original plat had an unusual quirk found in no other Hamilton County town: all seven of its street names begin with the letter D - Decora and Des Moines Avenues running east-west, and Delphi, De Soto, De Witt, Dayton and Dearborn Streets running north-south.

Ellsworth's post office was established on January 20, 1881, inside the general store of John Ringstad and Chris Thoreson, and Ringstad went on to serve as the town's first postmaster, first mayor and first justice of the peace.

Turkey processing became Ellsworth's major industry in the twentieth century, after local banker Homer Brinton helped start the business and the Central Cooperative Turkey Producers of Ellsworth was organized in 1944, producing about 3.5 million pounds of turkey a year at its peak.

Ellsworth sits in southern Hamilton County along Interstate 35 and Iowa Highway 175, in the heart of north-central Iowa farm country.

Ellsworth had exactly the same population, 531 people, in both the 2000 and 2010 censuses, before slipping slightly in 2020.

The 2020 census counted 508 people in Ellsworth living in 209 households, with 148 of those households made up of families.

Ellsworth students are served by the South Hamilton Community School District, which is based in nearby Jewell.