Emergency Crime Scene and Biohazard Cleanup in Kalona, IA

Kalona is a city in Washington County in southeastern Iowa and the second-largest city in the county; it is part of the Iowa City metropolitan area.

Kalona is nicknamed the "Quilt Capital of Iowa."

Amish settlers began arriving in the Kalona area in the 1840s, making them among the first European settlers there.

The countryside around Kalona holds Iowa's oldest Amish settlement, founded in 1846, and one of the largest Amish settlements west of the Mississippi River, with roughly 1,200 people in eleven church districts.

The town of Kalona itself was established by the railroad on August 6, 1879, and its name was suggested by a Mr. Myers, who owned a bull named Kalona; the town remained unincorporated until 1890.

The 2020 census counted 2,630 people in Kalona, living in 1,110 households and 680 families.

Kalona has grown in every census since 1910, rising from just 466 residents that year to 2,630 in 2020.

The Kalona Historical Village, an open-air museum of thirteen historic buildings including the town's 1879 railroad depot, houses the Iowa Mennonite Archives.

Kalona's New Order Amish are among the most liberal Amish groups in their use of technology and permit tractors for field work.

Noah Troyer, one of only two Amish-Mennonite "sleeping preachers" known for preaching while in trances, lived three miles north of Kalona.