Biohazard Cleanup Near South Latimer Latimer, IA

Latimer is a small city in Franklin County in north-central Iowa, about seven miles southeast of the county seat, Hampton.

Latimer got its start in 1882 with the coming of the Iowa Central Railroad - founder J. F. Latimer laid out and platted the town in November 1882 and gave it his own name.

Latimer's post office was established in September 1882, and the town was incorporated in 1901, voting in a $6,000 city waterworks the following year.

The 2020 census counted 477 people in Latimer living in 191 households and 118 families.

Latimer's population peaked at 535 in the 2000 census and has eased back since, following the pattern of many small north Iowa farm towns.

Latimer reflects the Danish heritage of its early settlers - St. Peter's Danish Lutheran Church was organized in 1883, the year after the town was platted, and St. Paul's Lutheran Church followed on March 3, 1895.

Latimer's Farmers' Cooperative Creamery, founded in 1895, was an early anchor of the local farm economy.

Latimer once had its own newspaper, the Latimer Star, which published from 1901 until 1918, when its news moved into a column in the Hampton Chronicle.

Latimer is one of the three towns in the CAL Community School District - Coulter, Alexander, and Latimer - whose campus sits just south of Latimer.