Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Ocheyedan Ocheyedan, IA

Ocheyedan is a city in Osceola County in far northwest Iowa, about ten miles south of the Minnesota border, pronounced 'oh-CHEED-en' — Reader's Digest once declared it the most difficult-to-pronounce place name in Iowa.

The name Ocheyedan comes from the Dakota words Acheya or Akicheya, meaning 'to mourn as for a dead relative'; Native people called the area a mourning ground, commemorating two boys killed there by tribal enemies.

Ocheyedan got its start in 1884, when the Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern Railroad crossed northern Osceola County and settlers began building on the rise north of the tracks.

The town incorporated in 1891, with W. E. Ely as its first mayor, and its first newspaper was printed that same year.

Just southeast of town rises the Ocheyedan Mound, a glacial kame of sand and gravel that climbs about 170 feet above the surrounding plain to an elevation of 1,655 feet.

For generations the Ocheyedan Mound was believed to be the highest point in Iowa, until surveyors confirmed in 1971 that Hawkeye Point, near Sibley, stands 15 feet taller at 1,670 feet.

The 2020 census counted 439 people in Ocheyedan, living in 211 households, down from the town's peak of 712 residents in 1940.

Ocheyedan is served by the Sibley-Ocheyedan Community School District, created on July 1, 1985, by merging the Sibley and Ocheyedan districts; the district closed Ocheyedan Elementary School in 2009 as enrollment fell.

Rush Lake, covering about 548 acres near town, is the largest lake in Osceola County, and the Ocheyedan River flows southwest of the city.