Emergency Crime Scene and Biohazard Cleanup in Zearing, IA

Zearing is a city in Story County in central Iowa that was founded on October 17, 1881 out of Lincoln Township and incorporated on February 6, 1883, at a site chosen because it was a suitable water stop for the railroad.

Zearing was named for William Mitchell Zearing, a judge from Chicago who donated a bell to the first church in the community.

Zearing had 528 residents in the 2020 census living in 231 households, an average of about 2.8 people per household.

Zearing's population peaked at 630 in 1980 and has eased down since, but the town still anchors the northeast corner of Story County about twelve miles northeast of Nevada, the county seat.

Zearing celebrates the Zearing Days Celebration on the last weekend of July, a festival revived in 2000 after lapsing since the 1980s; the first revived edition, 'Just Horsin' Around,' honored the late Dick Sparrow's famous 40-horse hitch.

Zearing has a long tradition of draft horse performers, trainers, and entertainers — including the Sparrow family, Verne Matson, Eric Brown, and Dean Johnston — who worked with large draft horse teams and called the town home.

Zearing is served by the Colo–NESCO Community School District, formed July 1, 1991, where NESCO stands for Northeast Story County; the district's elementary learning center for grades K-4 is located in Zearing.

The entire city covers just 0.75 square miles, and Winters in Zearing bring January average lows in the single digits Fahrenheit.