Kossuth
KOSSUTH COUNTY:
- Kossuth County (pop. 15,114) is the largest county in Iowa and was named for the Hungarian patriot, Lajos Kossuth.
- The northern part of Kossuth County was originally a separate county called Bancroft County. Algona area leaders petitioned the Iowa Legislature to rescind that county, and make it part of Kossuth County, because it was mainly covered with wetlands and sloughs, not suitable for settlers to farm and make a living there.
- Land speculators eventually bought land in the north half of Kossuth County. There was a massive effort to build large steam-powered dredges to dig drainage ditches to drain the marsh land. Efforts to drain the area east of the City of Bancroft (pop. 705) were not successful, so officials decided to make the remaining wetlands into the Union Slough National Wildlife Refuge. At the refuge, visitors can get an idea of what northern Iowa looked like in the 1850’s.
- The City of Algona (pop. 5,515) derived its current name from a native term for Algonquin waters and was originally named Valley City.
- The pride and joy of the City of Bancroft is the baseball stadium - Bancroft Memorial Park - and baseball in general. The stadium is used by the Bandits, a summer league featuring college players from around the country who board with residents. The classic wooden grandstand used as the stadium was built in 1948. Even though the ballpark is over seventy years old, it has a state of the art flood light system, an irrigation system for the infield and new scoreboard that was financed thanks to a community crowdfunding effort.
