Decatur City, Iowa

Decatur City carries the name of a man who died fighting pirates: Stephen Decatur Junior, the naval hero of the early eighteen hundreds who became famous for his victories in the First Barbary War and the War of eighteen twelve. Decatur County, Iowa, was organized in eighteen fifty and named in his honor. Decatur City served as the county's very first seat of government until eighteen fifty-three, when the county seat was moved to Leon after a public dispute.

The town incorporated in eighteen seventy-five. It never grew large after losing the county seat, and today a few hundred people live here along the Iowa-Missouri border, in a quiet corner of the state near the Grand River.