Thurman, Iowa, A Town of Many Names

Thurman, in the Loess Hills of Fremont County, started as Plum Hollow in eighteen fifty-six. It was later renamed Thurman, for the politician Allen G. Thurman, and was incorporated in eighteen seventy-nine.

The surrounding landscape shaped its history as much as any name. Fremont County hugs the Missouri River in the extreme southwest corner of Iowa, where the tall Loess Hills roll up from the bottomland. Mormon pioneers crossed southwestern Iowa on their way west in the eighteen forties. Non-native settlement followed in the eighteen fifties, and Thurman grew as a small market stop in the hills. It remains a tiny community today, a few hundred residents tucked into one of Iowa's most distinctive landscapes.