Our Community

Council Bluffs, Iowa, a community with pride for its past and present, is a great place to live. More and more people are finding that the natural beauty, the strong economy and excellent schools offered by Council Bluffs make it irresistible.

For recreational entertainment or just good life opportunities, the area is full of promise. Council Bluffs is located in Southwest Iowa on the banks of the Missouri River. It is the county seat of Pottawattamie County.

Other Pottawattamie County communities include Avoca, Carson, Carter Lake, Crescent, Hancock, Macedonia, McClelland, Minden, Neola, Oakland, Treynor, Underwood and Walnut. Located just eight miles from Omaha, Nebraska, the Council Bluffs area has everything offered by a metropolitan area, without the drawbacks of a large city.

History of Council Bluffs

In the early 1800s, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark explored what is today known as Council Bluffs. But for nearly a hundred years before Lewis and Clark, French and Spanish explorers and traders were prevalent in the area. Besides white visitors, Missouri and Otoe Indians were inhabitants of the land.

This area, known as "councile bluff," provided the model for future meetings with the Native Americans, which is where the city gets its name.

Before it was named Council Bluffs, in the mid-1800s, the area was known as Kanesville. The name Kanesville came from Mormon refugees who passed through the area. The name honored Thomas Kane, who was sympathetic to the plight of the Mormons who passed through the area fleeing religious persecution.

In 1853 Kanesville was renamed Council Bluffs, a town that had flourished as an outfitting post as prospectors came west with the California Gold Rush of 1849.

After being elected to the presidency, Abraham Lincoln named Council Bluffs the eastern terminus of the first transcontinental railroad. With rail service, Council Bluffs became a rail center and the great mail-handling terminal for the American West. Eventually the railroad helped transform Council Bluffs into a bustling center of commerce. Statistics from 1954 show that one quarter of the city's population was supported by railroading, while Council Bluffs ranked as the fifth largest railroad center in the nation.

Currently, local industry includes everything from specialized sound equipment to : teleservices, insurance and; printing. Other, more traditional industries such as iron pipe, frozen foods, pork and beef packing, and furniture distribution thrive also. The recent introduction of the gaming industry has expanded the local economy, too.

Climate

Summers in Council Bluffs are warm, with an average temperature of 74 degrees. Winters are cold, with an average temperature of 25 degrees. March through September is the time of the year in which most of the precipitation falls in the form of showers and thunderstorms.

POPULATION

Council Bluffs has a population of approximately 56,000 and Pottawattamie County has approximately 87,000. Omaha has a population of approximately 373,000 and the metro region which includes Council Bluffs has a population of more than 702,000.