Retiring Guy's Digest: U.S. Census Bureau's 2022 population estimates: Iowa's 49th smallest county (Hamilton) has fewer residents than it did in 1890

Iowa has 99 counties.

87.7% Trumpy white (62.4% of the vote in 2020) Hamilton County's population has decreased 30% since its 20,978 peak of 1930.

Sources: Wikipedia (1860-2020), U.S. Census Bureau (2022)

The Guardian, 5/5/2022

Unwittingly, Carter had settled down in the epicenter of Iowa’s explosive growth of hog farms, known as confinements. These facilities, which house thousands of animals in sheds, have allowed the state’s hog population to more than double since 1982 – it now raises nearly a third of US hogs. Hamilton county is home to fewer than 15,000 people and more than 1 million hogs.

Over the decades, as hog farms surrounded their home, the Carters say the odor of manure became an eye-stinging, nose-burning nuisance. The smell disrupted everyday life, Kathy says. Most oppressive were days when neighboring farms emptied the manure pits under the confinements and spread the waste as fertilizer on fields across the road. “It would take a full week before we could even stand to be outside,” Lew says. “We didn’t dare open our windows.” [emphasis added]