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Iowa Valley Introduction

Scenic Byway

Corridor The Iowa Valley Scenic Byway (IVSB) is the premier touring route connecting the National Historic
Landmark seven villages of the Amana Colonies to the only remaining tribally owned lands in Iowa,
the Meskwaki Nation Settlement. The IVSB’s 77-mile-long route follows a picturesque stretch of
the meandering Iowa River. The Byway corridor—which includes the roadway and its viewshed—
encompasses 299,352 acres in Benton, Iowa, Poweshiek and Tama counties. In between the
anchor communities of the Meskwaki Nation and the Amanas are picturesque towns and villages,
set amid the river valley and rolling hills locally known as the “Bohemian Alps.”

The Byway is a partner site within the Silos and Smokestacks National Heritage Area (SSNHA)—
commemorated to preserve and tell the story of American agriculture, its dominant trends, and
the expanding capacity of American farms to feed the nation and the world. No other region in the
nation has this distinct designation, and the Byway lies at its very heart.

The Meskwaki Nation Settlement offers a unique story: here, the Meskwaki became one of the first
tribes in North America to purchase their own land communally, rather than live on a government
reservation. The tribe bought their first 80 acres along the Iowa River in 1857. Today, the Meskwaki
community is thriving, with more than 8,000 acres owned by the tribe.

As the largest and most systematically developed communal site in the United States, the utopian
Amana Colonies were designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965. There are over 960
Amana-associated buildings, structures, and sites, and over 21,000 acres of Amana Society-
owned cropland, pasture and timber within the Amana Historic District, all related to the German-
speaking, Community of True Inspiration Pietists who settled the area beginning in the 1850s.
At first glance, the Iowa River and the Byway seem the only connections between two distinct
cultural groups who settled there permanently beginning in the 1850s. However, the Byway
enables a deeper storytelling of the striking parallels between the Meskwaki and the Community
of True Inspiration peoples. For the Meskwaki, the Byway region reestablished a traditional
homeland. For Inspirationists, the Byway also was a place of refuge, in their case offering a chance
to freely practice religion and an accordant communal way of life. Both groups’ core values—
resilience, endurance, persistence, continuity, cohesion, and independence—link two compelling