Ansgar school district years ago, left for another district and returned in 2013 as middle and high school principal. 'People take a lot of pride here,' said Lynn Baldus, who taught in the St. Critical establishments have survived competition from online and chain stores in larger communities, including a grocery store, a pharmacy, a medical center, a few restaurants and bars, and other assorted shops and services - largely because the community supports them, locals said. Ansgar has withstood the creep of rundown homes and boarded-up businesses plaguing many rural towns. Perhaps most revealing is a drive through the town with its one flashing traffic light. The population that declined by 20 percent in the 2000s - from about 1,220 in 1999 to 959 in 2007 - has rebounded 20 percent over the past 10 years. Census Bureau five-year community surveys. The proportion of people aged 20 to 34 increased from 8.8 percent to 15.8 percent from 2006-10 to 2011-15, according to U.S. The DeMarises are among a wave of younger adults moving back. Residents had all but given up on buying big-ticket items locally, according to the study, which was based on a random survey of townspeople. Ansgar 'is unique' in that the majority stayed local for health care, church and shopping for daily needs - yet over the years, even those sectors saw significant declines. Its home county, Mitchell, with 10,779 people, is one of Iowa's smallest counties and among 73 that have lost population since 1980.Īn Iowa State University decennial study - in 1994, 20 - on life in small towns found St. It is projected to decrease 12 percent over the next five years, to 557 by the 2021-22 school year. ![]() School district enrollment - an indicator of the future - has decreased by 5 percent in the past five years, from 665 students to 630. The median age rose from 42 in 2010 to 47 in 2015, which is 9 years older than the state median. It's older and aging more than Iowa as a whole. ![]() Read more: Iowa's changing demographics > Source: Woods and Poole Economics Inc 2015 Ansgar bears similarities to many struggling places in rural America. That quality of life - the connectedness - appealed to the DeMarises, who've settled in, with Katie finding a local yoga group and Tyler a spin class, and friends who enjoy a beer and a fire along the Cedar River.ĭemographically, St. Ansgar residents could name at least half the people in town. A 2014 Iowa State University survey of small town life found 53 percent of St. The albino deer that pranced around the woods for nearly a decade in the 1980s now stands stuffed on display in the town center. The town is known for its annual Oatmeal Days, which is a nod to the local oat processor and largest employer, Grain Millers. Population centers of Mason City to the south and Austin, Minn., to the north - each with about 25,000 people - are a half-hour's drive away, as are major thoroughfares Interstate 35 and 90.Ĭedar Rapids, Des Moines and the Twin Cities are each about a two-hour drive away. Ansgar, founded by Norwegian immigrant farmers in 1853 and named for the patron saint of Scandinavia, is located along Highway 218 and the Cedar River. You will begin to receive our Daily News updates. Add your contacts. ![]() Surprising everyone, including their bosses, family and friends, they quit their near six-figure jobs, sold their hillside home overlooking the Mississippi River and moved from one of Iowa's growing areas to a county that's been shrinking since the 1960s to buy a hardware store. Last fall when John Deere offered a separation agreement, they crunched the numbers and suddenly the timing made sense. They'd never owned a business, but they were handy, and each had master's in business administration degrees. The DeMarises were interested, but the timing was off. Ansgar, a farming town of 1,156 people near the Minnesota border, in the plains of central Iowa, was put up for sale. They missed having family nearby, and Deere had been cutting jobs.Ī few years earlier the hardware store in Tyler's hometown of St. 'We were super busy at work, super busy at home, and with a two-, three- and five-year-old, it wasn't going to get any easier. 'We were constantly working, and if we climbed higher, we'd just get busier,' added Tyler, 31.
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