Campustown: A Brief History of the First West Ames

For more than one hundred years, Campustown has served the students and community of Iowa State University. The originally residential neighborhood west of Ames was born in the early 1900s, when the school compelled students to seek residence off campus. However, local government overlooked the neighborhood, and it fell behind the achievements of Big Ames. After the boom of the previous decade, community leaders organized a secession movement in 1916. It took nearly a quarter century, but t...