VINING CITY HALL
407 – 1st Street
P.O. Box 12
Vining, IA 52348
641-489-2802
www.tamacountyiowa.org/vining
QUICK AND EASY INFO
CITY LEADERS
Council meets monthly, 2nd Monday, 7 pm
Mayor Steve Rouse
Council:
Arlo Cibula
Merlin Rouse
Brody Boldt
Jill Apfel
Todd Apfel
THE STORY OF VINING, IOWA:
Vining is Tama County’s smallest incorporated town. Vining first appeared on the map in 1881 with the building of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad, which crossed Tama County from east to west. Vining became known as “The biggest little town in Tama County” because of the large area within its incorporation. It is also known as “The Little Town in the Bohemian Alps”.
Like many other areas in the rural Midwest, the Vining community was first settled almost exclusively by emigrants from Europe—in this case all or nearly all from Bohemia. They and their families quickly became loyal Americans, and many members of the older generation took out United States citizenship papers at the first opportunity. The York Township news correspondent of the Toledo Chronicle wrote this in one of the issues of April 1880: “This neighborhood is gradually giving away to the foreign element. There have been several farms sold here in the past ten years and everyone of them with a single exception has been bought by a Bohemian. There are yet two or three farms to be absorbed in this same way, and then there will be a stretch of country covering seven miles or more occupied entirely by foreigners.”
Vining commemorated its 125th anniversary in 2006 and hosts an annual flea market and auction the first Sunday of April.
Tama County Iowa 
The best little town in Eastern Iowa! Lived there, went to school there, danced in the CSA Karol Jonas Lodge hall when just a little, little girl through high school, attended church at the Congregational Church. Just the best of memories in Vining.