Iowa’s unique 99-counties-100-seats arrangement will be put to the test in November, when Lee County votes on a bond issue to build one new courthouse.
The Fort Madison Daily Democrat says the county supervisors approved the ballot on a 3-2 vote, but the bond issue does not say where the new courthouse would be. One supervisor supports having the courthouse by the Lee County Jail. While an AP article says this would be “adjacent to the sheriff’s office in Montrose”, this is a red herring. The sheriff’s office is at the intersection of US 61 and J62, just across the railroad tracks from land that Fort Madison has annexed southwestward. The area could easily go from officially unincorporated to part of what is now the North Lee County seat. (If the courthouse would actually be placed in Montrose, or even Donnellson, that would make for a fascinating split-the-baby/third-party-wins scenario.)
The courthouse in Fort Madison claims to be the oldest in continuous use in Iowa, 1911 fire notwithstanding (Van Buren County’s was started earlier but finished later). There hasn’t been a change in Iowa’s county seats since Cedar Rapids wrested the designation from Marion in 1919.