October 4, 2016: The sign on US 69 at old IA 179, Main Street into Klemme. County Road B55 is a quarter-mile north.
Compared to nearly all the rest of my final 50 towns or so, Klemme’s population of 507 made it practically a city. It got a day all for itself after I left Algona, taking old US 18 part of the way there. It shares many traits with other towns of its size. The open businesses were the post office, a bar, and a gas station doing double duty as a grocery store. Klemme had lost its bank 11 months earlier. And the school building on the edge of town is abandoned, closed in 2000, a decade after losing the high school to Belmond.
The former bank in Klemme.
I was in town for less than an hour, mostly around the school. When I departed during the noon hour, I was off to Forest City to get a tour of the Winnebago manufacturing facilities.
No fanfare, no selfies, just a note of personal recognition backed up by record-keeping and now this blog post. I have been to every incorporated place in Iowa. I don’t know if anyone else can say that.