July 23, 2008: RAGBRAI riders stop outside Montour’s most famous institution, Rube’s Steakhouse. Rube’s turns 50 this year. RAGBRAI bounced off the corner of Montour in 2023 despite the locals’ best efforts to get riders to divert.
The southern Tama County town of Montour is older than it looks.
The railroad known for most of the 20th Century as the Chicago & North Western made its way across Tama County during the Civil War. There was a town in the area, Butlerville, but because it “was on such high ground and would necessitate a steep grade, the surveyors bypassed it and laid the track to the south about a mile,” says the 1987 History of Tama County, Iowa. This town was called Orford, after a town in New Hampshire, but mail kept getting sent to Oxford.
Butlerville, located at the intersection of present US 30 and T47 northwest of Montour, withered away. By the time the Lincoln Highway came through, it was too late.
On March 3, 1873, Orford residents voted to change the town’s name to Montour, the history book says. That makes 2023 the 150th anniversary of the name, and that’s how the town is celebrating. The Tama-Toledo News-Chronicle has a feature about the town and its plans for celebration Saturday. There’s a full schedule of events and a pulled pork lunch.