Twice-A-Week News
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
circa 1897

No characteristic of a community makes a more favorable impression upon the average home-seeker than practical Christianity, exemplified in active church organizations, good parsonages and church edifices. There may be found here and there a man who prefers not to reside in a Christian community, but all are glad to own real estate where Christian influences abound and church services are established. In such a community property rents and sells readily.

Many of the first settlers of Ringgold county were stalwart Christians. On coming to this country they left behind them neither their faith nor good works, but immediately after their arrival they began organizing religious societies and erecting houses of worship. Up to this date church work in all departments has kept pace withthe increase in population, and with all branches of material prosperity. There is to-day seating capacity in the churches of Ringgold county to accommodate the entire population.

Below is given, as furnished by the pastors of the several congregations, the number of parsonages, church buildings, their estimated value, and number of church members. The exhibit is creditable in the matter of religious interests, and puts Ringgold county in the front rank of the counties of southern Iowa. Let the figures speak for themselves.

  Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, May of 2010