Carlisle

History

Jeremiah "Uncle Jerry" Church was an early settler in Iowa, who arrived in Fort Des Moines in the summer of 1845. He laid out a new town in Polk County, just north of the border with Warren, in the winter of 1845 that he named Dudley. This was his second attempt at platting the town, the first attempt he had named Liberty and abandoned because the place that he had chosen turned out to be school land. The tale goes that he staked his claim of Dudley at midnight on 1845-10-11 by the light of some burning Native American dwellings that he had set on fire. Church's plans for Dudley were ambitious; he wanted it to rival Des Moines, ran a ferry to the location himself, and even invited the territorial commissioners to consider it as a candidate for county seat of Polk County. But the town did not last very long, as it was destroyed by the Flood of 1851, the commissioners having earlier noted in their rejection of it for county seat that it was located on low ground. So Church, who also founded Brooklyn, Iowa alongside T. K. Brooks and William Lamb (a town that he put forward as a contender for the state capital), set out on his third attempt at a town in Polk, which he named Carlisle and laid out in 1851 with David Moore. This was also located in Polk, south-west of the former Dudley, but the county borders were changed in 1852, which relocated it to the southern half of Allen Township, which was split in two in order to restore a so-called "stolen strip" in the north of Warren County. Church himself had been the first merchant in Dudley, but the first merchant in its replacement was Abraham Shoemaker, previously a businessman in Dudley. Other firsts were Robert Nicholson, first mayor; Albert Petrie, the first child born there; William Buxton who built the first flour…

Geography

Carlisle is located between the North and Middle Rivers, near their confluences with the Des Moines River. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all land. The Summerset Trail has its northern terminus at Carlisle.

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  4,101
• Northern Cardinal

  Cardinalis cardinalis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  3,925
• House Sparrow

  Passer domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  3,180
• Downy Woodpecker

  Dryobates pubescens (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  2,979
• Black-capped Chickadee

  Poecile atricapillus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  2,900
• Blue Jay

  Cyanocitta cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  2,895
• Red-bellied Woodpecker

  Melanerpes carolinus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  2,847
• White-breasted Nuthatch

  Sitta carolinensis Latham, 1790 · Aves
  2,829

Largest nearby schools

• Lincoln High School
  High · Des Moines · 2,403 students · 26.7:1 ratio
• Southeast Polk High School
  High · Pleasant Hill · 2,353 students · 19:1 ratio
• East High School
  High · Des Moines · 2,040 students · 21.7:1 ratio
• North High School
  High · Des Moines · 1,458 students · 22.1:1 ratio
• Southeast Polk Junior High
  Middle · Pleasant Hill · 1,088 students · 16.5:1 ratio
• Weeks Middle School
  Middle · Des Moines · 684 students · 18:1 ratio
• Virtual Campus
  High · Des Moines · 668 students · 17.6:1 ratio
• Clay Elementary
  Elementary · Altoona · 657 students · 17.8:1 ratio

Most recent

• M 2.5 — 2025-06-25
  10 km WNW of Marysville, Iowa
• M 3 — 2025-06-25
  5 km S of Knoxville, Iowa
• M 3.3 — 2025-06-25
  8 km SE of Knoxville, Iowa