North Central Iowa

North Central Iowa covers the broad agricultural country between Des Moines and the Minnesota line, the rolling till plain that has shaped the state’s farm economy for more than a century. The terrain is famously flat — corn-and-soybean country broken by the Iowa River, the Cedar, and the Des Moines as they cut south — with shallow glacial lakes scattered through the northern counties. Thirteen counties cover the region. Cerro Gordo holds Mason City (Music Man country, with a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed bank and the Stockman House); Hancock holds Clear Lake (with the Surf Ballroom, where Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper played their last show in 1959); Webster holds Fort Dodge; Hardin holds Iowa Falls; Winnebago and Worth carry the lakes-and-rolling-country in the north. Most trips here center on Mason City and Clear Lake. The Buddy Holly memorial walking tour at Clear Lake — Surf Ballroom, the crash site north of town, the annual Winter Dance Party — pulls music-history visitors; Mason City runs Meredith Willson and Wright itineraries (the Stockman House, Music Man Square); the surrounding lake country handles fishing, swimming, and small-town summer festivals.