Who's Who of Iowa

Notable Families, Companies & People

The families, companies, and figures behind Iowa — plus the great American family dynasties — profiled from public sources and organized by region. See a name on a park, a building, or a business? Find out who they are.

Ankeny

11 profiles ›

The Ankeny FamilyThe Des Moines doctor-turned-railroad-promoter the city of Ankeny is named for — though the family never lived here.Read profile →The Albaugh FamilyThe family behind Albaugh, LLC — the world's largest privately held crop-protection company, built from Ankeny.Read profile →The Lamberti FamilyThe Italian-immigrant coal miner's family that grew a Des Moines corner store into Ankeny's Fortune 500 pizza-and-fuel giant, Casey's.Read profile →The Elwell FamilyThe developer who shaped much of commercial Ankeny — and helped bring Casey's headquarters, Target, and Tone's to town.Read profile →John Deere Des Moines WorksThe wartime ammunition plant that became a John Deere factory — and helped turn Ankeny into a city.Read profile →The Tone FamilyThe brothers who built Iowa's spice empire in 1873 — and brought Tone's to Ankeny in 1994.Read profile →AccumoldThe Ankeny garage start-up that became a world leader in micro-molding — plastic parts smaller than a pencil eraser.Read profile →Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC)The community college that has anchored Ankeny since 1966 — now the largest in Iowa.Read profile →The Baker Family (Baker Group)The family plumbing shop that grew into one of the Midwest's largest building-systems contractors — now employee-owned and Ankeny-based.Read profile →PurFoods (Mom's Meals)The Ankeny company behind Mom's Meals — home-delivered, medically-tailored meals shipped to seniors and patients nationwide.Read profile →General Marcellus M. CrockerThe Union general whose name marks the township Ankeny grew up in — and Ankeny's Crocker Elementary.Read profile →

Des Moines Metro

18 profiles ›

The Krause FamilyFour generations of a Hampton, Iowa family that built Kum & Go into a c-store empire — and sold it in 2023.Read profile →The Meredith FamilyThe Des Moines family that turned a farm magazine into Better Homes & Gardens.Read profile →The Hubbell FamilyGenerations of Des Moines real estate — and the family that saved Terrace Hill.Read profile →The Ruan FamilyFrom one truck to a downtown landmark — and the family that saved the World Food Prize.Read profile →The Wallace FamilyThree generations of Iowa agriculture — the family that founded hybrid seed corn, ran Wallaces' Farmer, and gave the nation a Vice President.Read profile →The Cowles FamilyThe family that made The Des Moines Register “the newspaper Iowa depends upon” — and launched Look magazine.Read profile →Principal Financial GroupThe Des Moines insurer that began in 1879 and grew into a Fortune 500 global financial giant.Read profile →Hy-Vee“A helpful smile in every aisle” — the employee-owned grocery chain born in a tiny southern-Iowa town in 1930.Read profile →The Weitz FamilyThe German-immigrant carpenter whose family firm has been building Des Moines since 1855.Read profile →Nile KinnickThe Adel-born Hawkeye whose 1939 Heisman season is legend — and whose name graces the University of Iowa's stadium.Read profile →The Younker BrothersThe immigrant brothers whose Younkers department stores anchored downtown Des Moines for generations.Read profile →Cloris LeachmanThe Des Moines–born actress who won an Oscar and a record eight Emmys across half a century on screen.Read profile →Edna GriffinThe Des Moines civil-rights leader whose 1948 drugstore protest desegregated Iowa lunch counters — years before the national movement.Read profile →Albert B. CumminsThe Des Moines reformer who led Iowa's Progressive era as governor and then shaped the U.S. Senate.Read profile →Caitlin ClarkThe West Des Moines guard who became college basketball's all-time leading scorer and a national phenomenon.Read profile →Shawn JohnsonThe West Des Moines gymnast who won Olympic gold in Beijing and became one of America's favorite athletes.Read profile →Brandon RouthThe central-Iowa actor who wore the cape in “Superman Returns.”Read profile →Bill BrysonThe Des Moines–born writer whose witty travel and science books became international best-sellers.Read profile →

Central Iowa

22 profiles ›

The Maytag FamilyThe Newton family behind America's washing machines — and Maytag Blue Cheese.Read profile →The Vermeer FamilyThe Pella family that reinvented haymaking with the round baler.Read profile →The Kuyper Family (Pella Corporation)The Pella family that turned a roll-up window screen into one of the country's best-known window and door makers.Read profile →The Beckwith Family (Fareway)The Boone family behind Fareway — the closed-on-Sundays, full-service Iowa grocery chain.Read profile →Musco LightingThe Oskaloosa company that lights the world's stadiums — and Olympic Games.Read profile →Josiah B. GrinnellThe abolitionist minister who founded a town and a college — and to whom Horace Greeley reputedly said, “Go West, young man.”Read profile →John Wayne“The Duke” — the Winterset-born actor who became the face of the American Western.Read profile →George GallupThe Jefferson-born University of Iowa graduate who invented modern public-opinion polling.Read profile →Mamie EisenhowerThe Boone-born First Lady at Dwight Eisenhower's side through World War II and the White House.Read profile →Bob FellerThe flame-throwing farm boy from Van Meter who went straight from an Iowa cornfield to baseball's Hall of Fame.Read profile →John L. LewisThe coal miner's son from Lucas County who became the most powerful labor leader in America.Read profile →Billy SundayThe Story County orphan who went from professional baseball to become America's most famous evangelist.Read profile →Jack TriceIowa State's first Black athlete, whose courage and sacrifice made him the namesake of the only major college stadium named for a Black man.Read profile →MacKinlay KantorThe Webster City novelist whose Civil War epic Andersonville won the Pulitzer Prize.Read profile →John Vincent AtanasoffThe Iowa State physicist who, with Clifford Berry, built the first electronic digital computer in Ames.Read profile →Kate ShelleyThe fifteen-year-old who crawled across a storm-wrecked railroad bridge to stop a passenger train — and became an Iowa legend.Read profile →Jean SebergThe Marshalltown teenager plucked from Iowa to Hollywood who became a face of the French New Wave.Read profile →James “Tama Jim” WilsonThe Tama County farmer who ran the U.S. Department of Agriculture for sixteen years — still the longest cabinet tenure in history.Read profile →George Washington CarverThe renowned agricultural scientist who earned his degrees — and broke barriers — at Iowa State in Ames.Read profile →Ada HaydenThe Ames botanist — Iowa State's first woman PhD — who fought to save Iowa's vanishing prairie.Read profile →Tom ArnoldThe Ottumwa-born comedian and actor of “True Lies” and “Roseanne.”Read profile →Simon EstesThe Centerville-born bass-baritone who broke barriers on the world's great opera stages.Read profile →

Eastern Iowa

35 profiles ›

Arthur Collins (Collins Radio / Rockwell Collins)The Cedar Rapids teenager whose radios reached the North Pole — and later the Moon.Read profile →HNI Corporation (Home-O-Nize)The Muscatine company that became a Fortune 500 leader in office furniture and hearths.Read profile →The Kinzenbaw Family (Kinze)The self-taught blacksmith whose inventions changed how America plants and harvests — from a shop in Williamsburg.Read profile →The Amana ColoniesThe German religious settlers whose communal Iowa villages gave the world Amana refrigerators — and the microwave oven's Radarange.Read profile →Herbert HooverThe orphan from West Branch who became a global humanitarian, a mining engineer, and the 31st President of the United States.Read profile →Grant WoodThe eastern-Iowa painter whose “American Gothic” became one of the most famous — and most parodied — images in American art.Read profile →Buffalo Bill CodyThe Le Claire-born scout and showman whose Wild West show carried the American frontier to the world.Read profile →Bix BeiderbeckeThe Davenport-born cornet player who became one of the first great white jazz soloists of the 1920s.Read profile →The Palmer Family (Chiropractic)The Davenport family that founded the chiropractic profession — and one of radio's earliest stations.Read profile →Lou Henry HooverThe Waterloo-born First Lady — a Stanford-trained geologist who modernized the role and led the Girl Scouts.Read profile →Paul EngleThe Cedar Rapids poet who built the Iowa Writers' Workshop into the center of American creative writing.Read profile →Roy J. CarverThe Muscatine industrialist behind Bandag and Carver Pump — and one of Iowa's great philanthropists.Read profile →James Van AllenThe Mount Pleasant–born physicist who discovered the radiation belts around Earth and helped launch the Space Age.Read profile →Arabella MansfieldThe Iowa woman who in 1869 became the first female lawyer in the United States.Read profile →Alexander ClarkThe Muscatine businessman whose 1868 lawsuit desegregated Iowa's public schools — 86 years before Brown v. Board.Read profile →Julien DubuqueThe French-Canadian miner who became the first European settler in Iowa — and the namesake of its oldest city.Read profile →Chief KeokukThe Sauk leader whose name Iowa's southeastern river city carries to this day.Read profile →The Sullivan BrothersThe five Waterloo brothers who served — and died — together aboard the USS Juneau in World War II.Read profile →W. A. SheafferThe Fort Madison jeweler whose lever-fill fountain pen built a world-famous Iowa writing-instrument company.Read profile →William FrawleyThe Burlington-born character actor America knew as Fred Mertz on “I Love Lucy.”Read profile →Susan GlaspellThe Davenport-born writer who won a Pulitzer, co-founded the Provincetown Players, and wrote the classic “Trifles.”Read profile →Phil StongThe southeast-Iowa novelist whose “State Fair” turned the Iowa State Fair into a Hollywood classic.Read profile →Carl Van VechtenThe Cedar Rapids–born writer and photographer who championed the Harlem Renaissance and portrayed its greatest figures.Read profile →Eugene ElyThe Williamsburg-born aviator who first flew an airplane off — and onto — a ship, inventing naval aviation.Read profile →Samuel J. KirkwoodIowa's Civil War governor, who raised the troops that made the state's wartime reputation.Read profile →William B. AllisonThe Dubuque senator whose 35 years in Washington made him one of the most powerful men in the Gilded Age Senate.Read profile →Annie WittenmyerThe Keokuk reformer who fed Civil War soldiers, built homes for orphans, and led the national temperance movement.Read profile →Antoine Le ClaireThe frontier interpreter of French and Potawatomi heritage who founded the city of Davenport.Read profile →Dan GableThe Waterloo wrestler who won Olympic gold without surrendering a point — then built a college dynasty at Iowa.Read profile →Kurt WarnerThe Burlington-born quarterback who went from stocking grocery shelves to Super Bowl MVP and the Hall of Fame.Read profile →Zach JohnsonThe Cedar Rapids golfer who won the Masters and the Open Championship and captained the U.S. Ryder Cup team.Read profile →Ashton KutcherThe Cedar Rapids–born actor turned tech investor and anti-trafficking advocate.Read profile →Elijah WoodThe Cedar Rapids–born actor who played Frodo Baggins in “The Lord of the Rings.”Read profile →Mildred Wirt BensonThe Iowa journalist who, as “Carolyn Keene,” wrote the first Nancy Drew mysteries.Read profile →Bess Streeter AldrichThe Cedar Falls–born novelist whose warm stories of pioneer life reached millions of readers.Read profile →

Northern Iowa

The Hanson Family (Winnebago Industries)The Forest City businessman who put a small Iowa town at the center of America's road-trip dreams.Read profile →The Sukup FamilyThe Sheffield farm family that became the world's largest family-owned maker of grain bins and dryers.Read profile →Norman BorlaugThe farm boy from near Cresco whose wheat is credited with saving a billion people from starvation.Read profile →Meredith WillsonThe Mason City composer who turned his Iowa hometown into “River City” in The Music Man.Read profile →Carrie Chapman CattThe Charles City–raised, Iowa State–educated suffragist who led the final drive for the 19th Amendment and founded the League of Women Voters.Read profile →Harry ReasonerThe Iowa-born newsman who helped launch 60 Minutes and anchored network news for decades.Read profile →Hamlin GarlandThe Pulitzer-winning author whose hard-eyed stories of Iowa farm life defined Midwestern realism.Read profile →Frank GotchThe Humboldt farm boy who became the world heavyweight wrestling champion and America's first great grappling star.Read profile →

Western Iowa

13 profiles ›

The Wells Family (Blue Bunny)The Le Mars family whose dairy made their town the “Ice Cream Capital of the World.”Read profile →Glenn MillerThe Clarinda-born bandleader whose “In the Mood” and “Moonlight Serenade” defined the Swing Era.Read profile →Donna ReedThe Denison-area farm girl who won an Oscar and became TV's model mom on The Donna Reed Show.Read profile →Ann Landers & Abigail Van BurenThe identical twins from Sioux City who, as Ann Landers and “Dear Abby,” became America's most-read advice columnists.Read profile →Johnny CarsonThe Corning-born “King of Late Night” who hosted The Tonight Show for thirty years.Read profile →Gateway (Ted Waitt)The mail-order computer giant with the cow-spotted boxes — started in a farmhouse near Sioux City.Read profile →Andy WilliamsThe Wall Lake–born crooner whose “Moon River” and long-running variety show made him a household name.Read profile →Lee de ForestThe Council Bluffs–born inventor whose vacuum tube made radio, television, and the electronic age possible.Read profile →Grenville M. DodgeThe Council Bluffs general and engineer who built the Union Pacific across the West.Read profile →Amelia BloomerThe women's-rights editor — namesake of “bloomers” — who spent her influential later decades in Council Bluffs.Read profile →Merle HayThe young soldier from Glidden, Iowa, among the first three Americans to fall in combat in World War I.Read profile →Harold HughesThe Ida Grove truck driver who overcame alcoholism to become a beloved Iowa governor and U.S. senator.Read profile →Nick NurseThe Carroll-born coach who won an NBA championship and was named Coach of the Year.Read profile →

Notable American Families

21 profiles ›

The Kennedy FamilyThe Irish-American dynasty from Boston that produced a president, senators, and the “Camelot” era of American politics.Read profile →The Rockefeller FamilyThe family whose Standard Oil fortune made the first American billionaire — and funded a century of philanthropy.Read profile →The Vanderbilt FamilyThe shipping-and-railroad dynasty that ruled the Gilded Age — and built some of America's grandest houses.Read profile →The Roosevelt FamilyThe New York dynasty of Dutch-American roots that gave the nation two presidents and a world-changing First Lady.Read profile →The Ford FamilyThe Michigan family whose Model T and moving assembly line put the world on wheels.Read profile →The Astor FamilyThe fur-trade-and-real-estate dynasty that built America's first great fortune and ruled New York society.Read profile →The du Pont FamilyThe French-émigré family whose gunpowder mill grew into the DuPont chemical empire — and shaped a state.Read profile →The Walton FamilyThe Arkansas family whose single five-and-dime grew into Walmart — the largest company on earth.Read profile →The Morgan FamilyThe banking dynasty that financed America's industrial age and twice steadied the nation's economy.Read profile →The Hearst FamilyThe mining-and-media dynasty behind America's largest newspaper empire — and the castle that inspired “Citizen Kane.”Read profile →The Guggenheim FamilyThe immigrant family whose mining empire became a legacy of museums, foundations, and the arts.Read profile →The Adams FamilyThe Massachusetts family that gave the young republic two presidents, a founding mother, and generations of statesmen.Read profile →The Bush FamilyThe family that sent a senator, two presidents, and a governor to the top of American politics.Read profile →The Disney FamilyThe brothers whose cartoon studio grew into the world's best-known entertainment empire.Read profile →The Getty FamilyThe oil dynasty whose founder was once the richest American — and whose fortune built a world-class art museum.Read profile →The Busch FamilyThe St. Louis dynasty behind Budweiser and America's largest brewery.Read profile →The Mellon FamilyThe Pittsburgh banking dynasty that financed American industry — and gave the nation its National Gallery of Art.Read profile →The Pulitzer FamilyThe immigrant publisher whose newspapers — and the prizes that bear his name — shaped American journalism.Read profile →The Ochs-Sulzberger FamilyThe family that has published The New York Times for more than a century and a quarter.Read profile →The Marriott FamilyThe family whose Depression-era root beer stand grew into the largest hotel company in the world.Read profile →The Pritzker FamilyThe Chicago dynasty behind Hyatt Hotels — and architecture's most prestigious award.Read profile →

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