Clay

Formed January 15, 1851 (59^th county)

Clay County (16,381), Spencer (11,324)                

A clock and bell tower sit on top of the 1900 red brick and stone facility.  The facility is at 4^th Street, 2^nd Avenue, 5^th Street, and 3^rd Avenue.  United States Highway 71 is two blocks to the east of the site.  Kinney & Detweiler are the designers of this Classical Revival courthouse.  The building was enlarged in 1910 and renovated in 1981.  An Administration Center was added in 1980.  The building features columns and the grounds have veteran memorials.  The county was formed on January 15, 1851 from Native American Territory as the 59^th county.  Peterson (1851) and Spencer (1871) have served as the county seat.  The county gets its name from Mexican War Colonel Henry Clay, Jr., son of American statesman Henry Clay.  Senator George E. Spencer is the namesake for the county seat.  Clay County was the birthplace of 1 Iowa Governor, Nathan E. Kendall. 

Clay County government consists of a sheriff, a recorder, an attorney, a treasurer, and an assessor (executive).  It has 5 Supervisors (legislative.)  Twenty District Court Judges and Fourteen Magistrates serve Clay, Buena Vista, Cherokee, Crawford, Dickinson, Emmet, Ida, Lyon, Kossuth, Monona, O’Brien, Osceola, Palo Alto, Plymouth, Sioux, and Woodbury counties (judicial.) Clay County is in northwest Iowa.  Sioux City, Iowa is southwest and Des Moines, Iowa is southeast of the county.  The county center is in Spencer 1.9 miles South of the city center.  The county is surrounded clockwise by Dickinson, Buena Vista, Palo Alto, and O’Brien counties. 

The county has an area of 569 square miles.  It is 52 of 99 in the state.  It ranks 47 out of 99 in population in the state.  It has a density of 28.8 persons per square mile making it 45 out of 99 in the state.  Clay County has 81.0% of its population in its incorporated areas.  United States Highway 18 crosses the county east to west from Palo Alto County to O’Brien County.  United States Highway 71 goes north to south from Dickinson County to Buena Vista County.  The county is a square.  Spencer is in the northern third of the county.  Spencer is the county seat and the largest city.  It is 69.1% of the county population.  This county is in the Spencer Micropolitan Statistical Area.

Webb