Fort Dodge city i Webster county i Iowa i USA

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Fort Dodge traces its beginnings to 1850 when E Company of the 6th Infantry were sent from Fort Snelling to erect and garrison a fort at the junction of the Des Moines River and Lizard Creek. It was originally named Fort Clarke but was renamed Fort Dodge because there was another fort with the same name in Texas. It was named after Henry Dodge, a governor of Wisconsin Territory (which had included Iowa until Iowa became a state in 1846). The fort was abandoned by the Army in 1853.

The next year William Willams, a civilian storekeeper in Fort Dodge, purchased the land and buildings of the old fort. The town of Fort Dodge was founded in 1869. In 1872 the long and continuing history of gypsum production in Iowa started when George Ringland, Webb Vincent, and Stillman T. Meservey formed the Fort Dodge Plaster Mills to mine, grind, and prepare gypsum for commercial use. The Company constructed the first gypsum mill west of the Mississippi River, at the head of what is now known as Gypsum Creek.

Fort Dodge is locally referred to as ”Little Chicago” because architects modeled downtown buildings to resemble Chicago in the mid 1900s.