Wikipedia: The town was founded in 1882 as a 12 block lay out. The location was picked around the water stop of a railroad. It was a part of a larger series of settlements of Englishmen in Northwest Iowa that included Alton, Le Mars, and Hospers. It was incorporated in 1890. The town served the local farmers with general stores, horseshoe makers, and equipment sales as well as a place to sell grain that could be transported by the railroads. Even though the rail road has been removed, several seed stores, a farm co-op, and many other agriculture related businesses remain.
The town was named after Henry Ireton, who served under Oliver Cromwell during the English Civil War. He was also Cromwell's son-in-law.
The original inhabitants of Ireton were mostly English and Irish. Later when the larger Dutch settlements of Sioux Center and Orange City were founded, the population has had an increasingly larger Dutch population.
Many of the first residents of Ireton were veterans or sons of veterans of the American Civil War. There is an old military road/path that traveled near the town that served to move troops and equipment down from Minneapolis to Sioux City to the Missouri River and the western most portions of the Civil War. There were several soldiers that died on that path and were placed in a cemetery near a hill by that road. The Ireton cemetery was placed around those graves and now includes a bronze statue of a union soldier looking South in remembrance of its veterans.
I would have thought that it would have had a German population but it looks like the town was mostly English, Irish and later some Dutch.
EAB and Emma's daughter, Louise, was born in Ireton.
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