Cedar is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in southeastern

Mahaska County, Iowa Mahaska County is a County (United States), county located in the U.S. state of Iowa. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 22,190. The county seat is Oskaloosa, Iowa, Oskaloosa. Mahaska County comprises the Oskal ...

, United States. It lies along

Iowa Highway 23 Iowa Highway 23 (Iowa 23) is a state highway in the southeastern part of the state. Its designation begins at Iowa 149 north of Ottumwa and ends at Iowa 92 in Oskaloosa. The route was created in 1997 when U.S. Highway 63 ( ...

southeast of the city of Oskaloosa, the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

of Mahaska County. Cedar has a

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

church, Christian Reformed church, and a grain elevator.

History

A post office opened in 1874. The

Burlington and Western Railway The Burlington and Northwestern Railway (B&NW) was a narrow gauge railroad system in Iowa that operated during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It connected Burlington, Iowa with branches to Washington and Oskaloosa, Iowa. In ...

arrived in Cedar in late 1882. This was a

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with Minimum railw ...

line, widened to

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...

in 1902 and taken over by the

Chicago, Burlington and Quincy The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad was a railroad that operated in the Midwestern United States. Commonly referred to as the Burlington Route, the Burlington, CB&Q, or as the Q, it operated extensive trackage in the states of Colorado ...

. the Burlington line was abandoned in 1934. Cedar's population was 53 in 1925. The population was 113 in 1940.

References

Unincorporated communities in Mahaska County, Iowa Unincorporated communities in Iowa 1874 establishments in Iowa Populated places established in 1874 {{MahaskaCountyIA-geo-stub