Iroquois, SD

Iroquois, like most small towns wishes for building activity, not only to attract more people to town but to make the town more attractive. Iroquois Housing is doing just that. In the 60’s and 70’s a group of foreword looking citizens organized an Iroquois housing organization to build new houses in town. They built 3 new houses and then later built an apartment building, which were all sold. The money from those sales sat unused for a period of time until 2006 when the need for additional housing was realized and a group of citizens, some of them from the original housing group, began talks on how to get going again. The idea of offering incentives to build in town was tossed around and finally it was agreed to offer 5 $4000 gifts to anyone building a new home in Iroquois. That original $20,000 is now gone and we have more new homes than that in town.
Some of the new homes are “Governors” homes, which are built by inmates of the Springfield Correctional Facility and purchased by Iroquois Housing from the South Dakota Housing Authority. Iroquois Housing then places the homes on a basement and in most cases builds a garage onto them and then sells them to interested parties. Some of the new homes are built by individual contractors and one home was built by the vocational department at Huron High School.
But more has happened in our town than just getting new homes. In the process many individuals have decided to upgrade their own homes and some vacant, damaged, unoccupied homes have been torn down to make the area much more attractive. This makes a very favorable impression upon those considering settling here. The city of Iroquois issued 14 building permits in 2007; 9 of these were for new construction and the others were for major improvments. We don’t require permits for things like re-shingling, re-siding or new windows so those sort of fix-up projects don’t get reflected in the building permits but many were doing those sort of things to their homes.
My purpose in writing this is to show that towns that want to change for the better can do so. Iroquois is so much better for the things happening here and those from other communities reading this can be encouraged that great things can be done if only they will work together.
Very soon I hope to get some pictures of our new homes up on this blog site so everyone can see the great things that we have done here in Iroquois.

The Ronald McDonald Delta Dental Care Mobile is here at Iroquois School. It is a fully equipped dental office on wheels. Children can receive quality oral health services, including cleanings, preventive services, fillings, and oral health education. Children ages 0-21 who do not have a dental home will be treated. They accept Medicaid/SCHIP, sliding fee scale payments, and donations. No child will be turned away for inability to pay.

Jesse Fast, an Iroquois School graduate, a dental student at the University of Nebraska, is here working in the RMCM.

Farmers & Merchants State Bank of Iroquois sponsored the mobile unit.

The Iroquois community has held many special events prior to being a Horizons community.  In the past, door prizes for these special events were purchased or donated by businesses out of town, or local businesses were asked to donate door prizes.  The Iroquois Horizons group recently held its Fall Festival.  For this event, our Horizons group purchased gift certificates from each Iroquois business so that the money stays in town.  Our hope is that local people will utilize our local businesses.