Waukee: from Shirley to Waukee, and from rail stop to boomtown

Waukee’s story begins with land, rail, and a name change that still feels strangely vivid. The City of Waukee says General Lewis Addison Grant and Major William Ragan bought the land that would become Waukee in 1869 after the Des Moines Valley Railroad planned a line through the area. The city’s history page says the founders first called the town Shirley.  That first name did not last. The city’s official history preserves a wonderful old explanation, noting that the railroad office in Keokuk insisted the town have an “Indian appellation,” and a line reported in the Daily Register concluded, “hence Waukee it had to be.” The same city page says no one was entirely sure what “Waukee” meant, which somehow makes the name feel even more frontier-era and improvised.  Waukee became official not long after. The city says it was incorporated on July 2, 1878, and presents that moment as the formal beginning of the town that later grew into one of the metro’s fastest-changing places. What is striking is how small and rail-dependent the original community was compared with the city people know now.  The contrast with the present is dramatic. Waukee’s 2024 Special Census reported 31,823 residents, up 7,883 from the 2020 Census, making Waukee the 16th largest city in Iowa. The city also says that updated count will bring about $1.1 million in additional annual road-use-tax revenue from 2025 through 2030, which is a good reminder that growth in Waukee is not abstract. It changes streets, budgets, and daily life.  Even so, the city still describes itself in older emotional terms. Waukee’s “About” and “Why Waukee” pages emphasize a friendly, community-oriented vibe, a hometown feel, and strong schools, parks, and neighborhood connections. That language matters because it shows the city trying to preserve a small-town emotional identity while operating at a much larger scale.  So the first Waukee story is about scale catching up to origin. What started as Shirley, then Waukee, a railroad-linked little town on open land, has become a major west-metro city still trying to speak in the language of neighborliness. That tension between old-town memory and boomtown reality is one of the most important things about Waukee.