The Grimes Brief
The Grimes Brief is a free weekly read for one of the fastest-growing towns in Iowa. We do the homework so you do not have to: what is on this week, where to eat, how the Mustangs are doing, and what is being built in a town that has nearly doubled in a decade. One email, every Monday.
The Grimes Brief launches soon. Drop your email and you will get the very first issue, free, in your inbox on a Monday morning.
A few things that run like clockwork this time of year. The full day-by-day calendar arrives in the Monday email.
The Farmers Market runs Saturday mornings, roughly June through September, at Heritage Park, 1055 NE Beaverbrooke Blvd.
The weekly Brief rotates a full spotlight and this week's deals. Know a spot we should feature? Reply to any issue.
Grimes sits on the Raccoon River Valley Trail, a paved multi-use loop that stretches across west-central Iowa, so a long ride or run starts right in town. Heritage Park anchors the community calendar and hosts the Saturday market. Full park and trail listings land in the Brief.
Most of Grimes is served by the Dallas Center-Grimes Community School District, home of the Mustangs (red and white), who compete in the Little Hawkeye Conference. The northeast edge of town, toward Johnston, falls in the Johnston Community School District. We track Mustangs scores and school news every week.
Grimes grew from 8,246 residents in 2010 to 15,392 in the 2020 Census, an increase of roughly 87 percent in a decade. A 2025 special census counted 17,809, up another 15.7 percent. That kind of growth means new rooftops, new roads, new schools, and new decisions at city hall, which is exactly what a weekly Brief is for.
The town was platted in 1881 and incorporated in 1894, named for James W. Grimes, the third Governor of Iowa and later a U.S. Senator. That is why the town's big summer festival is Governor's Days, held the first weekend of June. Real local history, every week, is part of the Brief.
Free, weekly, and made only for Grimes. The votes, the games, the new places, and what is on, in one Monday email.