Place Archive

Iowa

Iowa ranks among the leading wind energy states in the country, with utility-scale turbine installations spread across its agricultural plains, particularly in the west-central region around Adair. The state’s freight rail network remains active through cities like Mason City, where hopper cars and boxcars move grain and bulk materials along industrial sidings. Council Bluffs, situated along the Missouri River in the state’s southwest corner, has become a significant node in national computing infrastructure, with Google operating a major data center campus there that draws on regional electricity access and cooler seasonal temperatures to manage server heat loads. Rural drainage corridors, gravel roads, and creek systems like Bear Creek near Roland reflect the working agricultural character of central Iowa’s landscape.

8 photos

Freight rail sidings in Mason City, Iowa, between hopper cars and boxcars. — Freight rail sidings in Mason City, Iowa, run between lines of hopper cars and boxcars used for bulk cargo transport. The tracks lie in the city’s industrial rail corridor, where freight rail supports grain and material shipments.

Freight cars on rail tracks in Mason City, Iowa. — Freight cars stand on rail tracks in Mason City, Iowa. The rail yard sits on the city’s industrial edge and connects local freight traffic to regional agricultural and manufacturing shipments.

Bear Creek near Roland, Iowa flows beside a gravel road under storm clouds. — Bear Creek near Roland, Iowa, flows through agricultural land beside a gravel road. The creek runs across a rural drainage corridor in central Iowa.

Adair Wind Farm in Adair, Iowa, with wind turbines over farm fields. — Adair Wind Farm in Adair, Iowa, spans agricultural land with multiple utility-scale wind turbines. The installation generates electricity from wind as part of Iowa’s large wind power network.

Wind turbines near Adair, Iowa, rise above harvested farm fields. — Wind turbines near Adair, Iowa, stand in harvested farm fields in west-central Iowa. The turbines are part of a wind farm that generates electricity from wind power.

Google data center facility with large metal-roofed buildings in Council Bluffs, Iowa. — Google's data center campus in Council Bluffs sits on the city's north side, near the Missouri River bluffs that gave the city its name. The company broke ground on the site in 2007, making it one of Google's first wave of purpose-built data centers outside its original Oregon location. Council Bluffs was chosen in part for its access to low-cost electricity and fiber infrastructure along the Union Pacific rail and telecommunications corridors that pass through the area. Google has expanded the campus multiple times since its opening, adding server buildings and cooling equipment to support growing demand for cloud computing and search infrastructure. The facility employs several hundred workers and remains one of the larger private employers in Pottawattamie County.

Google data center campus in Council Bluffs, Iowa, with a large server building and cooling equipment. — Google’s data center campus in Council Bluffs, Iowa, is centered on a warehouse-scale server building with extensive cooling and electrical infrastructure. The facility is part of Google’s large operational footprint in Council Bluffs, developed beginning in the late 2000s. Data centers like this house the computing, storage, and networking systems behind Google’s online services and cloud operations.

Aerial view of Google data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa, showing metal-roofed buildings and cooling infrastructure. — Google broke ground on its Council Bluffs data center in 2007 and brought the facility online in 2009, making it one of the company's earliest Midwest computing hubs. The campus sits in Pottawattamie County along the Missouri River, chosen partly for access to abundant water and power infrastructure. Google has since expanded the site multiple times, with cumulative investment in the Council Bluffs campus surpassing $5 billion. The facility relies on rooftop cooling systems and outdoor chiller units to manage heat generated by rows of servers, a design common to Google's newer data centers that reduces reliance on traditional air conditioning. Iowa's cooler climate for much of the year helps lower energy costs tied to cooling the servers that power Google Search, Gmail, and cloud computing services.

Minneapolis Photographer