Clayton County city, Millville, disincorporates

Millville, a widening of the shoulder of Highway 52 south of Guttenberg, ranked in 2012 as one of Iowa's 10 smallest cities, with 29 residents.

The Clayton County town, tucked between bluffs, the Turkey River and Highway 52, got off the list not by gaining population but by relinquishing its status as a city.

'I don't think it is going to change much of anything. It will still be Millville,” said James Hankes, a longtime Millville mayor and council member.

Hankes said the decision to disincorporate was prompted in part by the inability to find city office holders.

That and the lack of businesses in town and 'so many new rules and regulations to follow,” he said.

Clayton County Auditor Dennis Freitag can attest to the dearth of candidates for public office in Millville.

A Millville ballot with a candidate's name on it 'never happened in the 38 years I have served as auditor. Millville has always had a blank ballot and elected their officials through write-in votes,” he said.

Though Millville had been a named locale since the mid-19th century, it did not formally incorporate until 1967.

Hankes, who was born in Millville 65 years ago, said he recalled numerous grocery stores, taverns, restaurants and gas stations. His grandmother ran the telephone switchboard in Millville, he said.

Hankes's mother, 83-year-old Arletta Hankes, who used to help her mother run the switchboard, said Millville once had a creamery, too.

Freitag, who worked with city officials to assess the costs of disincorporation, seconded Hankes's assertion that not much will change in Millville.

Residents actually will pay less in property taxes, and the services they receive will be little affected, Freitag said.

Millville has a couple dusk-to-dawn streetlights, which will remain in operation with nearby residents paying the electric bill, he said.

'One service they will miss a little is curbside garbage pickup,” Freitag said.

In spending down city coffers, officials 'paid ahead” for trash collection. But residents eventually will have to deposit their trash at a county collection site a few miles away, he noted.

Small towns rarely decide to disband, said Matt Rasmussen, administrator of Iowa's City Development Board, which must approve all disincorporations.

Millville is the fifth since 1992, following Kent in 2002, Littleport and Athelstan in 2004 and Mount Sterling in 2012.

Littleport, another Clayton County hamlet, disbanded after the flooding Volga River destroyed most of its structures.