The original settlement in the Carlisle area was called Dudley and was located at Keokuk’s Bend on the Des Moines River, approximately 3 miles east of present day Carlisle. Dudley was founded by John Griffin, the Assistant Surgeon of the Fort Des Moines Dragoons and laid out by Jeremiah Church in February, 1846 several months before the City of Fort Des Moines was first laid out in July, 1846.
Dudley was destroyed by the great Flood of 1851. That same year the settlement was relocated to the present site of Carlisle and surveyed by James Laverty for Jeremiah Church and Daniel Moore on the Moore homestead. The original town plat was the area bounded by School Street (then called South Street) on the south, Garfield Street (then called East Street) on the east, Elm Street (then called North Street) on the north and Fourth Street on the west. It was renamed Carlisle, after the city of the same name in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.
This is a walking tour around Carlisle.
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