This modest but well-maintained building serves as the City Hall for the quaint Union County town of Cromwell, population 107. Like many small towns in Iowa, Cromwell was once a bustling village, as noted in a copy of the Creston Gazette from March 1898:

The town has been a good trading and shipping point for years and the volume of business transacted is quite large. Cromwell has two or three general stores, a lumber yard, hardware establishment, restaurant, hotel, grain offices and several stock buyers. A fine school building adorns the village and there are three church buildings, Methodist, Congregational and Christian. The town is incorporated and governed by a mayor and city council. It is an enterprising little place and is home of a number of retired farmers who have built comfortable residences.

Cromwell is the oldest town to be platted in the western half of Union County, laid out in the spring of 1869, a few years prior to the county seat of Creston.