(Radio Iowa) – A northwest Iowa community of nearly a thousand residents will celebrate the 150th anniversary of its founding this weekend. Aurelia was named for the daughter of the man who owned the Illinois Central Railroad that had tracks running through the town. The school in Aurelia will be open Saturday morning so returning residents can reminisce and reconnect.

Until the 1990s, the Aurelia Community School District was the only one in the state that had unique names for its boys and girls teams. Aurelia boys teams were known as the Bulldogs. Girls teams from Aurelia were known as the Atoms. Alta and Aurelia districts began sharing grades in the 1990s and voted to merge in 2017.