Louisa County

Wikipedia

Notes

Ottumwa is the county seat of Wapello County. The high and shaky, 262-foot-long Lovers Leap swinging footbridge in Columbus City dates from 1922.

Louisa is pronounced loo-EYE-za.

Wapello is locally pronounced WAAH-puh-low, but, for the poem, it is pronounced wa-PELL-oh.


Louisa County, southeast.

There's another in Virginia.

Courthouse here is in Wapello,

Which is nowhere near Ottumwa.


Louisa's on the Mississippi,

Where the Iowa has its mouth.

Illinois just to the east,

And Burlington is to the south.


There's Chief Wapello Days each year

And a vineyard called Odessa.

In Columbus City is a bridge

That will impress ya.


In Toolesboro there are Hopewell mounds.

Been there two thousand years.

At Port Louisa you'll find birds

And fish and squirrels and deers.