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Johnston is a city in Polk County, Iowa, United States. The population was 24,064 in the 2020 census, an increase of 178% from the 8,649 population in 2000. It is part of the Des Moines–West Des Moines Metropolitan Statistical Area. Johnston is the location of the headquarters of Pioneer Hi-Bred Seeds, Iowa Public Television, and The Gardeners of America/Men's Garden Clubs of America. Also located here are the Camp Dodge Military Reservation as well as the Paul J. and Ida Trier House, a private residence designed by famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Des Moines Weather Forecast Office of the National Weather Service.This city is also remembered for being the location where Slipknot's original bassist Paul Gray died in 2010.

Johnston Community School District (JCSD) is a school district headquartered in Johnston, Iowa. In 2018, The School District welcomed Superintendent Laura Kacer. The district, with 40 square miles (100 km2), is located in Polk County. It serves Johnston and portions of Des Moines, Granger, Grimes, and Urbandale. Camp Dodge is in the district boundary.

DemiCon is an annual volunteer-run science fiction, fantasy, and gaming convention held in Des Moines, Iowa, in late April/early May. The convention was first held in 1990.DemiCon's host organization is the Des Moines Science Fiction and Fantasy Society, Inc. (DMSFFS), a nonprofit group that promotes literacy, science, and the arts, especially through the enjoyment of science fiction and fantasy.

Urbandale High School (UHS) is a public high school in Urbandale, Iowa. It is the only high school in the Urbandale Community School District.

The Paul J. and Ida Trier House is a historic building located in Johnston, Iowa, United States. It is a Frank Lloyd Wright designed Usonian home that was constructed in 1958. It was the last of seven Wright Usonians built in Iowa. While it is now located in a residential area, it was constructed in an area surrounded by rural farmland. The Trier house is a variation on the 1953 Exhibition House at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. The north wing of the house was designed by Taliesin Associates and built in 1967. It was originally the carport, which was enclosed for a playroom. The present carport on the front and an extension of the shop was added at the same time. The exterior of the house is composed of hollow clay tile blocks, while the addition is brick matching the tiles. A low, flat roof caps the home. The interior features red concrete slab floors, with the exception of the kitchen where they are slate. Philippine mahogany is used for the woodwork. A large fireplace is located in the living room. The living room, kitchen, and bedrooms all face south with window walls in the living room and master bedroom. A deep overhang shades the rooms in the summer. The other bedrooms and the study have a band of windows. Typical of a Wright-designed home, the house is integrated into the site and opened to the outdoors.

The Olmsted Family Farmhouse, also known as the Olmsted-Urban House, is an historic building located in Urbandale, Iowa, United States. Leander and Charlotte Olmsted from Auburn, New York acquired 80 acres (32 ha) of land in Polk County, Iowa in 1867. They built a house on the property where they raised their sons Millard and Clarence, and bought additional land for their farm. In 1904, about the time Millard married his wife Olive, Leander had this two-story, frame, American foursquare house built. Millard and Olive helped Leander farm and they raised their six children here. Both Millard and his brother Clarence were influential in the formation of Urbandale in 1917 with Clarence serving on the first town council and Millard on the school board. In 1937, 10 acres (4.0 ha) of the farm were platted for building lots. Karl and Matie Urban acquired the house in 1947, and the Urbandale Historic Society bought the house from their estate in 1987. They converted it into their headquarters and to house their collection of Urbandale memorabilia. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2019.

Merle Hay Mall is an enclosed super-regional shopping mall in Des Moines, Iowa, in the United States. Opened in 1959, it is the oldest regional shopping center in Iowa, and was the largest mall in Iowa in terms of gross leasable area before the 2004 opening of Jordan Creek Town Center in neighboring West Des Moines. It was also the site of the deadliest fire in Des Moines' history, which killed eleven people in 1978.The mall's anchor stores are Kohl's, Target and Ross Dress for Less. There are 2 vacant anchor stores that were once Younkers - which is set for remodeling as an ice arena - and Sears - which was demolished in 2021. Applebee's, IHOP, and Starbucks operate on the outparcels of the mall. Other prominent stores in the mall include Old Navy. Most of the mall is in the northwest part of Des Moines, but the wing that contains the former Younkers, Kohl's, and the food court is inside the city limits of neighboring Urbandale. Merle Hay Mall is independently owned by the Merle Hay Mall Limited Partnership, and the family of one of its original developers continues to manage the mall. A Chicago-based company, Urban Retail Properties, handles the mall's leasing duties.

Herbert Hoover High School, usually referred to simply as Hoover High School or Hoover, is a public secondary school located on the Northwest side of Des Moines, Iowa. It is one of five secondary schools under the district of the Des Moines Independent Community School District, and was named after Iowa native and the 31st United States president Herbert Hoover. The school's athletic teams are called the Huskies and compete in the CIML conference. In 2017, Hoover High reached half a century of existence.

Webster Township is a township in lMadison County, Iowa, United States.

USS Des Moines (CA-134) was the lead ship of the class of United States Navy heavy cruisers. She was the first ship in the United States Navy to feature the auto loading Mark 16 8-inch/55 caliber gun, the first of its type in the world. She was the second ship of the US Navy to be commissioned with the name of the capital of Iowa. Launched 1946, she was commissioned in 1948. She saw duty around the world until her decommissioning in 1961; she was permanently mothballed. A 1981 survey was done to determine if she was worthy of reactivation for the 600-ship Navy, but the cost was too great so she remained in the reserve. She was struck off the naval reserve in 1993, which was followed by a campaign to turn her into a museum ship. The campaign failed, and in 2005 she was sold for scrapping, and she was broken up by July 7. Parts of the ship have been donated to various places for display, including at the USS Salem museum, which is the only Des Moines-class ship to avoid the scrapyard.

The Camp Dodge Pool District, also known as the Camp Dodge Swimming Pool Complex, is a nationally recognized historic district located in Johnston, Iowa, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. At the time of its nomination it consisted of three resources, which included two contributing buildings and one contributing structure. It consisted of a 2,300,000-US-gallon (8,700,000 L) swimming pool, a bathing pavilion, and a concession stand. The complex was built at Camp Dodge, the headquarters of the Iowa National Guard. When it was completed in 1922, the pool could accommodate between 1,000 and 2,000 people and it may have been the largest in the country. The following year, however, a larger pool was built in San Francisco.

In the early hours of November 2, 2016, Des Moines Police Department officer Anthony Beminio and Urbandale Police Department officer Justin Martin were killed in separate "ambush-style" shootings in and near Des Moines, Iowa. The perpetrator in both shootings, identified as 46-year-old Scott Michael Greene of Urbandale, Iowa, was apprehended by police hours later. Greene pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and was sentenced to life without parole on May 20, 2017.