The Birthplace of Charles Black: Exploring Lone Tree, Iowa

Lone Tree, Iowa, is a lovely little Midwestern town--and the birthplace of Charles Black.

August 23, 2026

It’s a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning as I pull into Lone Tree, Iowa. The town is so small that it’s not on some maps, but the turnoff from highway 22 is clearly marked with a big green sign that says, “Welcome to Lone Tree.” Bird nests hang out of almost all the openings in the raised white letters, giving the sign a somewhat shaggy and homey appearance.

Lone Tree itself is just a mile down the road. Just as I expected, it’s a classic Midwestern small town—a mixture of one- and two-story brick buildings lining the main street, some better-maintained than others; a few blocks of shady, tree-filled neighborhoods of single-family homes; lots of cars in the parking lot of the United Presbyterian Church. I briefly consider going in and joining the 11:00 service, but I didn’t bring any dress clothes (just those shorts that I’ll regret later in the prairie) and I don’t really have time.

These buildings are old enough that they were probably there when Charles Black was a boy.

Why am I in Lone Tree? Curiosity, mostly. I’m trying to learn as much as I can about Charles Black, the Iowa State agronomist who founded the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology back in the 1970s to “defend science” against environmentalism and organic farming. Though “Dr. Black” has a bit of a comic book–villain ring to it, by all accounts he wasn’t a villain at all—just a scientist who was passionate about what he firmly believed was the truth.

There’s hardly any biographical information available on Dr. Black. He was a very private person who kept his professional and personal lives in separate watertight compartments. He donated reams of papers about CAST to Iowa State, but nothing about his personal life. I only know that he was born in Lone Tree (in 1916) from his obituary. I don’t even know for sure if he lived in town or on a nearby farm. But I’m hoping that walking through his hometown will help me understand Charles Black a little better.

These tractors must have been in the parade for the festival; now they're parked in front of the grain mill.

Everyone in Lone Tree must be at church; the streets are deserted. I park at a bank (closed because it’s Sunday), wander up and down the main street, and note that there either just was or is about to be a festival in Lone Tree. There are folded-up carnival rides and closed food trucks parked in various locations around town, plus a small line of antique tractors sitting outside the grain mill. Along with some newer steel bins, there’s a rusty old elevator with the faded word “Kent” on one side. Was that there in Black’s day? I’m not sure, but I snap a photo just in case.

Not sure if this rusty elevator was there in the 1920s, but it might have been.

Outside the community center, a gray-haired man is carefully touching up the paint on a big piece of artillery in the veterans’ memorial. One of the metal picnic tables is painted to look like an American flag. The sheriff sits in his car outside the police station. Not much for him to do on Sunday morning. Everything seems quiet and homey. It’s small-town rural America at its best.

Just a couple blocks from the historic storefronts, the town abruptly ends at a cornfield. From there, it’s corn and soybeans as far as I can see in every direction. It’s certainly safe to say that Black was rural, whether he lived in one of the houses in a shady block in town or out on a farm. Certainly he went to a small school. Certainly he loved living in Iowa, because he stayed in the state his whole life.

Lone Tree ends abruptly at a cornfield--no suburban development here! I'm guessing the town is about the same size it was when Black was a boy.

I still have lots of questions about Black that I’ll probably never be able to answer. But I’m glad I took the time to stop by his hometown. I can see why he cared so much about Iowa farms and farmers. Now I just have to figure out why he tried so hard to keep those farmers from using organic methods.