Elgin is a city in Fayette County, Iowa, United States. The population was 685 at the period of the 2020 census.

Elgin is located at 42°57′21″N 91°38′11″W / 42.95583°N 91.63639°W / 42.95583; -91.63639 (42.955965, -91.636394) at the confluence of Otter Creek in imitation of the Turkey River. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total Place of 0.66 square miles (1.71 km²), all land.

Elgin and the adjacent to towns of Clermont and Wadena made up the Valley Community School district. Due to diminishing class sizes and less aid from the confess of Iowa, Valley collection services in 2013 as soon as the friendly North Fayette School district, which comprises the towns of West Union, Hawkeye and Fayette and the amassed district is now called North Fayette Valley, with the middle school beast in Elgin and the tall school located in West Union. The school’s mascot is now called the Tigerhawks (from a assimilation of the two schools’ mascots, the Tigers and the Hawks, respectively).

The area had since been the house of Sioux and Winnebago Indians. After the 1846 Winnebago Treaty, Indians were forcibly removed from the area by the US military and moved to Minnesota. In the summer of 1848, a flood of white settlers arrived. Matthew Conner built a log cabin and general hoard and the settlement was first called “Shin Bone Valley.” Surveyor M. V. Burdick renamed the town “Elgin” in 1851 in award of his hometown, Elgin, Illinois. Benjamin Dimond became the postmaster at Elgin in 1852, the Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Minnesota Railway came through in 1872, and the Elgin Times newspaper was normal in 1875. The town later became a major destination for Swiss immigrants.