Fort Dodge is a city in and the county chair of Webster County, Iowa, United States, along the Des Moines River. The population was 24,871 in the 2020 census, a subside from 25,136 in 2000. Fort Dodge is a major commercial center for North Central and Northwest Iowa. It is located upon U.S. Routes 20 and 169.

Fort Dodge traces its beginnings to 1850 later than E Company of the 6th Infantry were sent from Fort Snelling to erect and garrison a fort at the junction of the Des Moines River and Lizard Creek. It was originally named Fort Clarke but was renamed Fort Dodge because there was choice fort considering the same name in Texas. It was named after Henry Dodge, a supervisor of Wisconsin Territory (which had included Iowa until Iowa became a come clean in 1846). The fort was solitary by the Army in 1853.

The bordering year William Willams, a civilian storekeeper in Fort Dodge, purchased the house and buildings of the outdated fort. The town of Fort Dodge was founded in 1869. In 1872 the long and continuing history of gypsum production in Iowa started when George Ringland, Webb Vincent, and Stillman T. Meservey formed the Fort Dodge Plaster Mills to mine, grind, and prepare gypsum for classified ad use.^{[citation needed]} The Company constructed the first gypsum mill west of the Mississippi River, at the head of what is now known as Gypsum Creek.

Fort Dodge is locally referred to as “Little Chicago” because architects modeled downtown buildings to resemble Chicago in the mid-1900s.