Madonna Johnson remembers driving through mostly farmland from West Des Moines to Waukee to drop her daughter off at dance class. That was 20 years ago.

Today, the former two-lane Hickman Road is four lanes and surrounded by housing developments, strip malls and big box stores.

“It's very, very different,” Johnson said. “That's a short time period for this amount of development to go up.”

Johnson, who grew up in nearby Warren County, moved to West Des Moines in Dallas County to raise her family a few decades ago. She currently chairs the Dallas County Republicans and lives in Waukee, where she says new housing developments and businesses continue to spring up on land once home to sprawling cornfields.

“Dallas County used to be really rural farming, so it's always been a red county, but

See Full Page