A quick glance at the Presidential Election map from Missouri shows a swath of red counties, with only a handful of blue. John McCain carried the vast majority of rural Missouri counties, while Barack Obama claimed the urban centers.

One of the blue counties that stands out among the rural red is tiny Iron County. Population: eleven-thousand.

Iron County is one of only two rural Missouri counties that supported George W. Bush in 2004 yet voted for Barack Obama in the latest election.

While the county voted for Bush twice, local offices are filled by Democrats. The county’s lone Republican office holder is prosecutor Scott Killen. He says that these Democratic voters have certain values that set them apart from national Democratic leaders, in particular gun control.

 “Voters in this area seem to be relatively conservative,” Killen says. “Even the Democratic voters. And that may account for why some Republican candidates carry Iron County as far as national politics.”

Don Barzowski teaches government at Arcadia Valley High School. He is also an alderman in the county seat of Ironton, and president of the Democratic Club. He says the gun issue never reached the same level of importance as it did in 2004. “John Kerry was absolutely, you know, the anti-Christ when it came to taking away guns,” he points out. “But the kids weren’t talking about Barack Obama taking away guns which leads me to believe that their parents weren’t talking it, so they weren’t nervous about it.”

It’s impossible to take a trip to Iron County without taking notice of the region’s past. This was once a mining heavyweight, a county that produced massive amounts of the mineral from which it gets its name. While iron and lead mining brought wealth to the county, it also brought poverty and unemployment. By the 1980s and 1990s, the mines were shutting down.

“It is still an important part of our economy,” Killen says. “But probably not the eight-hundred pound gorilla that it used to be as far as when we look at the economic menagerie of Iron County, for lack of a better term.”

When the county’s only hospital closed in 1999, many residents of this beautifully rustic county felt that things couldn’t possibly get any worse. To find jobs or to shop, many people commute to neighboring Farmington or even as far off as St. Louis. This, of course, leads to the number one reason why Iron County voted for Barack Obama, according to Pilot Knob mayor Shelby Chan. “The major thing was the price of gas,” she says. “That prohibits people from being able to bring home enough money. When they have to drive to work, the gas price was eating up so much of their profit they couldn’t afford other things.”

Instead of guns, Barzowski believes the economy and high gas prices dominated the discussion in the past Presidential election and fairly so, considering Iron County’s economic condition.

“Ever since I’ve been here, the county has been very economically depressed.” Barzowski adds, “We’ve always been in the top 10 for unemployment figures among Missouri counties. We’ve always had pretty healthy welfare roles. A lot of people use food stamps around here. I mean, that’s always been the case.”

Barzowski notes that the national financial crisis probably has not had a huge impact on Iron County. To the contrary, the area is actually undergoing modest economic growth.  A new hospital replaced the one that closed in 1999. A few new stores have opened in the county. Municipalities are receiving increased sales tax revenues due to an influx of workers who are repairing the Taum Sauk Reservoir, which collapsed in 2005.

Obama’s success in Iron County could also be attributed to the organization of the local party and the national trends. “Democrats just seemed to be absolutely invigorated,” Barzowski says. “A couple of my high school students got involved in it. It’s just something that we didn’t see in the last two election cycles.”

Pilot Knob mayor Shelby Chan says Obama’s message of change and hope was enough to convince conservative voters to take a chance on the Illinois Senator. Still, she was surprised that he took the county due to “all the rumors that were going around about him.” She adds “a lot of people around here were believing them. I was hoping that they would try and find the facts out and apparently enough of them did.”

Enough people to lead Obama to a three percentage point victory in this rural, mining community.

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