result of a failed Missouri colony, and has its origins in the second Norwegian colony in the United States, that of Fox River in La Salle County, Illinois. The northern Iowa settlements extended from Allamakee and Clayton counties to Winnebago county, and came largely from settlements at Rock County, Wisconsin, Dane County, Wisconsin, and Boone County, Illinois. From the late 1850s through the 1880s, Norwegians pushed to the western portions of the state. By the early 1890s, Norwegian immigration to Iowa had dropped off. Czech Most Czechs in Iowa settled in Cedar Rapids. During the 1850s, Iowa's Czech population became substantial; when the town was reincorporated in 1856, a quarter of its roughly 1600 inhabitants were Czech immigrants. The availability of cheap land in the new state of Iowa happened to coincide with the Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire that caused a large number of Czechs to flee their homeland and emigrate to the U.S. Today, Cedar Rapids' Czech Village and the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library celebrate the area's Czech heritage. Latino The first Latino group to immigrate to Iowa were Mexicans, who can be traced in small numbers to the 1850 census. Substantial Mexican immigration, however, did not begin until the early 1900s. In 1900 there were 29 Mexicans in Iowa, followed by 509 in 1910, and 2,560 in 1920. Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and others from Central and South America followed, though a significant majority of Iowa's Latino population was and remains Mexican. The sharp increase in Mexican immigration in the early 20th century has several causes, mostly economic. Sugar consumption was on the rise nationally, and technological breakthroughs in the sugar beet industry allowed Midwestern farms to expand in attempt to meet that need. As they expanded, the need for labor increased. Sugar beet growing requires a significant amount of difficult manual labor, and immigration restrictions on Europeans during the time limited their availability to work in the United States. Additionally, Mexican labor was desired because of their strong work ethic and acceptance of lower wages. Consequently, Mexicans were recruited by the American Beet Sugar Company (American Crystal Sugar Company) from Mexico and the southwestern states to work in the north central part of the state, especially around Mason City. For many of the same reasons that Mexicans were recruited to work in the sugar beet industry, they were also recruited to work