Ashton is located in Northwest Iowa in the southeast corner of Gilman Township in Osceola County.  In 1870 Captain Eldred Huff, an officer with the Civil War  Army, established St. Gilman when the proposed site of the Sioux City and St. Paul Railroad was established.  The railroad still runs through Ashton today but the original location of St. Gilman was a few miles from the present site. The prospective railroad brought high hopes, homesteaders and business men and with the growing population came a black smith shop, dry goods store, a milliner shop, a saloon and a hotel but than came the plague of grasshoppers.  The large infestation of grasshoppers ate everything green, from crops to trees and even the grass.  Many left but many remained and once the infestation of grasshoppers died off those who stuck around were

bound and determined to build St. Gilman back up.  As more and more people returned so did the businesses. St. Gilman was renamed in 1882