Ackley is a city in the Franklin and Hardin counties in the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 1,599 at the 2020 census. In 1852, immigrants began purchasing farms and settling in the north Hardin County area. In the fall of 1852, Lemuel Harvy "Seth" Arledge, a frontiersman who acted as both a physician and preacher originally from Kentucky staked a claim just north of the Hardin County line and built a cabin close to where Highway 57 now passes. Another settler, Thomas Downs, became the first permanent resident of Ackley when he bought Dr. Arledge's claim. Later his widow sold a strip of land from Butler Street to the four county corner for $3.00 an acre to Minor Gallop. Gallop built a house, just east of Highway 57 which became an inn, a stopover for stagecoaches, and the first post office.
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