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NEIGHBORHOOD
WATERBURY
Overview of Waterbury
Waterbury sits on Des Moines’ near-west side, bounded today by Interstate 235 on the north, Polk Boulevard on the east, Grand Avenue on the south, and 63rd Street plus the natural edge of Walnut Creek on the west. The neighborhood association describes roughly 1,100 households there, and the physical identity is unusually coherent: curving roads, mature trees, larger lots, and housing laid out to follow hills and stream beds instead of a flat Midwestern grid. That is the first reason it stands out. The second is historical pedigree: Waterbury reads like a neighborhood created where leisure, landscape, and upper-end residential planning all overlapped.
Origins and early history
Waterbury’s story starts before the neighborhood had its current name. In the late nineteenth century, the trolley line pushed west along Ingersoll from downtown to what is now Polk Boulevard, opening access to amusement grounds and to the land that would become residential Waterbury. By 1897, the Golf and Country Club occupied about 60 acres between 49th and 56th Streets south of Waveland Park, and that club immediately gave the area an aura of prestige. Residential development accelerated in the early twentieth century, and the neighborhood’s first major phase ran from 1906 to 1911 under three key figures: A. B. Shriver, S. F. Frick, and F. C. Waterbury, the developer whose name the area still carries.
Top things to know
Waterbury is the Des Moines neighborhood for buyers who care about spatial design as much as square footage. Its identity comes from the former country club landscape, the curving streets, the wooded lots, and the unusual consistency of its prewar housing. If you stripped away the houses and only studied the platting, you would still understand why it feels different from most of the city
Waterbury’s culture is quieter than festival-heavy neighborhoods, but that does not mean it is weak. Its identity is rooted in continuity: long-term ownership, landscape maintenance, architectural pride, and a sense that the neighborhood should look intentional rather than incidental. Even the way residents historically fought to preserve the area’s internal design matters; in 1930, Waterbury Circle residents successfully opposed an extension of Ingersoll through the circle, protecting the cul-de-sac character that still feels different from the rest of the city. The modern Waterbury Neighborhood Association, formed in 1995, reflects that same instinct to preserve quality and coordination rather than radically reinvent the place.