Grinnell College dates from June 10, 1846, when a group of transplanted New Englanders with strong social-reformer backgrounds organized as the Trustees of Iowa College a few months before Iowa was admitted as a state.
Iowa College moved from Davenport, Iowa to the town of Grinnell and unofficially adopted the name of its new benefactor, Josiah Bushnell Grinnell (to whom Horace Greeley gave his famous advice, "Go West, young man").
In 1909 the name Grinnell College was adopted by the trustees for the institution itself.
Famous alumni of Grinnell College include Robert Noyce, co-founder of Intel Corp., and John Bell Hatcher, the paleontologist who discovered the triceratops and jazz great Herbie Hancock.
The school's sports teams are the Pioneers. They participate in the NCAA's Division III and in the Midwest Conference.