 “In that era it was a competition almost between the counties to erect an edifice that would be of importance and of character to their becoming of age.” Mark A. Hanson, Dallas County Supervisor
On February 2, 2018, John Reich, the longtime Adel city attorney from 1973–2018, died and replaced as city attorney on May 8, 2018, by the law firm Ahlers & Cooney with the lead city attorney as Kristine Stone and assistant city attorney as Maria Brownell.Adel's longitude and latitude coordinates in decimal form are 41.616773, -94.021731.According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and is water.