People sometimes forget that the middle of the US was populated by millions of immigrants from Northern and Central Europe. Lots of those towns you're looking at were German-speaking towns up until WWI. There are still tons of Norwegian and Swedish cities and towns out there. All of those immigrants were given plots of land to farm, and developed communities accordingly. The Homestead Act was the way that millions made a new life for themselves in the new world.

If you want to have even more fun, most of those roads have Street View.