The Iowa Stake Record is a large, commercially produced record book, measuring 12 × 7⅞ × 1 inches (30 × 20 × 3 cm). The book consists of ten gatherings, each gathering containing approximately twelve leaves. The paper, which is ruled with light blue lines that are now faded, measures 12 × 7½ inches (30 × 19 cm). The book has hard covers, the outside of which are adorned in shell marbled paper with a brown body and veins of blue and red. The spine is bound in brown leather and is titled “Baptism for the Dea[d] B Lee Coun[ty] Iowa Records”. Inside both the front and back covers, the book contains four blank pages of dark brown paper, as opposed to the lighter and now yellowed pages used for the volume record.

The volume begins with a title page that reads “Church Record” and a brief index. The book is then divided into two sections. Both sections are paginated, although a different scribe paginated the second section. The first section contains the minutes of the in and , Iowa Territory. These minutes are written in black and blue ink, with the majority of the entries written in blue. A substantial gap in the recording of minutes occurs between pages 18 and 85. In that gap, pages 19–47 include a list of members in the Iowa branch; pages 48–85 are blank except for the page numbers. Following the last recorded minutes on page 104, the book includes a second title page, which reads “Record of the Names of those who are baptised for their Dead—1841—And also the Names of their Dead”. Clerks then recorded baptisms for the dead performed in 1841.

A number of scribes recorded minutes in the volume. and inscribed the most entries, but and Johnston F. Lane likewise made entries. Gee likely began the volume sometime around 12 July 1840, the day he was appointed clerk of the branch. After the initial inclusion of the minutes detailing the establishment of the branch on 5 October 1839, Gee recorded the minutes for 12 July 1840. Following the 12 July 1840 minutes, clerks then filled in the minutes between October 1839 and July 1840, apparently drawing upon loose minutes kept by Elias Smith that are no longer extant. Because the volume was also used to record the 1841 baptisms for the dead, it is likely that clerks finished recording the Iowa branch minutes around August 1841.

A notation on page 1 states that the volume was “returned to the office of General Church Recorder at ” on 21 February 1844. The notation also indicates that the volume was in the possession of for a time before it was loaned to an unnamed individual and subsequently returned to Richards’s custody. had access to the book on 28 January 1845 and made a notation regarding some of the previously recorded 1841 baptisms for the dead. The volume is listed as “Iowa Church Record” in the inventory of church records made in Nauvoo in 1846 prior to the Saints’ migration to the Salt Lake Valley. Subsequent inventories list the item under a variety of names, including “Lee Co Iowa [records and journal],” “Lee Co Ioway. Records,” and “[Baptisms for the Dead record]–Lee Co. Iowa records.” These inventories demonstrate that the Church Historian’s Office maintained the volume continuously through 1878. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the volume was transferred to the custody of the Salt Lake Temple because of its records relating to baptisms for the dead. It remained housed in the Salt Lake Temple Vault until October 2012, when the First Presidency transferred the volume to the custody of the Church History Library.