David Wood Townsend (July 18, 1844 – March 8, 1912) was an American builder.

[3] In 1886, Townsend contracted and oversaw the building of the Marshall County Courthouse (Iowa) and the court house at Council Bluffs and built a hotel at Sioux City.

[9] In the 1890s, Townsend owned the ACME Real Estate and Exchange Co., of Cherokee, Iowa.

He also managed the Cherokee Brick and Tile Works in the 1890s after his partner John M. Starbuck left for the Klondike Gold Rush.

[10] They supplied over 10,000,000 bricks for the Cherokee Mental Health Institute Insane Asylum.