After sponsoring only basketball for its first 30 years of existence, the Iowa Girl's High School Athletic Union decided to expand sports offerings for high school girls beginning with the 1955-56 school year. Softball was added as a fall sport, while golf and tennis championships were added for the spring.The following school year, softball continued to be played in the fall, but a state tournament for the summer was also added. Like girl's basketball, softball was initially played mostly by small, rural schools. However, sponsorship of the sport among large schools grew throughout the 1970s. Some of these schools added fall programs, but many others would stick to playing only in the summer. And while fall sponsorship of the sport initially grew (reaching nearly 300 teams by 1976), the growth of volleyball as a fall team sport led to a steady decline in the number of teams playing in the fall. The fall championship was dropped following the 1986 tournament. That year, only 44 schools played in the district tournaments, and one of the state qualifiers, Calamus-Wheatland, didn't even play any regular season games due to scheduling problems.

Summer sponsorship of the sport was strong, however, and in 1994 competition was split into three classes. This later expanded to four classes, starting in 2004, and to five classes beginning in 2012. Prior to 1994, the summer tournament was set up much like the girl's 6-on-6 basketball tournament during the same period: eight teams from each of two classes qualified for a single state tournament contested with both large and small schools.