USA > Iowa > An illustrated history of the state of Iowa, being a complete civil, political, and military history of the state, from its first exploration down to 1875; > Part 47
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The advantages of situation, pastur- age, water supply, and some few other features, give to Hamilton county very high rank among the stock raising counties in Iowa. The soil grows wheat and corn in great abundance, and quarries for building purposes are sufficiently numerous to place that fea- ture of demand and supply beyond doubt in the future history of this county. There is a fine limestone quarry about three miles from the county seat.
The census of 1875 shows that twelve thousand acres of land had been newly brought under cultivation dur- ing the year; a fact of such magnitude tells its own story as to settlement. The southeastern section of the state has many Swedish and Norwegian settlers with their families, prospering considerably as farmers, the hardships of the worst winter in Iowa being a small affair compared with the rigorous climate in which they commenced
Among the other villages which | their career. They are very quiet and
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orderly people, good colonists in every | ions for the training of youth. Of sense of the term.
Large herds of cattle, new and im- proved residences, good fences and growing hedges inclosing well culti- vated fields and farms testify to the growing importance of Hamilton county, as the traveler wends his way across the fertile prairies. Most of the residents in the northern part of the county come from the middle and eastern states, a good guaranty for the high morals of the community in which they are located.
The first settlers came to the site of this county in the winter of 1850, and although Indians were in the county, none of the residents in Hamilton county have cause to complain of dep- redations by red men. The first mill built on the river dates from 1852, pri- or to which time the nearest mill avail- able for settlers in this county, was at a point ten miles north of Des Moines, and all supplies were brought from that city. A saw mill soon followed the erection of the grist mill, and there are now seven grist mills and eight saw mills in the county.
The first school taught in the county was organized in 1854 in a log house three miles from Webster City, and it is gratifying to be able to say that at the present time there is hardly a set- tlement anywhere in the county which does not support a good school some part of every year. Eighty schools were taught in the county in 1874, at a cost of $16,026, and the school build- ings were valued at $40,000.
Coal is an important resource of Hamilton county, as the supply seems almost unlimited. Many places on the Boone river show layers of coal from one foot to four feet thick, and it is known that these measures underlie the county in every direction ; but, ex- cept to meet local demands, little is being done with these carboniferous deposits. Nothing great can be ac- complished until the railroads provide an outlet; but when that time comes. and capital with it, there will be em- ployment for an enormous population amid the perils of coal mining. Con- sidering the ignorance and brutality which too often disgrace the districts devoted to coal mining, and, indeed, it may be said to mining in any form, it is very pleasant to note that Hamilton county is making exemplary provis-
course the miners will come from a distance for the largest part of the work to be undertaken; but that will not prevent themselves and their fami- lies from being influenced by the per- vading tone of the community iu which they and theirs will settle down for life.
Considering the risks which are run, and the importance of the work in which coal miners are engaged, it is wonderful that governments in Eu- rope do uot make special exertions to improve the understandings, and to increase the knowledge of miners, but perhaps the "ono man power," which so largely prevails on the other side of the Atlantic, may be incapable of success where the efforts of our re- publican community are fated to win laurels. Certainly some of the scenes in our mining country develop as strongly as could be found anywhere among the foreign population, the ne- cessity for better culture, and a much higher moral tone.
The state geologist of Iowa, Chas. A. White, M. D., says, speaking of the mining prospects in this country and the exposures of coal on the Boone river, near the city of Webster, to which we have called attention in a former passage:
"Going down Boone river, the first exposure seen was on the right bank in the hillside, about four miles from town (Webster City). The coal is of good quality, has been worked to a considerable extent, and the bed is said to be four feet thick, which no reason was seen to doubt. Between this point and Sternburg's mill, which is four miles from town, the same bed of bitu- minous coal again appears as does a bed of cannel coal two feet in thick- ness, and of fair quality. The latter bed lies several feet beneath the former, and is of course no way connected with it. Near Sternburg's mill, and also at various points, for a number of miles below the mill, the coal makes its appearance in the banks where they are rendered steep by the washing of the river. These beds are continuous in broad, continuous layers beneath the surface, over a large area, and have become exposed to view, in places, by the deepening of the river valley by its own stream. They may doubtless be reached, with comparatively little la
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bor, from the gentler slopes of the river valley; and when the demand will warrant it, as it probably will in the future, they may be mined by sinking shafts to them from the higher lands away from the river."
WEBSTER CITY is the county seat, and is situated on the Boone river above referred to, just twenty-four hours ride from the city of Chicago, and only one hundred and seventy-five miles from the "Great Father of Waters." The piercing prairie winds, with which travelers in Iowa are some- times distressingly familiar, are in part shut off from the residents in this city by the groves of timber which very nearly surround the location. The Illinois Central Railroad passes through the northern part of the coun- ty of Hamilton. The population of the city is estimated at nearly two thousand, and should some roads which are now in contemplation be carried out, so that the coal fields near this point would be brought within the range necessary to compete for the supply of fuel to the cities of the great northwest, the immense increase would far exceed the most sanguine anticipa- tions. Many of the buildings which have been recently erected here, have been put on a style of expectancy as though the very bricks and mortar en- tertained ideas of metropolitan grand- enr in the near future. The post office recently completed is a very fine edi- fice, and there are several very hand- some churches. There is a large pub- lic school building of brick, graded in its departments, and very well con- ducted. Three wooden buildings con- tinue to be used for the convenience of the primary schools. There are some foundries in the city, employing many men, and the machine shops should be mentioned in connection therewith. Three large elevators in the town speak of the large trade in grain which is done in this city for the convenience of a vast agricultural community.
The beauty of the site upon which Webster City is built, and the delight- ful character of the surrounding coun- try, must make this city a desirable residence, and a wealthy place in the future. There are two newspapers published in Webster City, and they are very well conducted organs of pub- lic opinion.
The court house, which is now be- ing erected at a cost of $35,000 will be one of the handsomest of its size in Iowa, and a great addition to the archi- tectural beauty of the city.
BLAIRSBURG is a village on the Illi- nois Central Railroad, which was first settled in 1869, and is situated eight miles west of Webster City. The place is mainly owned by railroad men, who will do all in their power to improve the value of their property. The village is growing, and the coun- try around is well settled with a pros- perous population. The level prairie uear this place is tolerably fertile, and when the faims already located begin to multiply their produce, the village as a shipping point will give profit- able employment to a much larger population.
WILLIAMS is another railroad station village, three miles from the eastern boundary line of the county. The first settler came here in 1868, but the town lot was not platted until the next year, at the same time as the next sta- tion on the same township, Blairsbury, was settled. Many large buildings are now being erected in the village, but its growth up to the present time has been slow, notwithstanding its advan- tages. There is a newspaper published iu Williams, and that should be able to call general attention to the pros- pects of the locality.
HOMER has a population of two hundred and fifty persons; and the village is ten miles from Webster City, in the southwestern part of Hamilton county. It was at one time the county seat, but great Homer sometimes nods. and once upon a time, upon its heing aroused from a slumber, Webster City had got the honor which once sat so gracefully upon its brow. The village is on the prairie, three miles east of the Des Moines, and about the same distance from Boone river. There is a good school building, and the school is graded; but the removal of the county seat was a heavy blow, and when the railroad was constructed in the north of the county it hardly seemed possible for Homer to rally again. Still, Homer enjoys a quiet prosperity.
The post offices established for the convenience of the several townships, outside cities and towns, will be found at Lakins Grove, Polands Grove, Ross
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Grove, Saratoga and Randall. Hooks | have been stored up here and, in the Point is the spot where the first store in the county was opened, in the year 1852.
Hancock County is about midway in the state of Iowa, between the east- ern and western boundaries, and in the second tier from the northern boundary, with an area of five hundred and seventy-six square miles. This county is well watered by many small streams, the largest in the series being Lime creek, which crosses the terri- tory, comprised within its borders, near the northeast angle. The Iowa river has many tributary streams which rise in this section of country. Lakes are numerous in this county, but none of them are remarkably large; the most considerable, lake Eagle, is situated very near the center of the county. Fish abound in all these lakes in excellent variety.
The undulating character which has been noticed by our readers, among the chief features of the scenery of Iowa, is a very noticeable feature in Hancock county ; and though in some places there is broken country, there is hardly one place of any size which cannot be improved for agricultural purposes.
Pilot Mound, which has already been mentioned in our pages, is the highest point of land in this part of the state, stands partly in the northeast angle of this county and partly in the county of Winnebago. The view from Pilot Mound is extensive and very beautiful, embracing all the variations of excellence, which so wide a range of newly settled country, rich in natural charms, might be expected to offer to the eye.
Skirting Pilot Mound and Lime creek there are good supplies of tim- ber, and other groves varying in ex- tent, but very similar in general fea- tures are located on the banks of the river Iowa and around the several lakes. Besides the supply of fuel thus offered to meet the wants of the set- tlers, there are about four thousand acres of peat in the county, which will be available whenever required. Some of the deposits are fully ten feet deep, and the greater part of them are found toward the center and west of Hancock county.
Boulders from the glacial perlod
absence of good quarries, these are largely availed of, making substantial foundations for buildings. Good clay for bricks has been found in many places, and that material will be large- ly used in building the best residences in the county.
The soil is of the kind usually found where the drift formation is discov. ered, a rich dark loam which will grow cereals, grasses, and root crops, and will gladden the heart of the farmer who decides on raising stock.
The first white settlement in Han- cock county dates from 1854, when a location was selected at Upper Grove, on the river Iowa. Other families came in slowly, choosing very valu- able sites as they settled down; but organization was not effected until 1857-8, when the county seat was lo- cated at Concord. Prior to that event the business of the county had been transacted in various places, just as the temporary convenience of the several office holders dictated. The county seat was not located until 1865, and the town lots of the new site were sold in 1867. A court house was built next year at a cost of $10,000, and the town of Concord came very slowly into a fair measure of prosperity.
CONCORD, the county seat, has been already dealt with just as extensively as circumstances appear to demand in treating of the organization of the county. There is a newspaper pub- lished in the county seat which com- menced its career in 1860, and which lived three years, succumbing at last to weak circulation and chest affection, which stopped arterial supply at a crit- ical moment. The town of Concord stands near the headwaters of the Iowa in the eastern part of the county, on a gently rolling prairie, in the midst of a fertile and very prosperous farming country, well adapted for grazing and stock raising.
GARNER is the best shipping point in the county, and it stands imme- diately north of Concord. The town is rapidly rising into importance as the commercial center of a very fine agricultural district.
The town was platted in 1870, and its railroad facilities have been and are the main causes of the success achiev- ed. The town lias a fine school build- ing and a well conducted school, a
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good newspaper which enjoys a toler- ably large circulation. Garner is only about one mile north of the county seat, and it is tolerably evident that the two towns will soon become one, the only question being, which of the two will be that one. The county seat gives honor to a community, but a railway depot gives commercial im- portance, with all that the name im- plies, in the forms and substance of wealth, social standing and growth; hence, it seems probable, that when- ever Concord prevails sufficiently to enable the two towns to commit matri- mony, Garner will be found to have absorbed its neighbor.
UPPER GROVE is the name of a post- office only, on the Iowa river. There was a village laid out here under the name of Amsterdam, but the people that bought lots, expecting a big ad- vance, are content to express their feelings with the last syllable of the appellation. There was a newspaper published here in 1861.
BRITT is a station on the Iowa di- vision of the Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, in the western part of the county, and it will be an important shipping point as certain interests develop.
ELLINGTON is a postoffice, with a few residences slowly aggregating thereunto, in the Lime creek settle- ment, in the northeast of Hancock county, in the midst of a fine farming country well occupied and highly im- proved.
CRYSTAL LAKE is a postoffice in the northwest, which supplies the postal needs of some intelligent farmers around the borders of the lake.
Hardin County stands a little to the east of midway between the two great rivers, in the fourth tier from the Minnesota boundary. The county is twenty-four miles square and its di- inensions include an area of five hund- red and seventy-six square miles. The surface of the county is generally prairie, rolling in some districts, un- dulating in others; the country to the southwest being well adapted for farming and grazing. The quantity of timber in that section of country being almost infinitessimal, caused the other claims to notice, which the region undoubtedly possessed, to be slighted, but there is now a fair ave-
rage settlement in the southwest, and not a few indications that the supply of timber, even without planting, would, in the course of a few years, begin to supply the wants of the farming community. Agriculturists who have chosen that section of Harden county for their home are, however, too wise to trust entirely to native forests springing up, and many of them have planted groves for their own convenience, and as a means for general supply, several years since.
The first country taken up for settle- ment was the broken land along the Iowa river and its many tributaries, where native timber had continued to flourish, while the parts more exposed to prairie fires were denuded year after year. Since that time the pine forests of Minnesota and Wisconsin have been brought to the farmer's threshhold in this county by the agency of rail- roads, and there was no longer a diffi- culty about settling up the better lands from which every semblance of timber had been removed.
The best productions, in the largest quantity, will come, within a very few years, from the lands which waited so long for occupants. The northeast of the county has a good soil and is well farmed. Most ofthe rivers in thatsection have cut their channels deep into the rock formations, and that fact, without the use of any artificial means what- ever, secures a very reliable system of drainage. West of Alden, along the railroad line, there are some few spots which resemble swamps and marshes, in all but the fact, that they are not deep, and will speedily be reclaimed, as soon as the soil is wanted for settle- ment. Vegetable soil, of good depth and very dark color, which will grow large quantities of cereals, grasses, root crops and other produce, can be found in every section of this county, and Iowa has no more fertile spot than can be equalled in this section of its territory.
Since the county was first settled there have been many extremes of drouth and flood, but no loss of crop has ever been reported under any of these variations, so well is the soil adapted to remain moist during long perioda of dry weather, and to shed superfluous rain, which, in some soils. would lie until the crops were killed in the land. The gravel of the drift
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period may be seen at many points, giving hints as to the early record of this territory, but usually the vegetable mould, from which innumerable crops will come before there can be a check put upon the fertility of this county; lies deep upon the drift, and would seem to be the accretions of forest and prairie from the days when Adam first walked the earth in human majesty.
The river Iowa and its tributaries waters and drains much of this county. The main stream flows from the north- west angle of the county to the south- east angle, or very nearly so; thus, with its affluents, covering a vast ter- ritory. The Iowa is a rapid river in this county, with an average of one hundred feet in width, the banks being rocky bluff's, somewhat resembling the world famous palisades, but in a min- iature form; still, there are points at which this picturesque formation rises to a height of sixty feet. This feature of the scenery is not universal, nor does it occur only on one side of the stream; sometimes the palisades rise on one side, sometimes on the other, and again, high, rocky bluffs replace them; but there are very few valleys and bottom lands in this section of country. Back of the bluffs are usual- ly other elevations, which rise in pic- turesque beauty, crowned in places by the best timber in the county, and at- fecting the meteorology of this state to an extent which it seems extravagantly fanciful to particularize. Some excel- lent water powers are available in this county, especially at and near Iowa Falls. A fall of forty-six feet within six miles, with a stream of the magni- tude described, places at the disposal of a mechanic a force such as could hardly be sustained in any other way by the consumption of a coal mine or innumerable forests, and it is only be- cause in this conntry there is no dearth of such forces on rivers and streams that such a boon goes begging, or re- mains bnt half improved. Along this six miles of river could be located mills enough to grind corn for all Europe.
Good building stone, which in some counties can hardly be found at all, and in others not without much trouble and cost, is obtainable here in close proximity to the sites where some of the most extensive buildings and works in this county will have to be
constructed. It looks as though na- ture, afraid of the dullness and inertia of mankind, had resolved just at this spot to give line upon line, and precept upon precept, which it would be im- possible to misunderstand as to the value of the position.
South Fork, Henry creek and Mine- wa creek on the west, and Bear creek on the cast, are the principal tributa- ries of the Iowa in Hardin county. South Fork is the most important of all these, as it waters and drains a very extensive area, extending from very near the northwest angle of the county to its junction with the main stream in the southeast township, very near that angle of the square. Tipton and Beaver creeks are tributaries of the South Fork, and there are many minor streams serving the same purposes.
Good water is the role here - brack- ish water a very rare exception; the streams are usually bright and clear as crystal, fed by springs and much liked by cattle- Springs are very numerous, and wells can be relied on all the year round, at depths varying from fifteen feet to twenty-five, on the prairies. With such advantages in the matter of water supply Arabia Petrea might be made to " bloom and blossom as the rose."
The average of timbered land in this county may be roughly stated at one acre in ten, and the proportion will steadily increase, as the lands are rap- idly clothing themselves with forcsts. Along the Iowa river there arc heavy bodies of timber on both sides, with only an occasional break. There are fine groves, also, but not quite so ex- tensive on the South Fork, on Tipton, and on Honey crceks. Some white pine trees are found in favored locali- tics; but that wood, which was at oue time tolerably plentiful in this county, is now very rare. The neighboring county of Grundy, which is to a large extent timberless, draws much of its supply from Hardin county, and still the native wealth in this particular is increasing. Some very ornamental trees are indigenous to this county, such as the white birch, white pine, and cedar, and enterprising men would do well to make a specialty of growing such varieties of timber to meet a de- mand which is sure to increase. Along some streams in this county the wil- low grows in great perfection, and with
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a few years attention to such matters | not taken up until long after the prai- the whole region could be clad in veg- rie lands adjoining had been im- proved. etal beauty during the leafy seasons.
Hardin county was at one time the center of high hopes, which have not all been fulfilled. There were said to have been gold discoveries made in this county, in 1852. Thousands of men were then off on the quest for gold in California and in Australia, and it is not strange that some speci- mens of the precious metal should have been found in Hardin county. Whether gold really was found, or mi- ca, that looks so much like the real thing, that to many it would appear more precious; certain it is that large numbers engaged in the search, and more profitable occupations had no charm for the amateur miners until their fever had been reduced by hard work and manifold privations. Some say that gold was procured, but the statement is not well sustained, and in any case the search was abandoned entirely after a time. Probably all the earth is auriferous, as all the sea is argentiferous, but neither land nor sea would pay in gold and silver for the labor of mining the vast area. Hardin county paid out more specie in the process of search than will ever come back again to its coffers by mining for the precious metals, therefore it was well that the gold fever should be cured early; but in 1853 there were many who believed that there was to be a complete overturn of the world, to empty the populations of Europe upon the region in which a far less at- tractive deposit was waiting only for the time when man should determine to avail himself of such unpretentious wealth. Hardin is very rich in coal.
The early settlers could not fail to see the coal cropping out on the banks of the river Iowa, between Steamboat Rock and Eldora, or rather the points on which the towns named have since been located and built, but it was not easy for men just come to a new coun- try to project their minds ahead into the busy future in which coal would take rank far above gold as the factor in a nation's prosperity. Just that op- eration was demanded if the situation was to be realized, and so the coal re- mained uncared for, if not unheeded, awhile longer. Some two or three mines were opened after a time, but the most valuable coal measures were
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