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 58
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Mills County is one of the small counties in Iowa, as it contains only about four hundred and fifty square miles. It is the western border county in the second tier from the southern boundary of the state. The townships on the west side follow the course of the Missouri river, and are therefore irregular in form and fractional in measurement. The western part of the county is bottom land, forming part of the plaiu of the Missouri, over which floods innumerable have spread their alluvium, leaving a rockless area, capable of unbounded cultivation, but liable any moment to remind its occu- pants of the deluge, or of the some- what monotonous appearance of Egyp- tian scenery when the Nile made a run on its banks. In some parts these lands are fully seven miles wide, while in other portions the area is narrowed more than half, and on the east this feature of the territory terminates in bold bluffs which mark where, in some remote period the river found its boun- dary. These bluffs do not follow the course of the detail, but generally it conforms thereto, and the effect of their appearance is very good.
As in other parts which have been described, the slowly acting forces which have molded the bluffs to their majestic outlines have been coopera-
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tive with other forces which in their way have changed the appearance of these earth and rock ramparts. Streams which at various ages have made their entrance to the great river, at various points, have cut ravines in some places and broad valleys in others, breaking up the bluffs so that while the general appearance remains, when observed from a distance, the nearer views show wide diversity and gleams of a pecu- culiar beauty. Back of the bluffs the traveler, observing the contour of the country, comes upon a narrow strip of broken land, and beyond that, high rolling prairie forms the uplands which are in every sense adapted to the purposes of the hushandman. Water courses not unfrequently stud- ded with groves of timber, are found adding to the picturesqueness and fer- tility of this fine region, and every slope has its own phase of loveliness, changing, while preserving, the new- ness of nature's charms.
The streams along this line of coun- try never fail, and springs occur at fre- quent intervals, not only along the bluffs which face the Missouri, but along the banks of all the minor streams. The rains descending in grateful showers, not only fill the wat- er courses on the uplands, but they sink deep into the soil, where rock crevices and gravel beds invite the presence of each pearly drop, until a miniature river starts upon its course, through the different layers of the earth's crust, giving moisture as it pas- ses to the remotest radicle of innume- rable trees, and then at last emerging into sunshine once more, iced to cool the palate of the thirsty wayworn trav- eler, and brighter than the gems with which the coronet of beauty and high rank may have been jewelled.
Many of the streams in this county afford good water powers, the West Nishnahotany, Wahaboncey, Silver creek, and Keg creek, are specially noticeable for such features.
These powers are not altogether un- improved ; there is a very considerable woolen mill on the Wahaboncey creek, the factory employing a large number of hands, and there are nu- merous flouring mills in the several sections of country, which afford the best prospects of good return upon such undertakings.
This county has a liberal supply of
timber; cottonwood trees are largely consumed for fencing, and a number of steam mills are busily engaged in preparing lumber for the regions less favored with forests. The Nishnabot- any valley, for some reason, is less furnished with woodland than many areas less fertile, but even here some groves of small extent are found, and the rising of grounds back of this val- ley will bear an abundant supply.
There are first rate quarries on the Nishnabotany river in some places and also on Silver creek. In the northeast of the county there are sandstone quarries which have been resorted to for building stone, and the quality is higlily approved. In the southwest at the bases of the numerous bluffs the the materials for the manufacture of quicklime are abundant. Glenwood and Pacific City have near at hand clays adapted for brickmaking and that branch of manufacture is pushed with considerable profit, hence it will appear that Mills county has all that is requisite in the way of building materi- als to cover its territory with habita- tions for farmer, manufacturer and tra- der until the song of the husbandman, the clink of the hammer, the hum of machinery, the rattle of traffic, and the roar of the steam engine, shall do for mankind a grander work than was ever dreamed of in the days of necromancy and magic, when alche- mists were seeking the philosopher's stone, and the greater treasure, the elixir vitæ.
The bluff deposit is the main ingre- dient in the soil of this county. Its qualities have already been described, and it is of considerable depth, the lowest layer being equal in richness to that which lies only a foot below the surface, where the substratum has be n exposed to atmospheric action. The upper soil is more or less mixed with vegetable mold from the decay o! grasses and other growths upon the surface. Even the fires which av. crossed this range of country have lef :. a layer of material well qualified to improve the bearing powers of th earth for nnnumbered seasons. The bottom lands producing all crops more luxuriantly then the uplands, have been annually enriched by greater deposi ts, and for that reason among others, th region named must long continue to be the pride of Mills county whether
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the holder gives his attention to the | much promise of permanency, but, cultivation of corn and cereals, the raising of stock, the manufacture of dairy produce, or the combination of all those pursuits in one comprehen- sive agricultural enterprise. Stock raising has of late years commanded much attention, and the profits realized have induced the men thus engaged to invest largely in the very best breeds or'cattle and blooded stock, from which valuable returns may be with safety prognosticated.
Trading posts formed the nuclei for settlement in this county. Away back in 1836, some few of the men who arc now living in Mills county were trad- ers among the Indians on both sides of the Missouri. One month or one season in the territory, now called Ne- braska, and the next in Iowa, driving their bargains with the Indians and at the same time observing the " coigns of vantage " which would be available when their successors should come into their kingdom. They warmed themselves as they best might in the slanting rays of the sun that was near its decline, but they looked with an enduring hope toward the auroral tints which began to paint the grey dawn in their imaginations, with the glori- ous effulgence of a brighter morning. They were watchers upon the moun- tain tops for the earliest gleam of the new day. When the coming orb cast its first bars of light above the horizon, they were ready for the work of the day before them, and they were not slow to make the golden lining of their cloudland yield specie of an enduring kind for their pouches.
One of the earliest villages estab- lished in this county was near the mouth of Mosquito creek on the Mis- souri bottom, but the exact date of the beginning has not been preserved; the founder, a Frenchman, is long since dead; the people who were associated with him in the Catholic community of St. Marys are scattered, and the river goes fluently on, at times, over the site of the little township. The founder of St. Marys was an employé of the American Fur Company, and he chose a good location; " but the rains de- scended and the floods came, * * * and great was the fall thereof."
Somewhere about thirty Mormons came to this country in 1846, and made a settlement, which at one time gave
in the end, most of the party moved off towards Utah. Some remained in Mills county, and with all their pecu- liarites were not bad citizens. They coveted not the wives, the cattle, nor the substance of other men; they worked early and late, were content with only one wife apiece, and were even suspected of submitting to cer- tain lecturers like Mrs. Caudle and many other distinguished Christians. Probably, they were saved from be- coming polygamists by the accident of remaining in Iowa, where that kind of abomination would find no favor from either the people or the laws.
For nearly five years the Mormons continued in the county in some force, but when Gentile settlers came along, the followers of Joe Smith were, as a whole, willing to trade off their im- provements. After 1852, there remained only a few isolated specimens of the church of the Latter Day Saints, and the town of Rushville, which they founded, has no longer a place in the topography of Mills county.
The organization of this county, separate from Pottawatomie county, with which it had been associated, was accomplished in 1851, before the saints made their exodus, and the first judge in the county was a Mor- mon. The county seat was located at a town then called Coonville, but since, more euphoniously named Glenwood. In the central square of that town, now stands a court house which cost $25,000, and appears to be well worth that outlay. There is a jail of a very substantial character, said to be thief proof to an extent seldom excelled in new territory. Pilferers and desper- adoes are said to have wonderful fa- cility in procuring quarters in the last named establishment, but the steel cased bars of the cell windows caunot be touched by saw or file, and the men once immured there must serve their sentence unless they have friends at court to move the proper authorities on their behalf.
In addition to these unquestionable advantages, the county has exhibited praisworthy regard for commerce, by building bridges over all the principal streams, and there are ample facilities for shipment by railroad of all the surplus produce which the agricul- turist may care to send to any of the
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markets of the world. The Kansas City, St. Joseph and Council Bluffs Railroad runs north and south through the district, and the Chicago, Burling- ton and Quincy Railroad traverses the county east and west.
GLENWOOD, once known as Coon- ville, where an Irish Mormon judge named Sloan made himself a peculiar reputation, is embowered in one of the most attractive groves ever seen in the valley of Keg creek. The valley is not a level plain ; there are alternations of rise and fall, not great enough to be called hill and dale, but sufficient to serve all purposes of drainage, and the business of the town is nearly all transacted in this area. The wooded eminences and slopes back of the val- ley, which still retain much of their primeval growth, are dotted with resi- dences of almost every variety of style and costliness. The wealthy merchant who can take his ease without dimin- ishing his profit, enjoying his otium cum dignitate, while numerous clerks watch over his interests, and fulfill the behests of his clients, lives in a do- mestic palace, which is only too mod- est to put on so large a name, and, when he pleases, can cover a mile of ground in little over 2:40, while the struggling artificer, who has only climbed a few rungs of the ladder, but can see the end for which he toils in a perspective not remote, makes here his humble abode, where beauty can preach daily to the inner soul of his little ones, and the salubrious air pre- serves them hale and hearty for life's battle.
When sketching the progress of the county generally, the court house which adorns the public square was mentioned. All the business blocks are congregated facing the square, and the inclosure is highly ornamented with trees, reminding one of the fit- ness which suggested the name Glen- wood, when the less admirable appel- lation Coonville was put aside. The glen is still a shady spot, but, except in favored spots, where the taste of in- dividual citizens, or the liberality of official bodies has made provision, the wood is being banished, the sylvan shades in which the private residences before named are embosomed.
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The settlement was first made in 1849, but the man who built here on that occasion, and gave his name to the
place for some years, removed after- wards to another part of Iowa. Near this spot the first flouring mill in the county was built, in 1849.
Schools and educational institutions of every kind flourish in every county of Iowa, as the men who wrestle with na- ture on farm and stream know that the best engine with which they can ap- proach their work is an educated brain, cultivated to the highest practical point of excellence. They can tell the best professor, who may ever visit their homes, though they may not shape their sentences quite so deftly, that the main difference between the clod of the valley, who pursues his toil from daylight to darkness in contented stu- pidity, and the bright student who reads the secrets of nature while he drives his agricultural machinery over the ground, is education and culture continued from sire to son through many generations. He would not have his sons and daughters dull, con- tented laborers in the miry roads of life, and he makes for them the best provis- ion for their future, when, in addition to his fertile farms, he bestows upon them the care which develops the high- est fruit - the golden grain of knowl- edge and understanding. Without cul- ture, the steam engine might still have been a curious half dream-like assem- blage of pipes, such as the Marquis of Worcester amused himself with two centuries ago; but the brain of New- comer constructed his polytechnic model, the optician Watts, studying the model as he repaired it, pondered the problem of its improvement, the miner Stephenson worked at its more complete development, and we have now the steamboat upon river and ocean such as Fulton may have ima- gined but could not compass; and up- on the land the locomotive, with its train of comforts, luxuries and civiliz- ing power, doing for the human race in half a century, what all the wordy philosophies of earth might never have approached.
The settlers in Mills county favor education, and their public schools bear testimony to the fact, but besides that, they have their Western Iowa college in Glenwood. The Methodist Episcopal church is the main stay of the institution, which is liberally sus- tained and well conducted, having four resident professors and instruct-
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ors for the several departments. The | which is now sent over the railroads building is handsome aud commodi- ous. The public schools are graded and the main building which cost $20,000, is a beautiful specimen of school architecture. The manage- ment is equal in every respect to the : taste and judgment displayed in the building.
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There are three homes in Iowa for the orphan children of the soldiers that fell fighting for the union, and one of these institutions stands within the corporate bounds of Glenwood. The site on which the home is built affords a very extensive view, not only of the surrounding country in Iowa, but of remote distances in the territory of Nebraska, when a clear atmosphere does not limit the glory of the land- scape. The home stands on sixteen acres of ground, well enclosed and ornamented, the building is of brick with facings of cut stone, and the gen- eral aspect of the edifice is very eflec- tive.
The Chicago, Burlington and Quin- cy railroad makes Glenwood one of its shipping points, and the station is surrounded with every facility for the rapid despatch of business. The quantity of grain and other produce annually shipped at this depot sets in an advantageous light the prosperity of the community, which enjoys the results of so much fertility of soil and aptitude of hand and brain, but as a rule, we avoid the reproduction of fig- ures except in cases in which arith- metic cannot he dispensed with.
There are two newspapers published in Glenwood, and they are very favor able specimens of provincial literature. The advertising pages are well filled and the editorial columns of the sev- eral departments contain more than the average of well written, pungent paragraphs on local matters.
PACIFIC CITY stands about three miles from Glenwood, on the Kansas City, St. Joseph and Council Bluffs railroad, and is a shipping point of much value. When Glenwood extends its borders into metropolitan propor- tions, Pacific City will be one portion of that vast expanse of buildings which the fertile country will be well able to sustain, and the manufacturing and other industries of the vast entre- pot of commerce will afford a local market for much of the produce
to distant parts of the union and to Europe. Platte river after flowing through Nebraska empties itself into the Missouri just opposite Pacific City, which stands at the foot of the bluffs, about three miles from the vast river. When the Burlington and Missouri River railroad was projected in 1857, this city was laid off as one of the ter- mini, but the bottom fell out of the project and it was not until the present railroad was built that the place attain- ed to considerable importance. The buildings of the railroad company are of great value to the locality, and be- sides these, there is a large business transacted in lumber, and an amount of shipment from the farmers, stock raisers and others, from the wide range of country which centers here, such as fully justifies the location of the road. There is an extensive steam flouring mill in full operation here all the year round, and the reputation which has been gained for the flour of the district since it came into opera- tion, will secure a still wider demand on its services.
MALVERN stands on the line of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy rail- road, near the center of Mills county, in the beautiful valley which takes its name from Silver creek. The dis- trict which sends its surplus stock and produce from this station stands sec- ond to none in the state of Iowa for general productiveness, and Malvern does a fair general business with the agricultural community.
There are other railroad stations in Mills county, to which the foregoing general remarks will apply, and in many of the villages there are signs of rapid growth. The several localities are named: Hastings, Emmerson, Hillsdale, White Cloud and Pacific Junction.
Mitchell County was named in hon- or of John Mitchell, whose name is identified with the modern history of Ireland, since the days when Daniel O'Connell, the great liberator, came to the height of his glory, and the story of repeal became " stale, flat and un- profitable." The men of that era of Irish liberalism are passing away. Mitchell is no more, dying nobly at the door of the house of commons, to which he had been twice elected. Mc-
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Gee fell by the hand of an assassin, at | territory beautiful and prolific. the acme of a great career, in the Do- minion of Canada. Charles Gavan Duffy is one of the foremost politi- cians in the colony of Victoria, Aus- tralia, wearing the honors of a well earned knighthood, and the others, whose name is legion, are making their mark on the page of history in many states and kindoms. Peace to their manes. May their days be many in the land, and their memories re- main a sweet odor to all nations. They came of a troubled age, in a troubled land, but their intellects helped solve some problems. Rock creek, one of the tributaries of the Red Cedar, flows through this county before, as we have seen, it joins the above mentioned river in Floyd county. Deer creek, another of the feeders of that river, makes its course between that stream and Rock creek, going nearly east until the junction near Newburg. These streams, as most of our readers will remember, are remarkable for good water powers in other counties, and they do not lose that characteristic here. The sites which may be improved are innumer- able, and there are already sixteen mills at work iu different parts of Mitchell county, of which, one is a woolen factory, six are saw mills, doing a large aggregate of business in lumber for home and foreign consump- tion, and nine are flouring mills pre- paring the cercals of this fine territory for shipment in the form most profita- ble to the community.
The county was named and defined iu 1851 by the Iowa state legislature, and the area embraces five hundred and four square miles, bounded on the north by the state of Minnesota, standing fourth county from the Mis- sissippi river. Between the streams in Mitchell county there is beautiful land for all purposes of agriculture, but it is almost destitute of wood. The gently rolling land hardly presents one grove for many miles; and thus the advantage of the soil being perfectly fit for the plow is fully balanced by the absence of fuel, fencing, and other wood on the farm. Still the agricul- turist does not suffer materially if he chooses to locate his farm near some of the heavily timbered streams, from the banks of which he can, at all times, obtain a supply which is practi- cally unlimited. In those localities the trees are very large, and the varie- ties are just the same as have been mentioned in describing other coun- ties.
The soil is very fertile, good for the grazier as well as for the farmer, being a rich loam of considerable depth. There is quite a furore in this county for blooded stock, and some excellent results have been attained in that line of enterprise.
The county is well watered even for an Iowa county, where all the country is supplied with fine and numerous streams for irrigation, drainage, and stock water. The Wapsipinicon, with its innumerable arms, is the great artery of the northeast; the Little Ce- dar flows southeast from above the northern line right through the coun- ty ; the Red Cedar runs southeast from the northwestern boundary, making the southern central portion of this
Builders find in this county very ex- cellent limestone, fit for every purpose to which they would apply it, and there are some very large quarrics from which superb varieties of that material have been procured, but no other kinds of stone have yet been worked here. Quicklime is very large- ly manufactured here, and that pro- duct may become quite an item in the shipments from this country. Bricks can be made by the million from a su- perior description of clay, which is in very high repute among builders, be- cause of the finish and strength which distinguish the article sent into the market. The color of the brick as well as its high quality, makes it a favorite among builders.
The court house of Mitchell county is of brick, and the edifice cost $25,000 in the year 1858. It is commodious, and somewhat ornamental. The coun- ty jail erected in the following year cost $13,500, and it is well built, so that the community can give law, jus- tice and punishment in some form to every deserving object.
The school tax during the year 1874 amounted to $31,860, which provided for the tuition of more than four thou- sand pupils, by one hundred and forty- six teachers in eighty-seven school houses, scattered through fifty-four school districts. Every school house is commodious enough for the work
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before it for some years to come, and the skill displayed by teachers is large- ly in excess of their stipends. This fact is especially noticeable where wo- men are employed, as for some reason, which is found operating everywhere, the labor of the other sex will not com- mand more than half the remunera- tion which, as a rule, is given for the services of men. Some day that an- omaly will have to be righted, and in the meantime, it must remain an un- failing text for declaimers on the vexed question of woman's rights.
The Mitchell county agricultural so- ciety has been born again since the first association in 1862, after three years of inquietude and trouble. The organization now in existence came into being in 1871, and is yet in its vigorous youth, doing much good to the community.
The year 1851 is noteworthy in the history of Mitchell county, because in that year the first settlers came, saw and resolved to conquer. Their claims date from the following year, and from the neighbordood of Osage. From about that time settlers became numerous, and in 1854 the county, which up to that time was attached to Chickasaw, was separately organized, and the county seat located early in the following year at Mitchell. That decision did not give satisfaction to the parties who were left out in the cold, and in the next spring Osage procured a vote in its favor. Mitchell was the appellant, agitated people and courts, until that place was once more nominated for the honor, and so the war waged incessantly by popular votes and injunctions, until the year 1870, when Osage won the decisive battle in the law courts, and has since that date been the county seat.
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