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 60
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There is no danger of a dearth of fuel in Monroe ceunty, because nearly the whole area lies within the coal re- gion of Iowa, and it is evident that there will be an immense amount of wealth delved from the bowels of the earth, when capital and labor have once been directed toward the realiza- tion of this hoon. The lower and middle coal measures are here sup- posed to be fully developed; in the east of the county, some beds which have been partially worked have a thickness of some four to five feet. In some parts of Iowa, thicker deposits have been fouud, but nowhere is the coal of better quality. The middle measure is not so thick as the lower measure, the atmosphere had parted with its carbon in great measure, in the first layer, when the cooling globe was slowly being made ready for man's reception, hence when the second de- posit was precipitated, the air was be- coming fit for the lower animals, and the supply of fuel which the parent sun enabled this earth to store up, while the chaos of elements was set- tling down into proper form, and that order which was heaven's first law, was being evolved, could not any longer be found in vast profusion, as it had been when all the surface of this globe was tropical, carrying gi- gantic developments of the lowest or- ders of vegetable life. The deposits are not so thick in the middle meas- ures as in the lower, nor are the lower measures in this county as they have been found elsewhere, but the coal can be easily reached, and therefore mines can be worked in Monroe county at less cost and at greater profit than in the average of coal counties. While speaking of mineral resources, we can- not do better at this point thần refer to stone and other materials available for the builder. Stone can be quarried in almost any section of the county fit for building operations, and the mate- rials for the manufacture of quicklime are everywhere. Clay and sand are just as plentitul, and bricks of the very best description are everywhere on band.
The drift formation, often mentioned in these pages, overlies the formation of stratified rocks everywhere, except where the rivers and streams have hol-
sional valleys, have given that peculiar- ity of soil which, when impregnated with vegetable mold, grows every kind of vegetable product with a fer- tility often surpassing the river bot- toms. The deep subsoil holds moist- ure enough to defy a drought, and the rootlets of trees strike down into that reservoir of strength until every form of flower and fruit reaches perfection in this favored country.
Fruits, cereals, corn, vegetables, and root crops cursorily catalogue the pro- ductions of this county. Wild grasses compete for preëminence with the best tame grasses introduced, and whether for hay or for green feed, they are truly excellent, consequently the stock rais- er, the dairy farmer and the general husbandman, have only to use com- mon prudence in their manifold pur- suits to secure first class returns.
The Chicago, Burlington and Quin- cy Railroad goes through this terri- tory, the Central Railroad of Iowa has its temporary terminus at Albia, and the Albia, Knoxville and Des Moines road, which is in course of construc- tion, will commence its operations from the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy headquarters at Albia, before traveling the Des Moines valley.
When the Sac and Fox Indians sold their territory in 1842 for settlement to commence in the following year, Mon- roe county, originally called Kishke- kosh, was part of the new purchase, and the first settlement was made in the year 1843, in the northeast about two miles from Eddyville. Two years later the county organization was effected under the name at first men- tioned. The first county business was transacted at Clarksville, but the final location was made by the proper com- missioners at the site now known as Albia, but the original name was Princeton.
ALBIA was selected as the county seat, although under the name of Princeton before the town itself was laid out. There was an advantage in this fact, as the commissioners to whom the duty had been delegated, could determine the site and the exact location of the town with the full knowledge of the destiny to which it had been allotted. There was a spa- cious square reserved in the center of the town for public buildings, and
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then in due time the county authori- ties erected a very handsome court house of brick, the surrounding in- closure was ornamented with trees, a work toward which nature had already contributed, and here the best business blocks slowly aggregated their forces, until Princeton, transformed to Albia, became one of the handsomest county seats in the state.
The private residences of the mer- chants seem to emulate the beauty of the town, many of the dwellings very tasteful in themselves, being rendered still more effective by the choice shrubs and stately trees which have been planted round them.
As a center of business, Albia is of vast importance; the Central Railroad of Iowa has a great depot here near the handsome fair grounds and trotting park, which the enterprise of the towns people and the farmers have made ready for the service of their several industries and enjoyment. The Burlington and Missouri River Railroad, better known as the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, has here every facility for traffic and travel, and from that point already stretches the works soon to be operated over by the Albia, Knoxville and Des Moines Railroad. One-third of such accommodation has often made the fortune of a town, and Albia does not allow these princely facilities to rust in idleness. Flouring mills and warehouses are partial de- velopments of the business tact and energy of the people, and it is easy to perceive that in the good time coming at some indefinite date for the world at large, but at no remote period for Albia, there will be an immense array of workshops and factories in which the energies of every skillful man and graceful woman may be coined into ingots of pure gold, and converted in- to brain power for succeeding genera- tions of mankind.
Education has commanded the best attention of the citizens of Albia, and an excellent graded school liberally endowed and well officered is located in a suitable building, supplied with every requisite for the development of the powers of youth. The training of the young people has been so far a marked success. In connection with The other villages and postoffices around which the residences of a few are soon to become villages of more the progress of education for the next generation, it seems to be in order here to say that there are many fine l or less note are Cedar Mines, Avery,
church edifices in this town, and all the churches are in good condition.
When the commissioners selected this site as the county seat for Monroe county, they wished to come as near as circumstances would permit, to the geographical center, which is less than three miles from the court house. They next looked for the precise spot where the advantages procurable in the neighborhood could be availed of in the highest degree, and this posi- tion on high rolling prairie, with a view over the country for many scores of miles in almost any direction, se- cured their approbation. Round this center the fertile acres have been made to do their best; to this point their pro- duce comes for shipment to every part of the world: their cheese to Liver- pool, their grain to New York, their live stock to St. Louis and Chicago, and at every step there is au accretion to the riches of Albia. Good coal is furnished from mines which are close at band. Good bricks and stone are readily available, and to crown the beauty of the whole, the country smiles in blossoms like a well watered garden.
There are two newspapers published weekly in Albia, and they are fair specimens of provincial literature, well supported by subscribers and ad- vertisers.
FREDERIC is a good shipping station in the east of Monroe county, and there is a good local trade transacted in the rapidly expanding village.
TYRONE stands southeast of the county seat, on the Burlington and Missouri River railroad, well placed as a shipping station, as it commands the attention and support of a large farming district.
MELROSE is a shipping station on the railroad, and it has a postoffice known as East Melrose. The village is situated in the eastern portion of Monroe county, and, as usual the ship- ping facilities offered by the railroad company have had the effect of build- ing up a commercial center at the point of traffic. Quite a brisk trade is done here and the future of Melrose is one of few certainties. The country round Melrose is very fertile.
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Coalfield, Coalton, Halfway Prairie, two on Walnut creek, three on the Georgetown, Lovilla, Hummaconna, Urbana City and Weller.
Montgomery County stands second from the Missouri river and second from the southern boundary of Iowa, with a superficial area of four hundred and thirty-two square miles, well watered by numerous rivers and smaller streams, which will some day procure for this county great wealth in manufacturing machinery and skill. The streams are so important that some detail as to their names and posi- tions may be afforded.
The Middle Nodaway and the West Nodaway are by no means drowsy streams. Tarkio creek, East Nishna- botany, Indian creek and Walnut creek make up the principal members of the system of water courses by which this county is made fertile, while it is en- abled to offer to the manufacturing in- terests of the state something better even than helping hands. The West Nodaway flows south across the east- ern line of townships in Montgomery county. The Middle Nodaway flows across the southeast angle of the coun- ty, forming a junction with the west- ern stream near the southern boundary. Tarkio creek rises in the northern part of the county and runs almost due south. The East Nishnabotany flows across the country southwest, and by south half south, to be precise in the language of the men most ac- customed to speak by the compass. These rivers and creeks have innumer- able tributaries which would ask for a volume if they were to be accurately described in their several localities with their picturesque surroundings, but the names of a few may be given, just their names and the direction from whence they come. Coe's Branch, Long Branch, Romp creek and Red Oak creek come into their main streams from the east, and the East Nishnabotany is much increased in volume by their wealth of water. Walnut creek runs parallel with the East Nishnabotany, or nearly so, and its confluents are very numerous. Many of these streams afford sites for mills, and many good positions have been improved. There are ten mills already in the county, in which water is the motive power, one on the Mid- dle Nodaway near the town of Valiska,
West Nodaway and on the largest stream in this county, the East Nish- nabotany, the remainder of the decade. In the dryest seasons the springs which supply the creeks and larger streams never run dry, and consequently the music of running water is never ban- ished from the land. The multiplicity of springs is one of the charms of this county and the water is as pure as it is plentiful.
Wherever wells are dug good water and a permanent supply cau be almost invariably found within twenty feet of the surface, consequently the men who make stock raising their pursuit, have an unfailing resource in the labor of the pick and shovel, which will smite Horeb for them when all else fails. Those who have been longest iu the country assert that there is no fear of a drought severely affecting Iowa.
Along the West Nodaway and the East Nishuabotany, there are fine groves of timber, but there are also excellent belts and groves on the other creeks and streams, only less in extent than the foregoing. The high prairies are as usual denuded of wood; of course the action of fire is apparent herein, as wherever the devouring ele- ment would be least able to make its inroads, in the valleys and beside the streams, woodland is the rule, and when the prairies are for a time left untouched by the plow, but at the same time defended from flame, there is a speedy show of such growths as would eventually become a forest.
The county is said to have one acre of woodland for every ten acres in its area, a very tolerable supply, but the farmers will do well to add to this store by encouraging the growth of native timber, as well as by planting choice groves on such portions of their farms as require shelter for crops and cattle. The strong winds which, at certain seasons of the year, sweep over Iowa, demand that all means available should he resorted to to mul- tiply means of protection. Many groves have been planted already and have made good headway, and in ad- dition to that fact, among the good omens of Montgomery county, the railroads have brought immense ship- ments of lumber from other districts for fencing and building. Hedges are being cultivated in many parts of this
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county, and the best consequences may be anticipated from the wide preva- lence of that kind of protection.
The surface of Montgomery county is undulating in consequence of the numerous streams which traverse the country, making a series of small di- vides between their watercourses.
The bottoms or valleys across the areas through which the Nishnabota- ny and the Nodaways run are in some instances fully three miles across, and seldom less than one mile. These lands are fertile in a wonderful degree, yet being well placed above high water mark, there is no tendency to swamp in any portion. Timber in some districts has spread all over these lands, and in some instances they have been taken into cultivation, but otherwise there is a growth of wild grass which is splendid food for cattle at all seasons of the year. When broken into cultivation the yields are very large. Some of the farmers reckon these lands the best, spots on their fertile estates.
The high prairie lands have already been described in dealing with the pe- culiarities of other counties. The surface is easily drained and the sub- soil retains moisture, consequently the continuance of rain will give no flood and the drought brings no with- ering of crops. The ground once broken is always easy to work, and the crops give their grand total every year.
Coal has been found in the northeast of Montgomery county, but the expo- sures only show a thickness of about twenty inches, and the bed would hardly pay for regular working. In localities where the best could be reached by quarrying at little cost, it may be used to some extent, but such a bed of coal can hardly be reckoned for much in the resources of the county. Near Red Oak there are some excellent quarries, from which building stone and the materials for making quicklime have been procured in abundance, and the stock seems in- exhaustible. This limestone is very serviceable for building. Near Oak Junction there is an exposure of sand- stone, and the slopes of the valley of the Nishnabotany reveal large beds of the same material.
Many districts reveal clay fit for brickmaking and for pottery also, and
at Red Oak Junction and at Arlington, besides many other places in the county, there have been large quanti- ties of brick manufactured. Pottery may become an established industry in this county, so many are the facili- ties offered. Near the center of the county a mineral paint has been dis- covered, which has become quite an article of commerce, and the quantity available is very large. The color is a decided red, varying in different layers.
All the principal streams of this county are supplied with fish of ex- cellent quality, and the quantity of game obtainable in proper season is large, but the great game which used to be the glory of the hunter is now seldom seen, the sounds of white men and their industries have had the cf- fect of driving the wild denizens of the forest further afield. Perhaps the use of first-class firearms may be an- swerable for part of the scarcity in that respect. Sheep, cattle and horses of course pay better than these roam- ing creatures that belong to no man save him who has a good rifle, a quick eye and a sure hand to bring down his mark.
Montgomery was mentioned in an act of the legislature in 1853, when its boundaries were defined and it was joined with other counties to facilitate organization. Before that time it was mentioned once incidentally with oth- er portions of the territory which it joined. It is reported of one of the earliest settlers that he went down a ladder to get water from his well, and in the absence of any better contri- vance, ground his corn in a coffee mill. Even that was better than the patri- archal scheme of corn grinding, when it took about three women working all day long to mash enough grain to feed one able-bodied man. The coffee mill was at any rate better than the old system.
The county seat was located at Frank- fort, by commissioners duly appointed in the year 1854. This town was the county seat for several years, but event- ually Red Oak Junction seems to have sighed for the flesh pots of Egypt, and upon a vote of the county being taken, it became evident that Ichabod might be written over the doors of the once happy and dignified county seat. The courageous little town would not give
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up without a fight, and on the ground ; incline towards the banks of the Nish- of some petty informality the matter was carried from the ballot box into the law courts. Yet even there Red Oak Junction won the day, so after eleven years of glory, the judgment seat departed from Frankfort to the successful rival, and early in the fol- lowing year the court house itself trav- eled the road which the judges had gone over some months before. Frank- fort is now as one of the places of whose celebrity the great world had never heard. Hardly a dozen resi- dents remain where the great center of the county once sat supreme, and with some few alterations of time, place and circumstances, the poet of the future may recast the lines once written about Rome, to meet the deso- late condition of this village:
Rome, Rome, thou art no more as thou hast been ; On thy seven hills of yore, thou sat'st a queen.
RED OAK JUNCTION, the county seat, has the undoubted advantage of stand- ing on the Iowa division of the Chi- cago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, by which line it sends large shipments of every kind of produce from the fer- tile prairie and bottom lands in the midst of which it is situated, receiv- ing in return supplies of merchandise to supply the wants of a liberal, enter- prising and successful community of farmers and cattle raisers, who have some of the best soil in the county at their disposal.
The situation of the town is very pleasant, commanding a view of a very fine tract of country. The town plat ascends the high ground back of the valley, on which the survey was commenced, and the advantage for the purposes of residence are considera- ble. The river Nishnabotany runs by the point on which the town is located, and the valley of that stream is nearly two miles wide, much of the laud be- ing now disposed of to advantage, in gardens, shrubberies and ornamental inclosures, where there is no immedi- ate demand for the space for business purposes. The site of the town is not the geographical center of the county, but there are other circumstances which more than compensate that de- viation from rule. The actual center is distant only about four miles.
There is, where the town is built, an
nabotany river, just where the Red Oak branch runs in to the larger stream. The tributary is made up of springs and small rivulets, which have their rise close to the corporate limits. The stage coach line makes Red Oak Junction a stopping place, and the place has many of the characteristics of an old coaching village. The arri- val of the stage is an event, only ex- celled in importance by its departure, taking probably some modest great man away to visit his friends, at a dis- tance of a score of miles, whence he will return to discourse of his adven- tures and experiences. But many of the denizens of Red Oak Junction have traveled far and wide over the union. Some have helped to fight its battles, many were in the wildest rushes of the old California days, and yet others have been initiated into all the mysteries of the process, by which laws are made and remodeled, even in Washington, under the dome of the capitol.
The town has a railroadish air about it, the name is essentially of that class which would accord with the best deeds of the iron horse. When the name was chosen there was to have been an extension of the main line of the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad to this town, making close connections with a branch line from Nebraska City at this point, hence the word "Junction," which appears as the addendum to Red Oak, a name de- scriptive of the great masses of that kind of timber which abounds in that region. But, "What's in a name ?" is the remark of Shakspeare, who ap- pears to have given much attention to the subject. The name sticks, and so does the project, which never brought either of the roads to the point which would have been made prosperous by their contact and intercourse. There are good mills here, a good local trade, splendid agricultural country, timber unsurpassed, good quarries, the best of water powers, and all that is wanted to make this happy valley the envy of surrounding nations is the facility for traffic and travel which would allow Mahomet to go to the mountain.
The interests of the rising genera- tion are well cared for in Red Oak Junction. The town and a part of the agricultural district joined thereto,
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form an independent school district, with an excellent school building, under the care of a lady superin- tendent who may be quoted anywhere as an able educator, well worthy of the trust reposed.
The court house in Red Oak Junc- tion is not a very grand affair, but it suffices. The spirited young gentle- mnan, who was killed in a duel in the play of Romeo, said of his wound that, "It was not as wide as a church door, nor as deep as a draw well, but it was enough; " and what satisfied the victim of Tybalt's fury might suffice for us also. The frame build- ing meets the requirements of the place and time, and when there is a railway in active operation, then we can soon erect a splendid cut stone court house, worthy of a metropolis.
There are two newspapers published in the town, and they are very well supported. There are several churches, many of them very handsome edifices, and all in good working order.
VALISKA is a small town in the south- east of the county of Montgomery, six- teen miles from the county seat, on the banks of the Middle Nodaway river, in the midst of a well timbered country, back of which there is a fine stretch of agricultural land. The town was first laid out in 1857, and immedi- ately after that event there was a flour- ing mill established here, but the town has not increased in size and pros perity for want of railroads. The flouring mill is still in operation, and a steam saw mill does quite a large business in lumber; there are several stores, a newspaper and a school house, but the village remains a vil- lage to this day. The snort of steam engine, running on an iron road. would break the charm and the child would become a man full of energy and power instantaneously.
ARLINGTON is on the West Nodaway, about eleven miles from Red Oak Junction, with a flouring mill and some local trade, but the resources of the country lack the impetus of con- tact with the great world, and pend- ing that event, Arlington must con- tinue to be the modest violet which has heretofore been its type. Arling- ton is backed by a very fine district.
There are post offices at Red Oak Junction ; Frankfort, the village from which the court house became a
deserter; Sciolo, a small village in a farming country to the east of the county, on the West Nodaway river ; Valiska, the village already mentioned to the southeast on Middle Nodaway ; at Grant, to the notheast, in the town- ship of Douglass, and at Carr's Point, on Walnut creek, about eight miles from Red Oak Junction, to the south- west.
Muscatine County was one of the ealiest settled of all the counties in Iowa. It lies on the great bend of the river Mississippi, in the estern part of the state, and it contains an area of four hundred and thirty-two square miles. In this county the Mississippi bluff's rise sometimes to a height of one hund- red and fifty feet above the great high- way of waters. The general surface of the country is rolling prairie, but there is a considerable area of broken land unsuitable for cultivation where the bluffs join the prairie uplands. Scarcely more than eight miles across from the bluffs, which border the mighty river, the country descends once more by another system of blutfs. occasionally very abrupt, indeed, to the bottom lands, which form the wide margin of the Cedar river. There is hardly a stream of any extent in this county which has not miles of these bottom lands, perfect marvels of fer- tility, while the bluff's and broken lands, which come between these val- leys and the rolling prairie, are to a large extent fringed or covered with timber, which increases its area an- nually. In the estimate made on be- half of the government, as to the value of the lands in Muscatine county, only about two-tenths, chiefly the bottom lands just mentioned, are classed as first rate; seven-tenths, embracing the uplands and rolling prairie, are set down as second rate, and the re- mainder figures as poor third rate soil not worthy of cultivation at present. The estimate is as ucarly as possible correct, but in the course of years the lands now condemned will be brought under the plow, and, with the advan- tages of high farming, will give good returns on the labor and capital in- vested.
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