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 65
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Good well water can be found at easy depths, and the adaptability of the soil for pastoral pursuits makes the plentiful supply of water the more valuable.
Along the banks of the Skunk river there are good exposures of limestone, which will be of value for building purposes and also for the manufac- ture of quick lime. There are some signs of coal in the formation along the Skunk river, but this is the outer- most limit of the coal measures, and it would be a strange phenomenon if there were workable mines opened in Poweshiek county.
Nearly half the area of the county was under cultivation in the year 1874, since which time many new farms have been entered upou. There will
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be much planting of wood in this county, for the sake of shelter as well as for profit, in other directions. Osage orange hedges have been largely planted; as much as seven hundred miles being already in good condition. The planting of additional hedges and groves will mnch benefit the county.
Poweshiek county has been advan- tageously placed for the realization of railway facilities. The Mississippi and Missouri Railroad, now known as the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, was completed to Grinnell in the year 1863, and nearly twenty- six miles of the track run through this county. A branch is in contemplation which, when completed, will connect Grinnell with Montezuma, and the advantage would very great. A com- pany is forming on that basis. The Central Railroad of Iowa was com- pleted in the year 1869, and that gives a track of twenty-three miles to Powe- shiek.
This was part of the Sac and Fox lands, which the Musquaka Indians held until 1843, when it was opened for settlement under the new purchase treaty. Settlers came into this terri- tory along the trail of the military in 1843, and from that date the progress of the settlement has been continuous, with every indication of fitness for colo- nization on the part of the new comers. There was school kept in 1847-8, and in the following year the first post- office was established.
The county was duly organized in 1848, and Montezuma was the name given to the location for the county seat. The county officials had at first some difficulty in the procurement of a small loan for stationery, and their county buildings were primitive in the extreme, but the court house now in use is very handsome, and it cost $22,000.
GRINNELL was founded by a colony of men and women from New Eng- land, who wished to build up a com- munity specially devoted to intellect- ual and spiritual advancement. The location was settled upon by three clergymen, and they were principally influenced in their selection by the probability that they would not be likely to have their plans marred by the presence of strangers and persons indifferent to or unfriendly to their organization. The point chosen was
near where the railway survey crossed the sunmit of the watershed between Des Moines and Iowa City. A rude camp was hastily formed, and the col- onists were not long in putting in an ap- pearance. The town was named after the projector of the colony. The first preparation for the new arrivals was not particularly oruamental, nor was there any wealth of material with which to carry out larger operations, as the site of the town was entirely treeless prairie. There was a school house erected in 1855, and the Congre- gational church, out of which the scheme had arisen, was duly organ- ized in the same year.
The town of Grinnell was platted in 1855, and the proceeds of all sales were given to educational purposes in trust forever. One of the provisions insisted upon from the first inception of the scheme, and religiously ob- served ever since, is, that if any man holding property in Grinnell sells in- toxicating liquors, he forfeits his claim at once. Hence there are no saloons established in Grinnell.
Grinnell is incorporated as a city of the second class, and it is an inde- pendent school district, having been so organized since 1867. The school house was burned down in 1871, and the building now in use was erected at a cost of a little over $10,000. The edifice is capable of seating six bun- dred pupils, and the school is graded in seven departments, employing nev- er less than seven, and at some seasons eight teachers, besides the principal. The city is well supplied with churches, and the buildings are usually credita- ble, some of them being really elegant.
The station at this point brings much business to Grinnell, as the city is surrounded by a prosperous farm- ing country, and the settlers are of a class with whom it is satisfactory to deal. The junction of lines here which run east, west, north and south, has had an immense effect on the de- velopment of the place, and the great intellectual, social and religious ad- vantages which are concentrated here have contributed to bring to this point a picked population from the castern states and elsewhere.
There are five grain elevators in the city, and they are well employed, be- sides which there is a foundry and machine shop, and there are three
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flouring mills, of which steam is the | ly mentioned for an act in its admin- motive power. The population is now a little over fifteen hundred.
There are two newspapers published here, but one of these is only a college sheet which appears during the ses- sions of that institution.
The Grinnell University, which was to have been completed from the lit- terary fund to be derived from the sale of town lots, made a prosperous com- mencement, but before it became ready for operation, it was handed over to the trustees of Iowa College.
The Iowa College had been obliged by adverse circumstances to remove from its first location at Davenport, as the grounds occupied by the institution werc encroached upon by the city on two occasions. The college asked for offers from other cities, and the au- thorities at Grinnell saw so good an opportunity to consolidate the reli- gious educational establishments of the state in this state of affairs, that proposals were at once made to endow the earlier formed institution with the building partly erected, and other val- uable gifts, equal to $40,000 in all. The conditions on which the liberal offer was based need not be recapitu- lated; the public is only interested in knowing that the proposal was ac- cepted, and thus the site at Grinnell became at once a college of old stand- ing for a new county in a new state. There are five chairs endowed, and three not yet endowed, in the Iowa College at Grinnell, the entire value of the property now possessed being $200,000. A sum of about $90,000 was raised by an appeal to friends of the movement in the eastern states, in and after the year 1863, and the col- lege, since its reopening at Grinnell in 1859, has been a marked success.
The college contains all neccessary provision for thorough academic train- ing, and the curriculum is such as would satisfy the most exacting. The libraries and museums, in connection with different branches of study, and the scientific apparatus, are all of the best description. In the year 1872, the original building known as East Col- lege was destroyed by fire, and much valuable property was then lost, but all has been since then replaced, and the college is at least as well off as ever in that respect.
Iowa College deserves to be special-
istration, having offered free instruc- tion and all the advantages which can be afforded by such an establishment, to disabled soldiers, whereby many bright and noble natures, which seemed to have been shut out from hope by bodily mutilation, found there- in a passport to the higher realms of intellectual and moral culture, which may enable them more effectually than in their best days of physical perfec- tion, to serve and improve the race.
Grinnell has won the right to be first named and described in the list of towns and cities in the county which is honored and advanced by its devel- opments.
MONTEZUMA was first settled upon in the year 1846, but the town was not platted until 1848, when the county seat had been located ou that spot. For some time the town progressed very rapidly indeed, and great hopes were entertained that an enduring prosperi- ty had been reached, but after the pop- ulation numbered one thousand per- sons, there was a gradual collapse in consequence of the railroads, like the Priest and the Levite in the parable, passing by on the other side. The population numbers now about five hundred, but the men of Montezuma are not without hope that a Good Sa- maritan railroad company will set the town upon their iron horse before long, in which case the surrounding country can well support a large increase of the greatness of the county seat. There is quite a large local business transact- ed even now, and some very promis- ing works have been located there.
The school house now in use is old, and somewhat unsuitable, but a new building is promised. This was the first school building erected, and it is now eighteen years old, being built in 1857. The town has been an indepen- dent school district since 1867, and the school is graded in four departments. The attendance and tuition are alike excellent.
There is but one newspaper pub- lished in Montezuma, but it is well fed, as it has swallowed every rival that has been started in the town, and appears to be well sustained. There are several excellent churches.
BROOKLYN was platted in 1855, and residences were commenced immedi- ately. There had been a store on the
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site of the town before it was surveyed. | tor, which will yet make their mark in In the year after the town was laid off, the world. a school building, brought from else- where, was set up in Brooklyn, and Ringgold County is in the southern tier, fourth east from the Missouri river, with a superficial area of five hundred and forty square miles. This county is abundantly watered and well drained; the Platte, several forks of the Grand river, and their tributaries, being arranged, as if by the hand of The Master, for these purposes. school has been taught there ever since. In 1869, the town was incorpo- rated, and in 1874, increased, by adding a section on the farther side of the rail- road track. The division station of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad is located at this point, and there is an engine house of considera- ble dimensions.
Brooklyn is of much importance as a shipping station, as it requires the services of two elevators, besides one large elevator combined with a steam flouring mill, to dispatch the railroad business at this point. There are many important industries established here, which employ many hands.
Several brick yards are in full work here, and an establishment which pros- pers amazingly is engaged in the man- ufacture of a building material known as Frear stone.
There are two school houses here, both commodious, but neither of them handsome. The largest cost $10,000, the smaller one $3,500, and the schools are graded in four departments, gen- erally, but in five departments in the winter. The salaries paid to teachers are too small. There is a library asso- ciation in Brooklyn.
MALCOM stands between Grinnell and Brooklyn, on the same road as the last mentioned, and a good shipping business is the main support of the town, as a good local trade consequent thereon, maintains the four hundred persons that constitute the population. The town was platted in 1866, and in- corporated in 1872. There are several neat churches here, and a good school house which was built in 1869, large enough for three hundred pupils.
There is a steam flouring mill in Mal- com, and a bank has recently been or- ganized. The town has the advantage of being surrounded by fertile farming land, and all the produce that can be raised, Malcom will ship.
SEARSBORO is located on the line of the Central railroad of Iowa, and al- though the town is not incorporated, there is an excellent shipping business transacted at this point, the county be- ing fertile and prosperous.
There are very promising villages at Deep River, Forrest Home and Vic-
The general bearing of all the streams in Ringgold county is toward the south, as the drainage of this area falls into the Missouri river. There are many valuable water powers in this county, many very good indeed. There are springs along the banks of the streams, and occasionally they are found elsewhere, but good permanent water can be had anywhere by sink- ing wells on the uplands or valleys.
This county is covered by the drift formation, and the valleys are the larg- est of their kind in the state of Iowa. There is no rock to be seen anywhere except in one or two trivial instances, although the valleys have been worn down by the action of water from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet. The drift formation is supposed to overlie the stratified rocks two hun- dred feet deep over this county, a grea- ter deposit than is found elsewhere in the state.
In the valleys, and more especially ncar the streams, there are good belts and groves of timber, but elsewhere the surface is prairie in all directions. The valleys which have been hollowed in the general contour of this county, do not attract the attention of the trav- eler, as the depressions and the groves by which they are filled are all he- yond the range of his vision, until he is almost upon the beautiful and pic- turesquely wooded streams.
Marshes and stagnant water are un- known here. The drift deposit and the soil would carry away any quanti- ty of water that might accumulate, and the soil needs not be described after so much has been written as to this very remarkable formation. The crops common to Iowa flourish here. Native grasses abound, but tame gras- ses will shut them out by and by. Osage hedges are much cultivated on the prairies, and many of the settlers are planting groves. Willows are
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planted to make fences in some parts of the county and they grow well.
The county being so deeply covered by the drift formation, stone is very rare in Ringgold. There are only two exposures, both of limestone, which indicate that coal may be found by deep mining. The stone is not valua- ble for building, but it makes good quick lime. Bricks can be produced in any quantity, and builders must use them in their work.
The first settlers in this county came here in 1844, and for two years there was only one white family in this ter- ritory. There was but little incre- ment until 1854, and even then therc were only nine families, but thereafter many settlements were formed in rapid succession in various parts of the county. In that year the county was organized, the county seat being lo- cated at Urbana, but to this hour no man knows where the stakes were set, more than he could point out the burial place of Moses. The commis- sioners did their duty so discreditably that nobody will ever say that Urbana was not the right name for the right place. However, the population was then too small for effective organiza- tion.
In the year 1855, the county seat was located at Mt. Ayr, and organization was definitely established, but the business of the county was not trans- ferred to Mt. Ayr, the county seat, un- til the fall of that year, when a court house of hewed logs was erected as the seat of justice. Four years afterwards a more commodious building was erected at a cost of $3,500.
In the year 1855, upon a suspicion of murder which attached to the Pot- tawattamie Indians, the settlers banded themselves together and compelled tlie tribe to leave the county, but the man supposed to have been murdered by them was found afterwards to have left the county of his own accord. The Pottawattamies left their old hunting grounds without bloodshed, and took up their abode in Kansas, hut very of- ten afterwards they revisited their old home.
The county set up an agricultural society in 1859, and the institution has attained a very prosperous condition with fair grounds and improvements near the county seat, equal to all the requirements of the time and place.
MOUNT AYR is very near the center of the county, of which it is the seat. The town stands on high rolling prai- rie near the head waters of Middle Grand river, and about one mile from Walnut creek. There is a fine grove about one mile from the site, and the view from Mt. Ayr is exceedingly pic- turesque. This town was first settled in 1855, and although there is at pres- ent no railroad, a very considerable business is transacted here.
Education has always commanded the best sympathies of the people of Mt. Ayr, and their works attest the soundness of their judgment. They have excellent school houses, well ap- pointed and well officered by men and women whose labors are rewarded with a fair measure of success. The Sunday schools in this town are very well sustained. There are two news- papers publislied at Mt. Ayr, represent- ing the opinions of Ringgold county.
There are pretty villages and post offices located at Caledonia, Clipper, Bozzaris, Eugene, Goshen, Cross, Ma- rena, Ingart Grove, Ringgold City, Redding, Bloomington, Union Hill, Marshall and Tingley.
Sac County, named after one of the tribes now represented by the Mus- quake Indians, stands third from the Missouri river, and fourth from the northern boundary of Iowa. It cou- tains five hundred and seventy-six square miles, and is well watered by the North Raccoon and Boyer rivers, with their several tributary streams. Several branches of Maple river rise in Sac county and assist to drain the sur- face. Elk creek is one of the largest of these branches. Cedar creek is one of the largest streams running into North Raccoon river, Indian creek be- ing next in size. The Boyer flows across the county about the center, but in a southerly direction.
The watershed ridge is in this coun- ty, some of its waters flowing to the Missouri, and others to the Mississip- pi, and on that table land several lakes, evidently the southern extreme of the lake system of this county, appear. These lakes are none of them large, but the largest is known as Wall lake. This body of water in the southern part of the county is in no place more than twelve feet deep, and the area covered is three square miles or there-
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abouts. The boulders around the banks look like actual building, hence the name, Wall lake. Sportsmen will make this little lakelet a place of re- sort, as it is well stocked with fish, and at the proper seasons, great bodies of water fowl come to this region. There is another lake one-third of this size, the rest are smaller.
The first white man known to have settled in Sac county came here in 1854, and located in Big Grove on North Raccoon river. The prairie land had no charms for the hardy woodman, nothing short of a farm in the midst of the timber would satisfy the herculean powers of his muscle. Organization was effected in 1856, when only thirty-seven votes were cast in the county. There were many hard- ships to be endured iu a settlement where the nearest post office was fifty miles distant, and the nearest stores twice as far off as that, and the Indi- ans were still in the county. One man was found, when the surveying parties were out, shot through the hack ; hut no person in the settlement appeared to know him, and the murderer, if as is probable the man was murdered, was never found out.
After the settlement was progressing, a great fight took place between a war party of the Sioux and a combined body of Pottawattamies and Maquo- keta Indians, the former party, which had commenced hostilities, being de- feated with great slaughter. Probably the onlookers may have thought with Iago that whether " Roderigo kill Cas- sio or Cassio, Roderigo, or each the other," the game of settlement would yet go on, and be the gainer.
SAC CITY was the point chosen by the commissioners when the county seat was located, and the pleasant vil- age thus named is the oldest town in Sac county. Good water power and fine groves make the place charming for residence and for business in the near future, if only the railway mag- nates will look kindly in this direc- tion. The materials for the first house built here were hauled from Duhuque, a distance of two hundred and seventy miles partly over roads that would have worn out Job. There is a very substantial and decidedly handsome court house now in Sac City.
GRANT CITY is a village in the south- east of Sac county, on the east bank of
North Raccoon river, in a fine grove of timber, with good mill power close at hand. There are several mills, a school house and three churches here. The town was laid out in 1863.
Scott County fronts the river Mis- sissippi, with a long boundary line of thirty-five miles constituting the line south and east, and the county is the fifth from the southern boundary of Iowa. The Wapsipinicon forms a boundary between Scott and Clinton counties, for some distance, conse- quently the water privileges of this region are many. The superficial area of the county is ahout five hun- dred square miles.
The surface is rolling prairie to a very large extent, with a fair soil but in some places sand predominates. Along the principal rivers there are large bodies of timber, and on the smaller streams some valuable groves but the quantity of woodland may, and probably will be increased with much advantage.
Along the streams there are exten- sive bottom lands, the most produc- tive in Scott county, near the Missis- sippi and the Wapsipinicon, there are Nile like inundations which would be inconvenient for the agriculturist but are not very objectionable to the graz- ier, seeing that a wide range of coun- try gives him extensive opportunities in all seasons. The soil generally is good and yields well.
Coal was at an early day supposed to be one of the great productions which would enrich Scott county, but that expectation has been somewhat dampened by experience. There is coal and in some abundance, but not enough to become a standard resource. Good building stone has been quar- ried at Le Clair and in some other lo- calities.
This county was organized in 1837, by an act of the Wisconsin territorial legislature. This was part of the cele- brated "Black Hawk Purchase," and Gen. Scott, whose name the county bears, was one of the contracting par- ties in that negotiation on behalf of the United States. The treaty was discussed and settled in the city of Davenport, or rather on the site of that city, on the ground now covered by the depot of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company.
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This was the site of the first claim located in the ceded territory, before the Indian title had expired and the name of the man is perpetuated in that of the city. The claimant main- tained a ferry at this point for some years and was a kind of factotum in Indian trade.
The first actual settlement was on the site of Buffalo in 1853, when the territory was duly opened and the po- sition rose into considerable impor- tance as a midway station between Burlington and Dubuque. The set- tler here mentioned, maintained a fer- ry across the Mississippi to Illinois, which was much used by new comers, and the ferryman was very serviceable in locating emigrants to the territory. He was boatman, miller, builder, pro- jector, and in 1836 he laid out the town of Buffalo, which became a very flourishing place and was once likely to become the county seat.
Rival ferries, rival towns, conspiring speculators and venturesome lobby men destroyed the fair prospects of Buffalo, and her glory was very con- siderably dimmed, but it is now of very little importance, how these re- sults were brought about. The log rolling politicians combined to defeat Buffalo, and the location was secured by Davenport after a hard contest.
ROCKINGHAM was first settled in 1835, and this was one of the candi- dates for the honor and profit of hold- ing the county seat. The trade of Rock river was to be commanded by this settlement and doubtless would have been, but for the circumstance that the river could not be navigated.
The town was laid off in 1836, and it attracted many settlers until it was found that every freshet of the Missis- sippi converted the site into an island with an unwholesome slough to be crossed to enable its residents to com- municate with the mainland. Many of the settlers cleared out at once. Some persons still remained, and Rockingham, had a small but growing trade. There were religious services for several denominattons in one small school house which was erected by subscription, and the sects took each their turn in using the common church of all parties. The first flouring mill erected in Scott county was built here, in the year 1837, and a ferry across the Mississippi was established here
in the same year, communicating with the state road, up the south side of Rock river.
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