USA > Iowa > Story County > Biographical and historical memoirs of Story County, Iowa > Part 30
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pany E, Third Iowa Infantry, who was killed at the battle of Shiloh. The Iowa Legion of Honor have also a society.
The masters of mails at Maxwell have been as follows: Albert H. McNall, February 14, 1882; Daniel M. Ruth, December 3, 1885, and Celine Langhery, March 19, 1889.
McCallsburg, with its grain-bins and eleva- tors, bristled up on the prairies of Warren Township, although it is and has been a large shipping point, has grown very slowly until within the last two years, since which it has sprung to about 100 population. There have been few of the numerous railway offspring of Story County that have passed through severer struggles to get a name. When the Story City Branch Railway was surveyed in 1881, Hon. H. E. J. Boardman, of Marshalltown, and Capt. T. C. McCall, of Nevada, arranged to lay out a plat of forty acres, mostly on the south side of the track, where Main Street was made, a block distant from and parallel to the track. The construction company called the station Boardman, but as the proprietors reserved that right to themselves, it was decided between them that one should pay the other $50 and name it. Mr. Boardman's choice of name was Gookin, his mother's maiden name, while Capt. McCall, on the same grounds, chose Sinclair, and because of its more euphonious sound, the lot fell to Capt. McCall, and the place was called Sinclair. While arrangements were pending to secure a post-office and Capt. McCall was busy at the capitol at Des Moines, the rail- way company had received the track and se- cured a post-office named after an official-La- trobe. Capt. McCall's name, Sinclair, could not be used by the post-office department, but he still had the right to name it under the agreement, and as his friend would not release him he concluded to use his own name.
In the fall of 1881 the first store was built
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by a very numerous man-John Smith -- on the northwest corner of Main and C Streets, and was followed by Smith Brothers. The next store was that of N. B. Churchill, or about the same time John A. Boston and Mr. Solyst. Changes were very numerous, both in men and firms, but business fastened itself on Main Street, between B and C Streets.
The grain and implement business leads in the persons of J. P. Hesson, and Hendrickson & Griffith for the St. Paul & Kansas City Grain Company. Both of these firms have elevators, and large bins, and this has become one of the largest shipping points in the country.
Samuel Reid and the Boston Company lead in general merchandise. Reid & Silliman head the hardware trade, while a large stock busi- ness is carried on by John Peck, J. P. Hesson, and others, with a few other firms of the usual nature.
Although no innovations of a metropolitan nature have been made, there is one in the newspaper line which deserves mention, namely the Northern Light, a diminutive local sheet, published by a boy, J. E. Lewis, during the Latrobe days.
The postmasters have been J. W. Smith, February 23, 1882 (name changed from La- trobe to McCallsburg, February 23, 1883); A. B. Griffith, December 29, 1886; and J. H. Bos- ton, May 23, 1889.
Roland, unlike any other town in Story County, arose from the Grange movement. It has been a Scandinavian community from the first, and surrounded by rich Norwegian farms and thrifty wealth. Like Chicago, the great English critic, Matthew Arnold, would call it " beastly prosperous." It seems to be a part of the country around more than almost any other center in the county; while its strong Norwegian stamp and the striking absence of Democrats give it a quaint, quiet and unique
air among its sister towns in Story County. It has nearly 300 inhabitants, it is thought, and schools and churches that are their pride, al- though they have shown no tendency to have the usual secret societies, newspapers, and in- corporation that the American town usually aspires to at a very early stage in its career.
The land was entered June 14, 1855, by Jacob Erickson. As the community increased in Norwegian farmers, there arose occasional nnion of effort, and in the early seventies the Grange movement found a ready hearing, resulting in the organization of Norway Grange No. 218. Very soon a Grange store was proposed, and in June, 1873, Jonas Duea & Co. built the store on the site of the present school- house. The associates of Mr. Duea were John Evenson, Paul Thompson and Abel Oleson. After several changes in the firm, a new build- ing was erected opposite the Norwegian Lu- theran Church for the store in which Mr. Even- son and Mr. Duea were the active spirits. A post-office had been secured May 4, 1870, with Jonas Duea as postmaster, and although ad- ministrations " may come and they may go," he seems to keep right on "forever." The name, Roland, unusual and easy to spell, was suggested by Mr. Evenson in memory of a cer- tain legendary character of ancient Norway. With the post-office and store came Albert Thompson's blacksmith shop on the site of the creamery, and the wagon shops of Ole and An- drew Axelton within three or four years. This went on until on December 3, 1880, a three-mill tax was voted for the new railway from Mar- shalltown to Story City. The track got through just in time, the last day of October, 1881. Jacob Erickson, who had contracted with the company to plat thirty acres on the south side of the track and give alternate lots, died June 27, 1881, and although the survey was made the next autumn, the settlement of the estate
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delayed the official recognition of the plat until March, 1883. The depot was erected in 1881, and business at once sprang up on Main Street. A hardware store on the post-office site was the first on the plat, and closely following this was Evenson's removal to this street, the erec- tion of Gaard's furniture store, the building of Solyust & Johnson's grocery. Buildings seemed to rise alternately on both sides of the street. Abel Oleson opened a general store, Barney Jacobs, a grocery; John Axelton, a boot and shoe shop; D. Hegland, a hotel, and by 1884 it stood much as it stands now as to Main Street. The growth since then has been chiefly in manufactures and residences. Of the former, the Boardman Creamery was al- ready established before the railway. Within a few years after the railway, the Roland Brick & Tile Company, put in a plant valued at about $7,000, with a main building 50x60 feet of four floors. They use the Brewer machine of about 15,000 daily tile capacity, and the Pen- field brick machine with patent steam dryer, etc. In 1888 it was the second outfit in the State. In 1885 Swenson, Thorson & Co. built a two-story plant of a size equal to 24x140 feet, with other houses, track, steam-power and the Brewer and Potts ma- chines. They have taken first premium at the county fairs from the first, and their large ex- tra brick find a sale all over the State. The Abbott Elevator, built in 1883, is now owned by St. Paul & Kansas City Grain Co., and Britson's wagon-shop, Oleson's general shop and Haaland's blacksmith shop complete the list.
The real life of the town depends primarily on the following lines of business: The cattle and hog trade, led by Duea & Oleson and Sowers & Evenson, et. al .; the corn and oats market, man- aged by the St. Paul & Kansas City Grain Com- pany and Duea & Stole; Johnson & Michaelson
and A. Oleson & Sons in general merchandise; hardware implements by Duea & Stole and Britson; lumber by Erickson & Christian; the Gaard grocery; the tile factories; drugs by T. B. Jones; furniture by P. A. Solem; with mil- linery stores, etc. A good bank is needed. The average monthly railway receipts are $600, while the forwarding reaches from $1,200 to $1,400.
Elwell site was entered by Jacob Emery on February 29, 1856. The land west of the township road afterward was owned by J. M. Griffith, and a plat made on it after the rail- way arrived was called Griffithville. The land east of the road was owned by Robert Richard- son, and the plat made on that south of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway tracts, was named Elwell in December, 1886. Rich- ardson & Paine manage the only store and creamery and elevator, and are surrounded by a population of twenty-five to fifty. It is a shipping poiut of value. Elwell Lodge No. 473, I. O. G. T., was organized on May 9, 1889, with forty members, but it disbanded the same year. Smith Paine has been the only postmaster, appointed March 23, 1882.
Slater is the capital of Story County's lower Norway and Sweden, which reverses the situa- tion of the mother countries in Europe, for if the North-Western Railway bed be called the Scandinavian mountain range, the Swedes will be on the west and the Norwegians in the country to the east. From the railway crossing one looks over a little to the south- east and beholds a fresh young town with its new paint and new roads, scattered in regular order over the treeless prairie in a very youthful way. It is not old enough to be dignified yet, and it seems as if the mixed Norway, Swedish, Danish and American popu- lation had hardly got used to itself yet; even the Hon. Oley Nelson, the leader and repre-
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sentative of the foreign races in this part of the county, is familiarly spoken of as "Oley." But this will all change with age, and Slater will be a robust young town with more than its present 400 people, and abundance of dignity when its trees grow up.
It has been said that in 1874 Mr. Nelson opposed the location of Sheldahl on account of its site and the inconvenience of the school dis- trict being in three counties. He, however, led off in Sheldahl, and for years the land to the north, and especially the present site of Slater, which was entered by Samuel Moffatt as early as August 10, 1855, remained idle lands until the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway put a depot at the crossing in the summer of 1884, as provided in the act of the previous Legislature ordering depots at all crossings. In the following winter, upon this, A. M. Jenks laid out a little plat in the southeast cor- ner of the crossing, composed of five blocks, and bearing the name Sheldahl Crossing; the railway wanted to call it Pascal. Very soon Nels Norman moved a store over from Shel- dahl, and a few others started over, and the ex- odus from Sheldahl was only a matter of time. Then Fred Miller built the elevator and gave the grain business a great boom here for the next two years. Meanwhile Sheldahl was in suspense as to what to do, when a post-office at Slater Junction was established March 25, 1887, with Lewis Askeland postmaster. He put up a grocery store also on Lot 6, Block 1, and this led to a public meeting at Sheldahl to decide what to do; it was soon evident that the most of those present were for putting their stores and home on wheels and moving with all their chicken-coops and fences to the new post- office of Slater. Among those who voted to do this were Hon. Oley Nelson, M. P. Webb, Ben Owens, Ed. H. Miller, George Hellen, C. C. Holm, Mr. Ustling, A. A. Lande, O. B. Ap-
land, W. B. Miller, Dr. E. A. Rawson, L. Gamrath, John Johnson, August Peterson, M. Clark. S. Vinset, K. P. Hanson, J. N. Scott, G. Reynius and others. Mr. Jenks at once laid out a strip of blocks east and south of the for- mer plat under the title, Slater Junction, and offered twenty-five lots to as many people who would move over buildings or build from Shel- dahl. During that summer, too, the entire name was changed to Slater. Twenty-five men, headed by Mr. Nelson, came over and examined the site to choose their lots. Mr. Nelson was given first choice and he took Lot 12 on First Avenue (Block 7). The rest all picked out on both sides of the avenue, between Story and Second Streets, and business was fastened as at present. Some speculators had quietly bought up Main Street, thinking that business would be there, but they have been disappointed. During the summer about fifty-five buildings were moved over to these and other sites and more were built until the town was much as it is now. This movement cost probably about $6,000, but it is more than made up in increased price of their Slater property.
With about 400 population, Slater's business has grown until the railway crossing, with its leading importance, has made grain, produce and poultry take the lead. Stock shipment would follow closely after this, and general merchandise next. There is no doubt that school facilities have been a leading factor not far beyond the above in drawing in and keep- ing a large share of the population. Bank- ing and foreign exchange in the hands of Mr. Nelson is a very important feature, and implement sale, the importation and breeding of fine stock would follow next. Blacksmith- ing, the Slater Scoop & Dump Board Com- pany, a wagon shop, and a very extensive clock and watch trade by George Hellen also are
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of value to the town's activity. There are the usual number of other business firms, hotels, etc., to be found in a place of this size. The average receipt charges for an average month from both roads is about $700. Slater was incorporated in 1890 and the first mayor, Alex Peterson. The council are Oley Nelson, Dr. E. A. Rawson, E. H. Miller, P. Hatfield, A. Peterson and B. Owens. Little has been done aside from routine business.
Slater Lodge No. 384, I. O. O. F., was changed from Sheldahl Lodge No. 384, which received its charter October 17, 1878, with the following officers: A. Hollcraft, N. G .; L. Schooler, V. G .; W. B. Miller, R. S .; and J. time to time arose an elevator, Gilbert's two N. Scott, Treas. The lodge has been prosper- ous, and now owns about $1,000 in property, of which their building, containing the post- office, is a part. They have thirty members. The following is a list of noble grands from the first: A. Hollcraft, W. B. Miller, J. N. Scott, A. K. Ersland, C. B. Owen, M. Clark, S. W. Snider, M. P. Webb, W. Croft, W. H. Porter, Charles Myers and J. H. Larson.
The press of the town began with the Slater News, on January 17, 1890, with Frank B. Cramer & Co. at the helm. It is a six-column folio. The postmasters have been Lewis Aske- land, March 25, 1887, and J. N. Scott, Feb- ruary 26, 1888.
Gilbert is a late town, laid out in January, 1889, since which it has sprung to about 100 population. Its site was entered by Lyman F. Wisner and Joshua Saylor, September 8, 1855, and H. B. Dinwiddie on August 4, 1855. When the railway, now the North-Western, reached there, Hezekiah Gilbert, who had been one of the most earnest advocates of the railway, was made postmaster on April 3, 1878. Then Mr. Gilbert, Charles Matthews and J. T Shepherd each offered the railway ten acres, and others gave five acres more for a town plat, which was mostly west of the track. Gilbert Brothers opened the first store on Main Street, and from
other buildings, depot, Frank Wilson's store, Stewart & Thomas, Oliver's lumber yard, Gil- bert Brother's cheese factory, which handles 5,500 pounds of milk daily, and so on until now it has a population of about 125. Grain, stock shipping, general merchandise and lum- ber are the order of the leading lines, now, in importance. The depot charges for receipts average $378 per month, and $2,232 for for- warding. It is a large grain point. Frank Bently Post No. 89, G. A. R., organized in August, 1883, now has eighteen members. The postmasters have been H. Gilbert, 1878; F. B. Gilbert, June 1, 1880; B. J. Grinnell, Septem- ber 4, 1885; and E. B. Stewart, May 14, 1889.
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CHAPTER XVIII.
EDUCATION AND LEARNING -STORY COUNTY'S SCHOOL FACILITIES-ACTIVITY IN THE ESTABLISHMENT OF EDUCA- TIONAL CENTERS-FINANCIAL PROVISION-EARLY RECORDS-PIONEER ACCOMMODATIONS-TEACHERS' INSTITUTE-GROWTH OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM-PRIVATE SCHOOLS-SCHOOLS OF THE COUNTY AT PRESENT-INFLUENCE ON HER GENERAL WELFARE.
Schoolmasters will I keep within my house Fit to instruct her youth. To cunning men I will be very kind; and liberal To mine own children, in good bringing up .- Shakespeare.
@ Y virtue of her position among the States in liter- ature and associated ad- vanced ideas it follows as a matter of course that Iowa's school system is vigorously managed, and that education holds a high place in the hearts of all her people. A State that stands first among all her sisters in the pro- portion of her population who can read and write, and almost last in the proportion of population in crim- inal reformatories, could not be con- ceived of as holding any other ideas than high ones on the subject of the training of her youth. But it may be asked, whether there is a difference in the vigor shown among the ninety-nine coun- ties of the State on this subject, and it could be well replied to that there is some difference ; there are counties who are leaders in the generous riv- alry for good schools, and among these leaders is Story County. It is often boasted of the
State that Iowa began enacting laws for higher education in her earliest assemblies; it can also be boasted of Story County, that before scarcely a half dozen years of her existence had passed, she was voting $10,000 to secure within her borders one of the two highest in- stitutions of learning of the State, and, suc- ceeding, she paid it along with the burdens im- posed by a civil war. This shows her leaders to be men who have valued education at its highest.
Laying aside private institutions, a county's school activities are expressed in the machinery of the State, thereby being a part of the State in this, probably more than in any other phase of her higher life. A cursory glance at the code of 1873, with its amendments, may be noticed in this connection, although no attempt to trace the growth of the legal system from the first need be made here. The head of the system is the State superintendent of public instruction, who has advisory supervision only over the county superintendents and the edu- cational welfare of the State. It has been de- sired by some that his office be more executive
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and vested with larger power, as in some other States, but this proposition has never yet met with approval. As a sort of standard is the State University, and also a perpetual renewer of the highest elements of the system. County high schools are to the county what the univer- sity is to the State, and also a feeder to the university. The district township is the next lowest subdivision, while sub-districts are the ultimate unit. Within and yet separate from either of these is the independent district, which has been primarily intended to enable town corporations to meet their peculiar needs, but has been, it is thought, in some cases per- verted to a wholesale independency of entire district townships. The district township is, however, the unit of government, while the regular county officers carry out their purposes as expressed by the township board of directors' acts. The county also has its superintendent, elected by the people, and, who, like the State superintendent, has merely advisory power, his duties being the visitation of schools to sug- gest and advise, to examine and license teach- ers, and to hold county institutes. This office is one of the most valuable features of the sys- tem, and while some States give it more exec- utive power than Iowa, and, as they think, are thereby the gainers in its efficiency to the sys- tem, Iowa has been content to let it be advisory and resting for its power on the personal agi- tation and influence of its incumbent, it may be said to secure safety by sacrificing efficiency and power. But even with this power the of- fice has been a great lever in the system since its beginning in 1858. The superintendent's power, too, is dependent on persons, and not on any organized body, as in some States where the trustees of each township together form a county board of education, of which the super- intendent is president ex-officio, and by which he is elected, thus giving him an organ through
which to act. Iowa, however, makes him re- sponsible only to the voters of the county, a large body which can only be slowly moved, while his personal influence on teachers is his only other vehicle of power. His collection of fees from persons attending institutes is one source of defraying the expense of the insti- tute. Besides this fund a permanent school fund, a fund perpetually in loan, and arising from the sale of sixteenth sections, furnishes interest for one fund, while other funds are from taxes estimated by the various school boards and levied and collected by the county officers. The independent district, established by the laws of 1880, provide for the organiza- tion of town communities into a more exclusive school corporation, when they shall have shown 200 population within its chosen limits. This law allowed at one time the wholesale entrance of entire townships into independency, Union and Palestine Townships, of Story County, be- ing among the number who took advantage of it. These districts can issue bonds. One other feature of the system, which has not been taken advantage of in Story County, except by Collins Township, is the provision for a town- ship graded or high school, which is to the township what the high school is to the county or the university is to the State. Among laws which have been added to the code of 1873 are those providing for industrial expositions in schools, the State Normal and training school for teachers, the eligibility of women as school officers, the setting out of trees on school grounds, a State board of examiners, the teach- ing of effects of stimulants and narcotics, and for other purposes. Other parts of the system are either well known or unnecessary to men- tion here.
Of Story's use of this machinery, it may be said to have been more vigorous in succes- sive years, and will be best indicated in the
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statistics, showing the growth from year to year in schools, buildings, enumeration, en- rollment, teachers, funds, salaries, districts, etc., from the earliest reports to the present. To illustrate this, the most reliable matter is found in the earlier records of the county and the county superintendent's reports to the State superintendent, which show some strik- ing features, and are here made use of.
The first record, that of January 13, 1854, describes " District No. 1, in Township 82, Range 22," as containing sixteen square miles, with the center at the corner uniting Sections 4, 3, 9 and 10, of Indian Creek Township, just west of the site of Iowa Center. That dated January 18 is District No. 1, Town 82, Range 24, at the corner uniting Grant, Union, Washing- ton and Palestine Townships, the notice being issued to George W. Thomas. District 3, Town 84, Range 24, was formed January 23, and the notice issued to John J. Zenor; it cen- tered at New Philadelphia site. Another dis- triet centered in Section 26, of the present Milford Township, and notice was issued to Evan C. Evans on the same date. Still another was formed, July 3, south of the Iowa Center site. On January 20, 1855, Jonah Griffith received notice of a district formed in the north part of the county, and on the fol- lowing May 5 a twenty-five square-mile dis- trict was formed, with Nevada as its center, and E. C. Evans also received this notice. The old Mullen District, the Squire M. Cory and the W. W. Utterback Districts were formed in the fall and winter of 1854-55.
The first school fund commissioner was J. H. Keigley, in 1853, and S. P. O'Brien served two years after him. His records show the fabulous sum of $37.23 received from the county treasurer on February 15, 1854, as county school tax collected for the previous year, but the entire population of the county was not as
large as is the single town of Ames now. The secretaries of the three districts reported enumerations as follows: Jeremiah Marks, twenty-two persons of school age in his dis- trict; F. Thompson, fifteen in his, and N. Webb, forty-three in his, whereupou the com- missioner, after " reserving the sum of $17.47 for part of salary out of the amount received," apportioned the remainder among the three districts as follows: $5.25, $3.75 and $10.75. Says a local historian :* " From this time un- til the summer of 1857 the accommodations of the schools were of the most humble character. The citizens of the year 1856 will remember the various log school-houses, situated mostly in the timber, of which one was in the north part of Nevada, one at the west end and one at the east end of Walnut Grove, one at McCartney's, near Utterback's, one at New Philadelphia, and one at Cameron's. In the Advocate of October 20, 1857, John H. Keigley boasts of the finest school-house in the county. It was a frame, 20x20 feet, and a lobby of six feet, leaving a school-room twenty feet square. In the same paper of date December 9, 1857, some one writes of the school-house in the John P. Pool District, generally known as Murphy's school-house, which was 20x30 feet, or four feet longer than the other. S. E. Briggs taught the first school in the last- named house. Abont this time there were quite a number of very comfortable frameschool- houses built, some of which were seated with walnut desks, that being then considered a great advance."
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