USA > Iowa > Crawford County > History of Crawford County, Iowa, a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 24
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On Feb. 8th is chronicled a destructive fire at Vail in which the Cranny livery barn was destroyed. Of the livery stock, thirteen horses and five cows were burned. In this week also occurred the death of J. D. Seagrave, who came to Denison in May, 1857.
This was the year of the war with Spain and the chief interest of the com- munity centered about the war news and with the volunteers from Crawford county. This was a year of intense patriotism. News bulletins were received daily by wire and posted in public places and the people followed the events of the war with intense interest.
March Ist witnessed the inauguration of a movement to establish a Com- mercial club. This later took form in the organizing of the club with com- fortable quarters on Broadway. This organization is in a flourishing condition with C. L. Voss, president; and W. C. Rollins, secretary. This club has been a very efficient instrument in the hands of Denison business men. It has done much to weld the town into an harmonious whole, has taken an active part in the affairs of the city, in Good Roads improvements, and in various enterprises for the good of the town. Aside from this it has afforded a place for social amusement where business men have had opportunity to become better ac- quainted, thus leading to a much friendlier and saner basis of competition.
At the municipal election C. C. Kemming was elected mayor, G. L. Wright solicitor, E. S. Plimpton treasurer, and A. J. Bond assessor.
On May I occurred the death of Mr. J. Fred Meyers, for many years editor of the Denison Review. Funeral services were held at the Presbyterian church. The pall bearers were Governor L. M. Shaw, Lieut. Gov. J. C. Milliman, J. C. McCabe, editor of the Logan Observor, J. B. Hungerford, editor of the Carroll Herald, W. A. McHenry and Judge J. P. Conner. Tributes to his memory were Vol. I-14
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paid by Rev. A. G. Martin, by Gov. Leslie M. Shaw, by Lieut. Gov. J. C. Milli- man, by Mr. Hungerford, and by Mr. J. F. Harthun who spoke in German.
On May 2nd the Crawford county volunteers left to join their regiment at Des Moines. They were escorted to the train by the city officials and a large number of citizens and were accorded a touching farewell.
In 1898 the assessed valuation of personal property of the county was given at $2,975,496, and real estate values throughout the county showed marked in- crease.
The celebration on July 4th was notable because on that day it was an- nounced to the people that the entire Spanish fleet had been destroyed at Santiago de Cuba. Telegrams to this effect were read at the court yard during the cele- bration and an account of the celebration states that "the crowd went wild with excitement and cheer after cheer went up from thousands of exultant patriotic throats."
1899.
The year of 1899 was one of great activity in railroad building. The Illinois Central extended its line from Fort Dodge to Council Bluffs passing diagonally through Crawford county with stations at Ells, Deloit, Denison, Arion and Dow City. The Northwestern also built branch lines from Denison to Wall Lake with stations at Deloit and Boyer. The line was built to branch from Boyer and the new towns of Kiron and Schleswig and Ricketts were created. This was the last word in railroad building in Crawford county save a small section of line in the southeast corner of Iowa township, an extension of the Chicago Great Western from Fort Dodge to Council Bluffs. This gives Crawford county a large railroad mileage and market facilities equal to that of any county in the state. There is no place in the county more than six or seven miles distance from a market station. The building of these roads brought a great number of labor- ers into the county and gave employment to many local men. These extensive railroad operations in themselves were sufficient to make this a prosperous year. Both the Northwestern and Illinois Central erected large and commodious depots at Denison. On the Illinois Central the depot was opened November 20, 1900. The first regular train service of the Illinois Central was established Dec. 5, 1899. The first agent was H. E. Casner who was succeeded Jan. 14, 1902, by W. E. McCloy, who in turn was succeeded, temporarily, by J. H. Loeltz. Mr. M. A. Penny, the present agent, was installed July 20, 1905. Denison now has excellent train service, having between 20 and 30 trains carrying passengers daily. These lines have greatly improved Denison's trade as they have given much easier access to the city.
The Farmers Institute held at Dow City in January of this year was the most successful that the county has known and it is to be regretted that this institution has not been continued.
During the winter Vail suffered from an epidemic of diphtheria. Schools were closed and no public amusements were allowed. There were several deaths before the epidemic was stopped.
During this year the Review undertook to secure a census of the city pub- lishing the names of all the inhabitants. This census showed a population of 2,591 in Denison proper and 216 in the college addition making a total of 2,807.
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2,591 in Denison proper and 216 in the college addition making a total of 2,807. Under the list "A" and "B" there were 235 inhabitants listed. A careful ex- amination of the list shows that of these 235 people, 130 were not residents in 19II. This would indicate that in a dozen years the population has changed more than fifty percent. If this ratio is correct it would mean that not more than twenty percent of our people were residents twenty-five years ago.
In the municipal election Wm. McClellan was elected solicitor and Sam'l. Luney, U. G. Johnson, W. T. Wright, Aldermen.
On April 18th, a special election was held for the question of voting bonds amounting to $15,500 for a new school house building. The women participated in this election. Of forty-seven women, thirty-eight voted for, and nine against the proposition. Later $7,000 additional was voted and as a result the hand- some high school building was erected.
The sale of lots for the new town of Schleswig took place in May, 1899. Six hundred dollars being the highest price paid for a single lot.
In May the plans were broached for the building of the German Methodist church. Rev. Claussen was at the head of the church at this time and the sum' of $3,500 was raised with which a very pretty and substantial edifice was erected.
June 7th and 8th were the dates of a very interesting reunion of Veterans of this and adjoining counties. A large number were present and the town was turned over to the old veterans.
The season was one of violent storms. One in the vicinity of West Side caused serious damage to farm property, one in the vicinity of Charter Oak which destroyed the residence of Godfrey Henning, another in the vicinity of Arion in which Wm. Budde was severely injured.
On June 12th there was a cloud burst which did much damage both in Denison and in Vail, washing out several miles of railroad track.
In June is noted the beginning of the first newspaper at Arion with Del Cummings as editor.
As showing the rising of real estate the sale of the Menagh farm is specially noted, the price being $65.00 per acre. This was considered a high price at that time.
It was during this summer that Denison came in possession of the Spanish cannon which now ornaments the parking in front of the city hall. This was obtained through the influence of Governor Shaw.
The first train service on the Boyer Valley line was on July 24, 1899.
In August occurred the death of Dr. David McWilliams, the pioneer physi- cian of Crawford county, to whom reference has already been made.
The old settlers held their annual picnic at Washington park. An address by Hon. B. I. Sallinger was the event of the day. Short addresses were given by Morris McHenry, E. S. Plimpton, J. B. Romans, John Dobson. S. E. Dow presided and an interesting paper was read by Mrs. Martha Bruner, which was a feature of the program. Mr. S. E. Dow was reelected president and N. L. Hunt secretary, as usual.
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The conference of the Methodist church convened at Denison in September, 1899. This conference was presided over by Bishop J. W. Joyce and brought several hundred clergymen and lay delegates to Denison.
In October a prairie fire raged through the Lutheran cemetery south of Denison and threatened to sweep through Oakland cemetery as well. A score of men fought the flames but, in the Lutheran cemetery, fences were burned and many monuments were blackened and destroyed.
On Saturday, November II, occurred the most serious railroad wreck in our county's history.
An account of the wreck is as follows :
Nov. 14, 1899 .- Crowded Train Run Down .- Twenty-six laboring men were injured in a collision on the Illinois Central two miles north of Deloit shortly after one o'clock on Saturday afternoon. The wreck occurred in a deep cut around a sharp curve and at the time when the work train was bringing a load of one hundred and eighty laborers out from dinner at Deloit. The colliding train was a gravel extra running with clear orders from Rockwell City to Arion. The gravel train was proceeding at the rate of from 15 to 20 miles an hour and the work train at about a ten mile rate. The men were huddled into box cars and as the engine was backing them out of Deloit, the first warning they had was when the engine of the gravel train came crashing through the cars in which they were seated. A terrible scene of confusion, destruction, and agony ensued. The gravel train engine was a complete wreck and the cars were torn to splinters throwing their human freightage to either side of the track amid the groans and screams of the frightened and injured men ; some lay prone as they fell so bruised as to be unable to rise, some with broken limbs ran to the right of way fence and then fell fainting from sheer agony. Roadmaster Gillease was among the injured, but despite his broken leg he showed admirable coolness and generalship. Messages for aid were sent to Rockwell City and soon relief trains were on hand and the wounded men were brought to Denison.
The year 1899 closed with a tragedy at Dow City in which the calaboose was burned and an unidentified stranger, confined therein for intoxication, was burned to death.
In business circles there was the usual end of the year changes. Mr. J. L. Pease sold the Palace Bakery to M. M. Bradbury, the J. B. Romans firm be- came J. B. Romans Company with J. N. Bradley and B. J. Sibbert as partners. The electric light company announced that it would commence all night service on January I.
The century closed finding Crawford county as a whole in a flourishing con- dition. New towns had sprung up and their inhabitants were filled with hope and vigor. Prices of produce were good and farm lands were rising in value. Every precinct in the county showed increase in population. Business was in a healthy condition, but the county as a whole was commencing to show the signs of age. Compared with the communities of New England and of the old world, Crawford county is but a babe in arms, but, in the parlance of the bounding west, it had become an old, settled community. It had lost some of the elasticity of youth. A man possessed of $20,000 was no longer spoken of as one of our wealthiest citizens. Comfortable fortunes had been made, both
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in city and in town, and there came more and more into evidence the tendency to enjoy the comforts of years of toil. This was shown in the increasing num- ber of farmers who sold their places or turned them over to their children and who gathered into the various towns of the county to spend their declining years. It was also shown in increasing social activities and a higher standard of literary culture. In short, Crawford county had finally developed a leisure class, and more attention was paid to the mode of living, rather than to the mere struggle for existence. The pioneers of the early day were for the most part gone to their last resting place and the young men who had succeeded them had be- come staid and middle aged. The business of the county had settled into regular channels. Prices of land had increased to such an extent that they no longer tempted the poor young man who had his fortune all to make, and the great drift of population to the newer states had just commenced. The period of ex- pansion was passed and with the new century came a period of internal im- provements. Homes were rebuilt and improved, the cities and towns gave more attention to their appearance and to the comforts of life. There was no lack of prosperity and of vigor but the pulse of the county beat more slowly though with fuller tide.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. 1900.
We are prone to think our own times slow and inconsequential. The facts of history are built up incident by incident and the gradual growth, to our ac- customed eyes, deceives us with the thought that there is but little progress. Watch the erection of an edifice as it rises, brick by brick, and the work seems long drawn out and unsatisfactory, but viewed at intervals and we see that a stately structure has arisen.
Let us view Denison and Crawford county after a lapse of but eleven years and see what has been done in this first decade of the Twentieth Century. In the year 1900 there was scarcely a telephone exchange in Crawford county and there were no rural telephones. There was no rural free delivery. Land values were not within fifty percent of what they are to-day. The towns of Kiron, Boyer, Schleswig and Ricketts were just springing into existence. Practically all that these towns contain has been built since that time. The Illinois Central line had been built but train service was but begun. The roads of the county were in frightful condition and no thought had been given them by the general public. There was not a King drag in the county in 1900. There was not an automobile in the county ; they had barely been heard of and, as late as 1904, the passage of a machine through Denison was a matter of extended notice in the papers and of a vast amount of awe and dread and curiosity on the part of the people. The old court house was still in use. The new depots at Denison had not been thrown open to the public. There was not a brick building on Broad- way between the Balle Brodersen corner and the Saggau corner, where in a short time will stand a solid front of brick three hundred feet long. The new hotel, the great growth of the creamery business, the magnificent plant of the Nicholson Produce Company were yet to come. An appropriation for a federal building was unthought of. The Review building, the Bulletin building, the handsome block on the west side of Main street were unplanned. Scores of beautiful residences were still numbered among the castles in Spain. The beau- tiful high school building was unknown. There was no thought of a Carnegie library, some of our churches were in old and insufficient quarters. Free city mail delivery was a dream.
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These are among the things which have come to Denison and to Crawford county since, on midnight of January 1, 1900, the bells rang out the old, rang in the new. It is a story of wonderful accomplishment, a story that rivals the Arabian Tales when viewed in retrospect. Our entire mode of life has changed, we are living in a swifter age, our ideals are different. The luxuries of 1900 have become the necessities of 1911. We have gone through the age of the ox- cart and the age of the carriage, we are in the age of the automobile; is the age of the bi-plane just before us?
Nevertheless, it is true that Crawford county and the majority of its towns have lost in population since 1900. The long death roll which will be found in another chapter accounts for many of the older residents, but the younger people have been driven out by the high price of lands, driven to the Dakotas, to Ne- braska, to Canada, scattered all over the west, not because Crawford county land is not the best, but because it is too expensive for the man making his start in life. We hope that drouth or misfortune will not shatter the young hopes and drive them back to good old Iowa, but this we know, that Crawford county knows no such words as crop failure and that its hills and valleys are reliable, year after year, giving to the husbandman a safe return for toil.
According to the census, the year 1905 saw the largest population that Craw- ford county has ever had. It is the last six years that have seen the exodus that has effected the entire state of Iowa. In this drift of population there is nothing to fear. Crawford county will support many more people than it does to-day and, as our country as a whole becomes more densely populated, every acre will be brought to the highest state of cultivation. When that time comes Crawford county can support a population of one hundred thousand and as easily as it supports twenty thousand now.
But this is not history and to tell the story of the years is the mission of this volume. It is perhaps best to let the story tell itself, to unfold, day by day, and year by year showing the many little changes which have wrought the great change. Only a small percent of the many things which Denison has planned have been carried to fulfillment. To many this has been the source of great disappointment and discontent. But no effort for betterment is ever entirely lost. To have tried and failed, is better than never to have tried at all. All these projects, for factories, for civic improvements, for interurbans, for indus- trial enterprises, all these projects, whether they have failed or not, have been helpful. It is only when a community stops striving that it is a candidate for the tomb. And so the story is to be told of Denison's failures as well as of its successes ; but let the story tell itself without further moralizing.
The year 1900 opened auspiciously, there was something in the very air of the new century that inspired with hope and energy. The new railroad lines had been completed, new towns were springing up, crops had been good, and Crawford county was taking its full share of the wonderful prosperity that had come to the nation. In Denison the first business change of importance was the founding of the J. B. Romans Company, Mr. Romans taking with him as part- ners, Mr. B. J. Sibbert and Mr. J. N. Bradley. Mr. Silas Conyne came with his wonderful box kites, the forerunners of the bi-planes of to-day, and the air of Denison was full of advertising signs. On January 11th, the city, by a
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majority of 197, there being no votes against, voted a franchise to the Odebolt Telephone Co. The Iowa Telephone Co. already had a small exchange which was practically the only one in the county.
The proposition to establish a state normal and the effort to have it located in Denison was the next question which stirred our people. A committee consist- ing of J. B. Romans, J. P. Conner, S. McHenry, C. F. Kuehnle, F. W. Meyers, Chas. Tabor and Chas. Bullock was appointed to represent Denison before the legislature. Owing to the difficulty of locating the proposed new school the bill was finally defeated and the Denison men returned disappointed but not dis- heartened.
On January 29th, regular trains were run on the Illinois Central. There had been work trains and a temporary schedule before this time, but now the through trains were put on and Denison came to enjoy the full privileges of its location on the great Illinois Central railroad system.
A farmers' institute was held the latter part of January with Hon. Henry Wallace as the chief attraction. This institute was a success.
At Deloit a German-American Bank was established with L. D. Ley, presi- dent ; Lewis Ley, cashier, and E. T. Dobson, assistant. This institution was short lived and closed on account of lack of business.
In February the Fairmount Creamery took hold of the Denison institution and it soon gave signs of becoming the great success which it is to-day.
The firm of Orkin Bros. which had made a spectacular success in business fields during the late nineties, was sold to A. S. Leavitt who was one of our most aggressive merchants during the next few years, finally leaving to engage in a manufacturing enterprise in New York.
A petition was circulated under the new mulct law and the county, by a large majority decided in favor of wetness. The Bulletin tells of the efforts of dif- ferent people to obtain dwellings in Denison and states that every house in the town is occupied.
The Deloit boom is further accentuated by the establishment of a newspaper, "The Deloit News," of which Thos. Beaumont was the editor. This also was a short-lived institution and died from lack of nourishment. During March a telephone exchange was established at Charter Oak.
At the municipal election in Denison A. D. Wilson was elected mayor by five majority. W. D. Faus, A. H. Brown and Max Sime were elected to the city council.
During the spring there were all sorts of railroad rumors. First it was the Rock Island which contemplated an extension, then the Milwaukee, then the Minneapolis and St. Louis, then a new road from Sioux City to St. Louis. Sur- veys were reported and the community was well stirred up with anticipation of more railroad building. It was not until the last of March, 1900, that the new Illinois Central depot was thrown open to the public.
It was during this spring also that there was a general movement to dis- place the old wooden awnings in front of Denison business houses and a few months later a midnight band removed the last of these unsightly and dangerous structures.
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May witnessed the incorporation of the new town of Kiron and told of the progress of that little burg. The only business disaster of the year was the failure of Sime Bros., clothiers, this also took place in May.
In June, Denison entertained the "Log Rollers" of the Woodmen of the World. There were great doings and the whole town was turned over to the visitors.
The business men's association again became active and there was a re- organization with the following officers, J. P. Conner, president; J. B. Romans, vice-president ; R. A. Romans, secretary, and U. G. Johnson, treasurer.
In September of this year came Denison's opportunity to secure for one of its citizens the great honor of representing the Tenth Iowa District in the Congress of the United States. Upon the death of Hon. J. H. Gear, United States senator from Iowa, Gov. Leslie M. Shaw appointed Hon. J. P. Dolliver, then represent- ing the Tenth District in congress, as his successor. Denison was quick to see its opportunity and its people rallied to the support of the Denison candidate, Hon. J. P. Conner, with great enthusiasm. The feeling of gratitude on the part of Dolliver and his friends helped to an extent. There were eleven candidates from the fourteen counties of the district and the convention battle at Fort Dodge was hard fought. Ninety-six ballots were necessary before a choice was made and finally victory perched upon the banners of Crawford county. The return of the delegates and the candidate was a triumphal entry, much as was the return of the Shaw fighters in 1897. A notable ratification meeting was held at the opera house at which addresses were made by P. E. C. Lally, J. B. Romans, Chas. Bullock, D. L. Boynton, F. W. Meyers, J. I. Gibson, G. L. Caswell and O. M. Criswell. Mr. J. L. Ainsworth read one of the original poems which have endeared him to the hearts of the people of the county and the meeting closed with a heartfelt response on the part of Judge Conner. Mr. Conner was elected and was re-nominated and re-elected, practically without opposition, until 1908 when the factional conditions existing among the republicans of the district made possible the nomination of an opposing candidate. During his terms in Congress Judge Conner did much for his county and for his district. He was a republican and stood with his party and the republican president on all party questions. He was a member of the Committee on Public Buildings and on this committee he did notable work. The fine public buildings at Boone, at Webster City and at Estherville stand as monuments to his interest and efficiency in behalf of the welfare of his district as do also the appropriations, first for the site and later for the erection of a federal building at Denison. The fact that this county and this district were among the first to enjoy the benefits of rural free delivery must also be placed to his credit.
The nomination and election of Judge Conner brought an era of good feeling which the strife of a partisan campaign could not wipe out and this, with the continued prosperity among all classes, closed the year 1900 in a blaze of glory and good fellowship.
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