USA > Iowa > Kossuth County > History of Kossuth County, Iowa > Part 43
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The time will surely come when the owners of the black-soil corn land will be ranked in a class by themselves. As the total acreage of such soil in the United States is limited to only a small section of the country, the demand for it will increase as the years go by. The American kings will be those who own the land. They will be nature's noblemen, composing a class that will be envied by all others. This being true, farm owners in this county ought not to be in any hurry about disposing of their landed possessions.
Kossuth county soil in 1803 was worth less than three cents per acre, if the amount the government paid Napoleon for "Louisiana" is a guide for determin- ing the value per acre of all the land transferred in that great real-estate deal. The whole acreage of the county, of course, was conveyed as a part of the million square miles for which the government paid $15,000,000. The grantor probably would not have sold the immense tract for that sum had it not been for a family quarrel and a fear of his neighbor Johnny Bull. In other words, he con- cluded to take what he could get for it rather than have some other monarch "jump" his claim over in America. That just suited Uncle Sam, who saw a chance in becoming the purchaser to shut out undesirable neighbors, who might
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otherwise locate adjoining his back yard. While it is true he had secured the title to this tract by purchase that did not give him peaceable possession, because of the copper colored inhabitants who were occupying and claiming the same.
The next deal transferring the right to possess Kossuth county soil occurred in 1851, when the several Sioux tribes sold their claims to the government the same year that the county was established. By that treaty the savages relin- quished their right to all their claims in northwestern Iowa and to other extensive tracts as well. Just at what rate per acre they released their interests no one can tell, because it is impossible to compute the number of acres, and just as impossible to know the money value of the consideration paid. Judging from the amounts the government paid to have other sections of the country released from all Indian claims, one would be justified in asserting that the Sioux title to the land now comprising this county was transferred to the government in the 1851 treaty at the rate of not over ten or twelve cents per acre.
The first transfer of lands from the government to our early settlers came through the preemption law privileges at a cost, including all expenses, of not less than about $275 per quarter section. So that these tracts, after patents had been issued on them, had to be sold for more than that amount if any profit whatever was to be derived. There were but few sales of patented lands which brought much above their actual cost, as long as good preemptive land was unoccupied. Occasionally one who very early secured an exceptionally good quarter, favorably located, was able to dispose of his title at a substantial advance above cost. The usual price, however, for the first few years was from $250 to $300 per quarter, but choice selections were sold for more than double the latter amount before the war began. The free homestead law, being in operation when peace was restored and when people were rapidly filling up the vacant places in the county, prevented the prices of deeded lands from rising and frequent sales of them from being made. It was a hard blow to those who were hanging on to their tracts hoping to sell for enough to pay for all their expenses and still have enough to take them to other sections of the country where the conditions were different from those prevailing here at that time. There is not the slightest doubt that many of the early settlers were here to speculate. They believed that when they had secured the patents to their claims that they could sell their tracts for much more than what they had cost. This thought no doubt was in the minds of some at the very time they were making oath before the register and receiver that their lands were to be for their own exclusive use as a home, and not for speculation.
In most instances where patented land was sold at all before the war some other consideration besides money was received. If cash was forthcoming it was not very much in amount unless the purchaser had a good speculation in view. If one was bound to leave the county, less than preemption prices were often accepted. In June, 1857, Reuben Purcell sold a quarter of section 20 in Irvington township for barely $200. The same month James G. Green sold the Jesse Bedell eighty in section 32 for $260. The next May Joseph Crouch sold a quarter of the same section to J. R. Carlon for $600. In October, 1859, the southeast quarter of section 28 in Cresco township was sold by John Edwards to his brother, Hamilton, for $650. The improvements on the place were worth more than half of that price at the time of the sale. As late as February, 1861,
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Alexander Davidson sold a quarter in section 33 in Irvington township for an even $300. J. M. Hogset, owning the quarter in that township where the G. M. Parson's farm residence was situated, got tired of holding it and sold it to Leicester Fox in September, 1860, for much less than preemption prices. Ad- dison Burright had a longing to get out of the county and away from hard times, so he sold a forty in section one which now contains a part of the Algona town site for $125. Occasionally tracts were sold even before war times in the remote portions of the county. In what is now Grant township, 360 acres of section 29 were sold in June, 1857, for an even $1,000. In the present Hebron township during the same month a quarter of section 33 was disposed of for $262. At about the same time the northwest quarter of section 26 in the present Lincoln township changed owners for exactly $200.
Quarter sections containing groves of good timber have always had a selling value of a reasonable amount. The quarter containing Judge Quarton's Guern- sey farm was sold by Stephen Millen to Elijah Eggers in September, 1857, for $1,200. James Eggers sold 176 acres of the R. M. Gardner grove and farm in Plum Creek, in the fall of 1858, for the sum of $1,770 to Hurlbut Lake. Corydon Craw sold to Lyman Craw, in May, 1859, a timber quarter in sections 17 and 18 in Irvington township for $1,000. That was the same price William Carter paid in gold to Hiram Wiltfong for the quarter which Charles Reinecke owns in the same township.
Of the many snap bargains of which the newcomers availed themselves none, to the recollection of the writer, did better than George W. Paine when he bought the choicest of the old Bleekman grove and farm in Plum Creek township, August 2, 1864. He had been living in Bureau county, Illinois, and had sold out and was here prospecting to see where he could make the best possible investment. Having approached W. H. Ingham on the subject, the latter readily saw in the stranger the qualities of a desirable citizen, and as readily gave him a chance to make an exceptionally good deal. The half section comprised the north half of the southeast quarter, the east half of the southwest quarter and the south half of the southeast quarter of section 5, and the north half of the northeast quarter of section 8, in 96-28. The price Mr. Paine paid for this splendid grove and fairly well improved farm was $4 per acre-$1,280 for the half section.
E. H. Bleekman had been the owner for a long time previous to the sale. Considering the quality of the farm land, the quality and the quantity of the timber, the advantages of the river, the reasonable distance from the county seat, the improvements already made and the date when the title was transferred, the deal was one of the best for the purchaser which he possibly could have made. While there were many tracts selling at that price in other parts of the county none compared in real value with this old Bleekman farm.
Land owners desiring to sell their home places tried hard after the war to boost the prices to $5 and upwards but the homestead craze prevented any such boom. For instance, A. M. Johnson bought his well-known home farm in Sher- man township for $4 per acre in the summer of 1865, after he had come from the army. That was the old Abram Knight place which had on it a good log house and other substantial improvements. It seems almost incredible now
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that a farm so well located as that found no purchaser who would pay more than that price in 1865.
It is well remembered that Kinsey Carlon made the fortunate land deal of his life when he purchased of J. P. Cruthers 561 acres for $1,500, as late as August, 1867. He consequently paid at the rate of $2.60 per acre for an excep- tionally good piece of real estate. The farm is in the extreme southwest corner of Sherman on section 31. Were it deemed necessary, other instances of great bargains, made occasionally in those days, could be cited.
The year 1869 closed with prices for land, five miles from town, partly broken up and fenced, hovering around the $4 mark. Several on the Black Cat were offered in vain at that price but found no takers. The coming of the Mil- waukee road during the summer of 1870 strengthened the land values some- what, but sales were compelled to be made, if at all, at about that rate because of the rush for free homesteads, especially to the northern portions of the county. At this time the advance in prices was much retarded, furthermore, because of the very easy terms on which the college lands were being sold. Then again it must be remembered that it was during this same year of 1870 that the board of supervisors offered to sell John Lawler as many acres of swamp land at one dollar per acre as he chose to quiet the title thereto at his own expense. There was no uniform established price. Each man that sold simply got what he could as a consideration and that was all there was to it.
The closing years of the 70's were those when the price of the best quality of lands favorably located was about eight dollars, although numerous sales were being made at a much lower figure. This period was one when consider- able land changed owners with "dicker" as consideration. Old horses, wagons, scrubby. stock, etc., were frequently given in exchange for tracts owned by those who had grown tired of trying to farm under the conditions, and who were anxious to locate anywhere else. While many were predicting that the limit in height of land values had been reached when $8 could be received per acre for land of an average quality, a few miles from the county seat, a deal was made which caused the event to be the principal topic of conversation, among land owners and real estate dealers, for some time. John Heckart, the father-in-law of Judge Call, had homesteaded the fractional northwest quarter of section 3, four miles east of Algona. He. had a comfortable house and other improve- ments on the land, a fine grove being a portion of them. During the year 1880 S. D. Platt, coming into the county from a section of country where land prices were high, and desiring a new home, took a fancy to Mr. Heckart's farm, as the railway track passed across it and as the location just suited him. He thought himself lucky when he succeeded in closing the deal at about $II per acre. This sale was regarded as a record breaker in prices. There were those who gave vent to their sentiments by declaring that the purchaser needed a guardian and the grantor a sentence in jail for money extortion. Still prices continued to be quoted at and around the $8 mark. In fact it was hard to get away from the long-before established price of $5, for very good reasons.
High prices got a severe jolt in the latter 70's and early 80's when the McGregor and Missouri river railway lands in the county were put on the market in such a way that made it possible for purchasers to secure them at
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$2.50 per acre. The general price for fine fertile tracts was $5, but the buyers could have a rebate of half that amount for every acre they broke up for culti- vation. Just think of it! Thirty years after the first settlements were made, good prairie lands located along a railway track could be purchased practically for $2.50 per acre, in sight of Algona and close to settlements of intelligent people. Of all the opportunities for acquiring wealth by the ownership of land, this plan has never had a parallel in Kossuth county land history. It was far better than preemption conditions during the latter 50's or homestead regu- lations during the entire 60's. That was the time when those who failed to invest made the mistake of their lives. Looking back over a lapse of thirty years and reflecting on the easy terms by which one could become the possessor of a quarter section home at that period, one is amazed that there was not a general stampede to purchase every quarter section tract along the line offered at the prevailing prices and terms. If the saying is true that fortune knocks at least once at the door of every man during his life time, it was certainly then that this welcome stranger rapped the loudest to inform our citizens that the golden opportunity had arrived. Too many turned a deaf ear to the call, for although they had ears to hear they heard not. Others heard the knock but hesitated, telling the stranger to call again "on some sweet day by and by." They were those having eyes and seeing not, and having power of reason and exercising it not.
Excepting such as had been disposed of before the grant from the state to the company had been made, these railway lands comprised every alternate section lying within the strip across the entire county, ten miles wide on each side of the C. M. & St. P. Railway track. They were granted by the state for the purpose of aiding the construction of a road from McGregor to Sioux City. The gift had been previously tendered to other companies before the McGregor and Missouri River Railway Co. obtained the lands. As early as 1864 congress granted to the state many thousand acres of land for that purpose. Then the latter donated them to the road complying with the requirements of the railway construction. O. E. Palmer was the principal local agent for the com- pany in disposing of the many sections.
When the bulk of these lands had been sold, prices began having an upward tendency, in spite of the fact that J. E. Stacy was offering swamp lands at $3 per acre, and some very desirable tracts in sight of Algona for a little less than $10. Before 1890 had arrived good improved farms had risen in price to $12.50, $17, $22, $25 and even $31.25. In fact the real worth of land, about that time, began to be appreciated by the owners. Their estimate of the values was so high that when in 1890 Silas Roney bought the Kinsey Carlon farm, joining the old Irvington town site on the east, for $20 the purchase was regarded as being one which would soon bring the grantee twice that price in the market This prediction was more than realized during the very next year when Mr. Roney sold the farm to U. G. Arnfelt for $60 per acre. The advance in price did not stop where it was then for in 1910 Arnfelt disposed of the premises to Mel Roney for only $5 less than the $100 mark. By this time conditions had very materially changed since the days when Addison Fisher, on bor- rowing $400 of the school fund from the county, had to give a mortgage on
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400 acres of his land and furnish two signers to his note besides. They were also in striking contrast with the conditions which prevailed when some banks refused to accept real estate security for loans, and when some that did do so went to the wall in a collapse. Neither were they like those days when men lost their farms on mortgages after values had so risen that they were enabled to encumber them for security of $1,000 loans. Verily those days have gone, but are not forgotten.
It is no great surprise now to the people when they learn that a land sale has been made at the rate of $125 or over per acre. But it did seem to them that a new era had dawned when the time finally came when lands began selling for $100 per acre. During the early 90's when there were frequent sales at $40, $50 and $60 land owners listed their well improved farms within a few miles of Algona with land agents, instructing them to sell whenever they could get $65 per acre for them. That was about the price which much of the improved land was considered to be worth. The five wet years which followed prevented the general price from materially advancing. But when the dry period began, the demand for good, improved, small farms was much in evidence at top- notch prices.
To Charley Best belongs the credit for first finding a client who was willing to pay $100 per acre for a farm. This was in the fall of 1909. Mr. Best informed J. D. Zeigler by phone message that he had a customer who would give him that price for his 120-acre home farm on section 6, Cresco township. Mr. Zeigler turned the proposition down, although he had been talking of selling at that figure for several weeks before. The report of the offer and refusal came as a great surprise to the entire community. A few days later Gustaf Strandberg sold his 120-acre farm in sections 31 and 32 in Plum Creek on contract at $105 per acre. This contract was transferred to J. E. Moulds, who on a new deal paid about $108 per acre for the premises. Next in order Zeigler, on the first of March, 1911, sold his home farm, for which he had been offered $100 some time before, the consideration being at the rate of a little more than $124 per acre. That caused another surprise. He then bought the old Nate Robinson farm on section 6, Cresco township, at the rate of $80, and sold it a month later to Henry Baier at the rate of $92.50 per acre. The surprises to the community by this time had become common.
About the middle of March, 1911 J. E. Mcwhorter evidenced his faith as no man had before, in future values of Kossuth county soil by paying Wolcott Hart for his sixty-two acre farm on section 6, Plum Creek, at the rate of $150 per acre. This sale was an astounding record breaker at that time. Follow- ing this deal came rapid reports of sales at $100 per acre. At that price Fred Dole sold the old Fill place in Irvington to Frank Geigle, J. R. Bright his farm across the river northwest of Algona to J. A. Vipond, L. Miller his farm near Lu Verne to Dr. Adams, the Statelman farm in Riverdale to Henry Thilges, the Schancke farm in German to parties from central Iowa, the Jake Tuescher farm east of LuVerne to Matt Baumgartner, the Wadsworth Bros. farm, near Hobart, to Hargreaves for practically that rate, the A. L .. Webster farm in Cresco to G. A. Castile, the Anderson farm in Irvington, and others not now remembered. Desiring to take advantage of the rising market Crose and
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Best sounded several parties as to the price they would take for their farms. Pech, Bode, Miller and Gilbert refused to take $100 per acre for their Plum Creek holdings. John Kerr, in Burt, did likewise. B. F. Sharp and Ed Sanders spurned such a low offer for their farm homes in Springfield, and Dan Long did the same when he was offered that price for his bottom farm south of Algona. In the meantime several farms had been sold at higher prices. C. E. Phillips, east of LuVerne, sold at $125, J. Diehl, near Sexton, at $105, A. W. Sigsbee, 52 acres adjoining Burt at $125, Pete Luchsinger, east of LuVerne at $125, the G. A. Stoke farm adjoining Swea City at $108, and one of the John Kerr places near Burt at $112. Among those who refused $125 offers for their farms were Sanford Rowe of Hebron, and Harry Keith just north of Alogna.
These instances make a sufficient showing to indicate the activity of land sales during the year 1910 at much higher prices than the best posted land men of the county, two years before, had reasons for believing would be realized in so short a time. The late fall of 1909 and the year 1910 constituted a period in which important land-sale history was being made.
Although a few sales near the county seat had been made during the fall of 1909, at prices as high as $100 per acre, the following year, nevertheless, will always be remembered as being the one when lands first began selling at that rate in the county. In some townships farms changed owners in 1910 at top prices much more frequently than was the case in others. This fact is true of Wesley township where farms have continued to be sold since the spring of that year at prices that have been astonishing. A few sales will be referred to, illustrating how money in the past has been made from land deals. The first farm in that township to reach the $100 mark was the southwest quarter of 35 adjoining the village. M. Taylor became its owner in the early 70's. Frank Hume, who owned it later, sold it to I. W. Lease, March 8, 1903, at $70.25 per acre. March 25, 1910, Lease sold the place to Patsy Cruise at $100 per acre. The Christian Schore farm was the first to sell above that figure. This was the northwest quarter of 33 which Julius Kunz sold for Mr. Schore, May 28, 1910, at the rate of $102.25 per acre to Roy E. Wilson. The grantor had only paid $35 per acre for the farm eleven years before, but of course had improved it well in the meantime. On the 25th day of October, 1910. Julius Kunz purchased the farm from Mr. Wilson, paying at the rate of $112 per acre. That was the record-breaking price paid for land in that township up to that time. When Mr. Kunz bought the Mads Christensen well-improved quarter on section 9. June 4, 1910, at $62.50, and then sold it on the 5th of the following December to Henry Mauss at $105 he was strictly in the swim for making money. Then again when he bought the Albert Falk quarter section farm, December 1, 1909, at $84 and then sold it the next October at $130, land men and land owners throughout the county were compelled to sit up and take notice. At that date that was the record-breaking price in the county paid for farm land, barring the Hart-McWhorter deal the spring before near Algona.
As the year 1912 comes to a close the farm sale at the highest price yet paid for Kossuth county land, so far as the writer can remember, was the sale
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of the old J. B. Jones farm of 200 acres in Cresco, when G. A. Castile disposed of it to J. A. Vipond for $150 per acre. That is at the same rate which Mc- Whorter paid Hart for his farm, but containing more acres must be considered a better sale.
During the long term of years in which values were slowly creeping upward there were always opportunities when men, with good judgment and means to handle the propositions could procure the title to lands at prices far below their real values. This was especially true when non-resident owners were not informed as to prevailing prices of land in the region where their lands lay. Then again after owners had paid taxes on non-producing lands for years they often became tired of holding them any longer, and would part with their hold- ings at a very low figure providing spot cash was in evidence.
Such an opportunity came to A. D. Clarke in the spring of 1889 to procure the title to 2,040 acres of land in Buffalo township at the astonishingly low price of $5 per acre. He had the good judgment to know that every acre of the tract was worth $to or $12 per acre, and that the time was near at hand when they would be valued at several times that amount. He also had the nerve necessary to make the large deal but did not have the required spot cash. A little matter like raising $10,200 was no impediment to block the purchase of such a fine body of land at such prices, so he formed a company consisting of himself, D. A. Haggard and Thomas F. Cooke to contribute enough to the project to transfer the title. This was done, the deed being in favor of the latter as trustee. Before many months a part of the land was sold by them at more than three times the prices they had paid for the same.
SWAMP LAND CONTROVERSIES
More trouble came to the county on account of the swamp lands than from any other source. There is much interesting history pertaining to the granting and final disposition of these lands. Congress, September 28, 1850, approved an act granting to Iowa and most other states respectively the swamp lands contained in them which previous to that date had not been disposed of by the government. Congress required .that the proceeds of the lands, whether from sale or by direct appropriation in kind, should be applied exclusively, as far as necessary, "to the reclaiming said lands by means of levees and drains." That national legislative body also defined what was to be considered as being swamp land under the grant. "All legal subdivisions, the greater part whereof is wet and unfit for cultivation, but when the greater part of a subdivision is not of that character, the whole of it shall be excluded." The government had no means of knowing how many acres it was donating to the state or their exact locations ; so it demanded that the Secretary of the Interior determine the matter and notify the Governor of the same, and then cause such lands to be patented to the state.
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