USA > Iowa > Pottawattamie County > History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa. Containing a history from the earliest settlement to the present time biographical sketches; portraits of some of the early settlers, prominent men, etc. > Part 26
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Several incidents of a peculiar character occurred during this month out of the ordinary way. A noted courtezan by the name of " French Moll " kept a bagnio in the western
part of the city, and had as one of her inmates an attractive looking woman by the name of " Indian Moll." It was no uncommon thing for miners and Western men, with money, when on their way East, to stop in Council Bluffs for a few days. Of the latter class was a young man of about twenty-five, by the name of Bernard. He was a tall, athletic specimen of his race, and, though clad in frontier garb, was exceedingly handsome in face and person. He fell into the toils of these two women, and having some $7,000 or $8,000 in gold, was considered a proper and desirable victim for them. They plied him with wine until he had actually lost his wits, and when in this state they procured a car- riage, and aided by a notorious scamp by the name of Bill Strope, they went to a magis- trate with a marriage license, procured by Strope late in the evening, and the stranger aud Indian Moll were married. Upon recov- ering himself the next morning, and realizing his attitude, he contemplated his situation with intense disgust, and, brooding over the matter all that day, Saturday, he went to his room at the old hotel on Broadway, between the Revere House and Pearl street, locked himself in and took a dose of strychnine, and when discovered by the servants, by his agony and groans and contortions, he was too far gone for medical aid to be of service, and in that condition died.
The other incident was of another charac- ter, and illustrates the methods to which a person addicted to forbidden stimulants will resort, in the extremity of their desires. Gen. Champ Vaughan, of Kansas, a bright newspaper man, a politician of some note and a soldier of a very fair record in the civil war, visited Council Bluffs. He was here only a short time, when his associates, among them the writer of these annals, discovered that he was the slave of chloroform, and
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seemed powerless to resist its use and abuse as an ordinary stimulant, as an intoxicant. To prevent this, they visited all the drug stores in the city, and forbade the sale or gift of it to him. This embargo made him des- perate, although he had no idea from what source the inhibition came. His wits were equal to the emergency. Going as a total stranger to Dr. Woodbury, the dentist, he complained of an excrutiating tooth ache, and desired to have the teeth extracted. Th9 dentist could find none that indicated the seat of the torment, but Vaughan pointed them out, and insisted that they must be drawn. Dr. Woodbury complied, but the would-be patient would not submit to the operation until a liberal dose of chloroform was administered, and under that influence two teeth were taken out that were as sound and faultless as the moment they had reached maturity. That was simply the price paid by the victim of a pernicious habit for a mo- ment's indulgence.
During this month, the city was shrouded in gloom by the death of one of its oldest and most highly regarded citizens, Col. J. D. Test. He made a visit to Chicago and : died there on the 25th of February. His remains were brought home on the North- Western train, on Sunday, and met at the depot by an immense concourse of citizens. The Odd Fellows and the fire department turned out to do them honor, when deposit- ed in their final resting-place. His wife had preceded him a few years before, and he left as sole surviver, Miss Carrie Test, a daughter, who having afterward become the wife of A. T. Elwell, of the United States Express Com- pany, also died after a very brief married life.
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At the city election on the first Monday in April, D. C. Bloomer was chosen Mayor, and F. A. Burke, City Recorder, Mr. Treynor declining to be a candidate, he having been
appointed Postmaster by President Grant. John B. Lewis, J. B. Atkins, the druggist. John T. Oliver, L. L. Spooner, John Hunt- ingdon and L. W. Babbitt were also chosen Aldermen at that election. A new code of ordinances was prepared, under the super- vision of L. W. Ross, but not published un- til 1870.
Another important law suit was disposed of against the city, in the early part of this year. Mr. Collins was the book-keeper in the wholesale grocery establishment on Broadway, near the junction of Bancroft with the former street. About dusk, his wife was coming down the south side of Broadway toward the store, and when within fifty feet of it fell and fractured her thigh. The al- leged cause was the negligence of the city in not keeping that sidewalk free from ice, and the fact was that at the moment of the injury a slight snow was falling, which wholly con- cealed the dangerous condition of the side- walk. The unfortunate lady lay all winter at her home, on Vine street, and suffered un- told agony, and was also permanently injured and made a cripple by the accident. Suit was brought against the city, the case was taken to Mills County on a change of venue. and the case there tried, with a verdict against the city in the sum of $15,000. In an ap- peal to the Supreme Court, the judgment was affirmed, on the condition that the claimant should submit to a reduction of the amount of the verdict to $13. 165, the original amount of damages being regarded by thiat court as excessive. These terms were accepted by Clinton, Hart & Brewer, who represented Mrs. Collins, and the judgment was paid by public bonds voted, at a special election or- dered by the City Council for that pur- pose.
W. W. Maynard ceased to be Postmaster on the 9th of May, and being succeeded by
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Mr. Treynor, the office was removed from the one-story building just west of Atkin's drug store to the room beneath Bloom & Nixon's Opera House, where it has ever since re- mained. Among the famous literary people who visited Council Bluffs during this season were Bayard Taylor, John G. Saxe, Albert D. Richardson, and Charles Carleton Coffin, of the Boston Journal. The latter was on his way home from a journalistic tour of the world, and came east from San Francisco overland. Bayard Taylor was here on a visit to his old schoolmate of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, ex-Mayor Junius M. Palmer, and spent Sunday in the city. The German people had a temporary beer garden in the eastern part of the city, near Col. Babbitt's place, and in the afternoon the distinguished poet and traveler manifested his cosmopoli- tanism by joining in the dance and drinking beer according to the custom of the Father- laud.
An important industry was set in motion in the early part of the season, one that has since grown to mammoth proportions. The new brick brewery of Conrad Geise, on the ' north side of Upper Broadway, was built the year before, and commenced business in the early part of 1869. It has expanded during the interval until its product, in 1881, was 15,000 barrels of beer, and the malting es- tablishment turned out for sale and shipment 70.000 bushels of malted barley. Mr Geise started business without any capital, except his intelligent energy and thorough knowl- edge of the business, and has in the interval pushed the enterprise to the foregoing vast resulte.
The want of adequate hotel facilities began to press during the early part of this year. Mr. Palmer, J. L. Foreman and three or four other prominent citizens, met two or three nights during February, 1869. in the old
storeroom of J. H. Warner, amid stacks of flour stored there, to concert measures for the building of a new hotel, at some point on Broadway east of the city building and west of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It was finally agreed that the property owners in that vicinity should raise $10,000 as a dona- tion to any parties who should undertake to build a large hotel of the requisite capacity. The money was raised, and the site of the present Ogden House selected, and a contract entered into with William Garner, Charles Baughan and John Hammer, by which they obligated themselves to erect a hotel, cover- ing exactly the space of the present building, three stories in height, with an additional mansard story. As soon as spring opened, work on the new enterprise began, and was as rapidly pushed forward as the season would permit. Great quantities of rain fell during the summer, and the laying of the corner-stone was delayed until the 12th of May. This was made a gala day by the peo- ple. For months, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Company, having the franchise and the right of way of the old M. & M. Company, were pushing their road down the Mosquito Valley, to make the third Iowa road entering the city of Council Bluffs. All the civic societies, the fire department and a great concourse of citizens turned out to wel- come the arrival of the first train over the Rock Island road. A terrific rain storm came on as the dense crowd, on the bottom east of the St. Joe depot, awaited the arrival of the train; but the torrents caused no abatement of the enthusiastic welcome which greeted the decorated engine as it came whirling in- to sight through the gorge where the Mos- quito finds its way to the Missouri River. When the enthusiastic congratulations were concluded at the temporary depot of the Rock Island, the procession came back to the site of
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the Ogden House, and there Mayor Bloomer, as master of ceremonies, lowered the immense corner-stone to its place, after depositing coin and the usual relics, and accompanied by an appropriate address. The day closed with a ball at the Pacific House, and the elite of the city aud a host of railway officials and visitors made the most of it.
The Council Bluffs Post, a German paper, was started in the same month by S. Mader, a competent newspaper man, and the publi- cation of the same continued by him for a couple of years, when he removed to Omaha. During the same summer, Julius Silversmith came to this side from Omaha and started a Democratic evening paper, called the Times, the office being located in one of the one- story wooden buildings now occupied by the Everett Block, on Pearl street. One of his employes during this period, as city editor, was A. C. Buell, afterward famous as the al- leged libeler of Senator Zach Chandler, of Michigan, editor of the Washington Capital, and involved in some way as a newspaper man in connection with the Star Route trials of 18S2. Buell had also been a soldier dur- ing the civil war. having served in the Army of the Potomac, in Battery D, of the Fourth United States Artillery. Silversmith after- ward sold the paper to B. F. Montgomery, by whom it was published until the close of the memorable Grant-Greeley campaign of 1872, Mr. Montgomery, though an ardent Democrat, having attended the Baltimore Convention, and having urged the endorse- ment of Greeley by that body.
During this summer, the Center Street Schoolhouse was built, opposite the present C., B. & Q. depot, and the Washington Avenue School building was enlarged, at a cost of over $5.000. On the 13th of May, Council Bluffs Lodge, No. 49, of the Odd Fellows, occupied their new hall in the third story of the new
building at the corner of Broadway and Main street. On the 1st of July, a public instal- lation of its officers took place at Bloom's Opera House, the exercises being conducted by Grand Master William Sharp, of Ottum- wa. Humboldt Lodge, No. 174, was organ- ized by the Germans in October. 1869, and Hawkeye Lodge, No. 184, a lodge in English, was instituted. Twin Brother Encampment was chartered October 20, and duly instituted.
John Beresheim was elected a member of the Legislature at the fall election of 1869. his Democratic competitor being Robert Per- cival. John W. Chapman, the present editor of the Nonpareil, was elected County Treas- urer for the first term. He had, up to that date, held the position of Assistant Assessor of Internal Revenue, having succeeded F. A. Burke in that office. On the 28th of October, a disastrous fire occurred, which swept the south side of Broadway, from the Deming Building, near Bancroft street, to Atkins' drug store. During the same month, the east side of North Main street was devastated, the fire carrying away a number of buildings. among them the residence of Dr. Osborn. The three-story west end of the Pacific House was finished this season, and Dr. Bragg and the Ballantyne brothers took charge of the house, as lessees of Mr. Bayliss, the owner. Gen. Dodge and John Beresheim, during that summer, began the erection of their fine residences. A beginning was made, in the fall of 1868, upon the Deaf and Dumb Iusti- tute, but no great amount of work was done until 1869, when the contractor, William R. Craig, of Nebraska City, advanced the building with considerable rapidity, the east wing and the center building being the first completed. William Ward, of Council Bluffs, was the directing architect. The plans were altered so as to involve a greater ex- penditure than was permitted by the appro-
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priation, and, when the contractor came to obtain his pay for this outlay, he was con- fronted with the objection that the changes were unauthorized by law. He was subjected to expensive law-suits on the part of material men. and absolutely financially ruined by the enterprise. He danced attendance in the courts and at the various Legislatures for years, in the hope of obtaining redress. Suits were brought against the Trus'ees as individ- nals, to make them personally liable, but de- cided adversely to the claimant and the ma- terial men behind him; and at last the Leg- islature, in its session of 1878. made some amends for the delay, by an appropriation, that the creditors, whose claims, with accu- mulated interest, absorbed it all, leaving the contractor, Craig, nothing except the satis- faction of being released from the pressure of this debt. The ninety-six acres of land on which the building stands, about two miles from Broadway, were purchased in 1867, by the citizens, and donated to the State as an inducement to locate the institution at this point.
The street railway was licensed in the early part of 1869, and, during the summer, it was constructed, the work being finished in De- cember. The track was constructed down Broadway, at the foot of which, at the river, was a ferry landing, and this continued to be the western terminus of the track until the railroad bridge over the Missouri was tin- ished. when the track was shifted over to the present transfer grounds at the Union Pacific Depot. Masonry was in a flourishing condi- tion here at this time. Excelsior Lodge was constituted in the winter of 1868-69, and Star Chapter about the same time. In December, 1869. Ivanhoe Commandery of Knights Tem- plar was organized. The great social event of the winter was the opening of the Ogden House. The building was finished, and
was the handsomest and most complete hotel between San Francisco and Chicago. The owners of the building, out of compliment to the late William B. Ogden, of Chicago, whose energies had contributed to such a great ex- tent in the development of this section of the country through the completion of the North- Western Railway, called their hotel the Og- den House. A. J. Cutting, of Ohio, and William Porterfield, who was about to retire from the County Treasurer's office, became the lessees of the new hostelry, and furnished it in the most elegant manner, and, on the 22d of December, threw open its doors to one " of the most brilliant assemblies that ever met under any roof on either side of the Missouri River. Guests were present from far and wide, and a banquet, the like of which had never been seen in Western Iowa, was given in honor of the occasion. Among those who paid tribute in eloquent speeches on the occa- sion were Judge Newman, of Burlington, and Dr. George L. Miller, of the Omaha Herald. It was an event of which all classes of citi- zens were proud.
On the 4th of December, 1869, the fourth railroad was added to those already here, it being the Burlington & Missouri River, which, taking a route almost directly across the State, made a junction with the Council Bluffs & St. Joseph Railroad sixteen miles south of the city, ran its cars here on the track of the latter road, and so jointly used that facility until the B. & M. was consoli- dated, leased, and, in a sense, absorbed, by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, and then afterward the same means of getting into the city were used, to the present time.
On the 5th of March, 1870, the Pottawatta- mie County Agricultural Society was organ- ized, with Thomas J. Evans as President. Forty acres of land were leased from Col. Cochran, about half a mile west of the North-
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Western depot, and on the south side of Broad- way, for fair grounds. One of the most suc- cessful agricultural exhibitions was held that fall ever held in the West. The weather was admirable. For a year and more, Capt. A. L. Deming, President of the First National Bank, was suffering from Bright's disease of the kidneys. He spent a portion of the win- ter in Philadelphia, in the hope of a cure, but, coming home. he expired on the 28th of March, and his remains were borne to Fair- view Cemetery by the most extensive cortege that ever followed the remains of a citizen of Council Bluffs. He was universally esteemed, and his loss to the business community uni- versally deplored. M. L. Deming, his brother, was made President by the stock- holders of the bank, and S. Farnsworth, who has ever since been Cashier, having acquired an interest in the bank in the winter of 1868, continued in that official relation to the insti- tution and the public. The bank was then located at the southeast corner of Broadway and Main streets, having shortly before that been removed from the small two-story build- ing of L. Zeuhmuellen, west of the J. M. Phillips building.
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This summer, the high school building, on the hill overlooking the western part of the city, was anthorized and commenced. The six acres of ground upon which it stands had been secured for school purposes many years before. Many persons were dissatisfied, as they still are, with it for the location of a high school, and the decision of its location at that point would have been otherwise, but the school election day, when the question was submitted in March, was an exceedingly stormy one, snow falling all day, and only a few electors attended the polls. As it was, the proposition only carried by five or six votes, and, during the summer, the building was erected, at a cost of $45,000.
The Council passed an ordinance, on the 30th of March, 1870, authorizing the Coun- cil Bluffs Gas Light Company to lay down pipes in the street for the purpose of lighting business places, the streets and dwellings, at a maximum rate of $4.50 per 1,000 cubic feet. About that date, the Nonpareil narrowly es- caped destruction by fire again. The brick building occupied by it stood inward from Broadway about fifteen feet. In front and at the inner edge of the sidewalk stood two small one-story buildings used as shops of small tradesmen, each one flanking the approach to the Nonpareil office. The paper was in type for the morning edition, and the forms nearly made up, ready to goon the press. John H. Keatley, the sole editor of the paper at that date. and the compositors, had gone home. when, about 3 o'clock in the morning, when the mercury was ten degrees below zero, and a heavy wind blowing, a fire broke out in one of the small buildings in front of the print- ing office. The alarm was at once given, but the water froze in the hose, and. only for the timely assistance given by the Phoenix Hook and Ladder Company, the whole side of Broadway would have been swept away. The windows were all taken out of the printing office, all the type, forms and material re - moved, and stacked up in the rear, out of reach of danger, and nothing was left in the building except the heavy and immovable press, which was allowed to take its chances. As soon as the danger was passed, enough of type was collected with the aid of a lan- tern, an account of the fire was written, with the window closed by an old blanket held to its place by Ben Allen, the veteran printer of Council Bluffs. the same put into type, and. without an hour's delay, the paper appeared to its patrons on the street, the same as if no calamity had threatened the office.
The original license granted to the Nebras-
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ka Ferry Company, mention of which was made at the commencement of these annals, was about to expire. A desperate fight oc- cured in the City Council over the question of a removal. The opposition was a bitter one, as against the alleged monopoly of the transfer business, but, after an acrimonious conflict, the license was granted for three years, upon the annual payment of a fee of $1.000 into the city treasury. The Union Pacific bridge was completed before the ex- piration of the new term, and the value of the ferry fanchise was greatly impaired. In fact, as soon as the end of the three years came. the ferry business by boat was wholly abandoned, and the steamers employed in that traffic sent away, the business being ab- sorbed by the car ferriage of the Union Pa- cific.
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After one of the most bitter fights on so unimportant an office as that of Mayor. J. M. Palmer was again elected in the spring of 1870, his competitor being Mayor Bloomer, the Republican candidate, Palmer being an independent. The railroad bridge over the Missouri River was virtually commenced in the spring of 1870. Gen. William Sooy Smith, who had been an officer in the West- ern Army during the civil war. had underta- ken some preliminary work in the sinking of the caissons in 1869, but the work was sus- pended until resumed again under T. E. Sickles. General Superintendent of the Union Pacific, and a railway civil engineer of more than ordinary ability. The plans under which the work went forward were those devised by Gen. Dodge, before his resignation as Chief Engineer of the road.
A calamity of a peculiar kind visited the Congregational society of Council Bluffs dur- ing the latter part of April. Their new and handsome church edifice on Center street was inclosed, and ready for inside furnishing.
A hurricane visited this region about 11 o'clock at night, and blew territically but no material damage was done in the city to any other building except to this church, which was literally blown to atoms and totally de- molished. It was afterward rebuilt, but not a stick of timber or a board belonging to the former building could again be used.
In May, while Congress was in session, a bill passed the House of Representatives providing for the charter of a company to build a railroad bridge to take the place of the one begun by the Union Pacific Railroad Company. As soon as this intelligence was received, the people of Council Bluffs took the alarm, and saw in the project an effort to make the actual eastern terminus of the Union Pacific in Omaha, the provision, of course being that the bridge should be operated in- dependently of the railroad. They regarded it as a scheme to cut off so much from the eastern end of the railroad. Thus taking the alarm, handbills were issued, and an im- mense mass meeting was called at the south west corner of Pearl street and Broadway, on the afternoon of the 24th of June, 1870. Denunciatory speeches were made by Col. Sapp, Judge Larimer and others. Judge Baldwin and Gen. Dodge defended the proj- ect, and explained it, but the explanation failed to satisfy the people, and strong reso- lutions were passed condemning it, and Col. Sapp authorized to convey the same to Wash- ington, to endeavor to arrest the measure in its passage through the Senate. Senator Har- lan caused the bill to be amended, providing that the bridge corporation might borrow money on the structure, issuing its bouds therefor, and providing that the mortgages on the main line of the road should not attach to the bridge property, allowing it to collect tolls to pay operating expenses, and creating a sinking fund to discharge indebtedness.
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but providing that, notwithstanding all these concessions and advantages. the Union Pa- cific should still operate its road, in conjunc- tion with the bridge, as one continuous line. This latter clause was satisfactory to the peo- ple of Council Bluffs, on their theory that President Lincoln had located the eastern terminus of the road in Council Bluffs.
The brick residence of John W. Ross, on the point of the bluff just north of the Wash- ington Avenue School building, then consid- ered the finest residence in Council Bluffs. was accidentally destroyed by fire on the 7th day of May.
June 3, the Congressional Convention of the Republican party was held here. The candidates were F. W. Palmer and John A. Kasson, both of Des Moines. The prelimi- nary conflict was a most bitter one. Twenty- three counties were represented. Palmer was the member from the district, and on the first ballot he was renominated, in a vote of sixty to twenty.
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