USA > Iowa > Sac County > History of Sac County, Iowa > Part 20
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90
219
SAC COUNTY, IOWA.
village or group and no women are employed, but inen do all the work both inside and out of the houses. The superintendents and bosses of barns, of fields and machinery, each have good residences and an office, while the great twenty- to fifty-thousand-bushel corn cribs complete the buildings of the ranch. The machinery, wagons, harness, mules and even the men have numbers and everything is carried on same as it is in railroad shops. The men are checked in morning, noon and night, and even the barn boss sees that each mule is properly watered and fed and bedded. The help may draw their pay each Saturday night if they so wish. There are usually two beefs slaughtered each week for feeding the men. One peculiarity is that not a hen or hog is kept on the place. The food is provided or prepared by two expert cooks and a number of flunkeys who serve and wait on the men at meal time. The buildings are heated by a furnace, the fuel of which is thousands of bushels of corn cobs, which in shelling time are placed in dry cribs and other places for future use. The wagons and machinery are all painted once a year. The place is provided with blacksmith shops, harness shops and repair shops. They put up their own ice and keep a dozen milch cows with which, to provide the butter and milk for the tables. All is system and order here, and hun- dreds of visitors come from the surrounding country to see what a modern, up-to-date farm consists of. Everyone is welcome at the Adams ranch, a little more than a mile west of Odebolt.
THE TOWN OF ODEBOLT.
This is the second town in size in Sac county and is full of enterprising business and social factors. It is situated in the western portion of the county, on one of the most important branches of the great Northwestern system of railroads in Iowa. It was laid out by the Blair Town Lot and Land Company in 1877. It was built on the wild prairie, but today looks like a city much older, and has its thousands of beautiful shade trees and parks, with hundreds of modern, thoroughly up-to-date residences. Among the earliest pioneers of the town was M. H. Hempin, who was the first to engage in business at this point. He it was who sold construction supplies to the railroad gangs while they were constructing the railroad through the county. The first house was erected by W. Van Dusen, this serving both as a residence and store room for himself and family. He was soon followed by George McKibbin and James Ross. The railroad was finished to Odebolt November 19, 1877, the first train arriving at that date. Another very early
220
SAC COUNTY, IOWA.
settler in Odebolt was H. T. Martin, who organized a Sunday school in De- cember, 1877, and was also the first commissioned notary public. When the depot was finished in 1877, Mr. Martin was appointed station agent, and his daughter, Miss Emma Martin, was the first telegraph operator.
Of the town's population, let it be said that in 1885 the state enumeration gave Odebolt 954; the federal census of 1900 gave it 1,222 ; the state enumera- tion in 1895 gave it 1,400 ; the federal census in 1900 gave it 1,432 ; the state census in 1905 placed it at 1,431 and a careful estimate of the population in January, 1914, gives it a population of 1,300, which is in keeping with many of the towns and cities in Iowa, which, it will be remembered. fell off in population in the decade just preceding the last United States census enumeration.
Odebolt is on an elevation of one thousand three hundred and sixty-five feet above sea-level. It is well situated and a healthful location.
Odebolt was incorporated in the month of March, 1879, and the records show that the first officers elected were as follows: James Ross, mayor ; J. M. Zane, recorder ; John Wright, treasurer; Ward Van Deusen, J. Flanders, E. Geist, C. B. Hatfield, J. Bowles, councilmen. Those who have served as mayors to date include these : James Ross, J. H. Ketterer, William Graham, C. M. Miller, J. R. Reynolds, C. C. Coye, F. P. Motie, William Graham, S. D. Selby. The officers serving in January, 1914, were: Mayor, S. D. Selby ; clerk, A. F. P. Schmitz ; treasurer, R. W. Sayre ; marshal, E. C. Fuller ; night watch-police, Julius Bingenheimer ; council : F. H. Meyer, W. J. Ahl- berg, M. W. Smith, J. L. Jones.
A fire company was formed at Odebolt in the early spring of 1880, as a hook and ladder company, consisting of forty members, all provided with suitable uniforms. In 1882 the foreman was J. Mattes; E. E. Hamlin, secre- tary; W. V. Sindt, treasurer ; Dave W. Flack, assistant foreman. It is still kept up, and is a volunteer company, cared for by the town, and is furnished with excellent fire-fighting apparatus, including hose, hook and ladders, ex- tinguishers, etc., backed by a good system of water works.
Recently a complete sewerage system has been among the improvements of the incorporation. There is no other Iowa town of its size having more cement sidewalks (there are, in fact, no wooden ones) than has Odebolt.
Two public parks adorn and make beautiful the town site, Hamilton park, a small tract named in honor of the well-known newspaper man, Will E. Hamilton, now deceased, and the larger tract, known as the City park, com-
22I
SAC COUNTY, IOWA.
prising a full city block, with its hundreds of beautiful shade trees, its seats and other attractions for the summer months.
The town has the advantage of two excellent telephone systems, the New State Company, with its two hundred and fifty 'phones connected, and the Sac County Mutual Company, with its five hundred and seventy-three 'phones in operation.
The town is supplied with gas by a private company, which furnishes a good grade of illuminating gas at reasonable rates. It is produced from gasoline.
The town hall is a spacious brick building, on the principal street, and here the council chambers, the fire department and a ladies' rest room are situated. This rest room has now an average of five hundred callers monthly and is greatly appreciated by the people from the surrounding rural districts. The public library is mentioned at length at another place in this chapter. The following religious denominations are represented at Odebolt: The Methodist Episcopal, the Catholic, the Presbyterians, the Swedish Mission, the Swedish Lutheran and Swedish Methodist. The lodges include the Masonic and Odd Fellows fraternities ( see lodge chapter). . \ modern brick school house, costing many thousand dollars, was recently erected as a monu- ment to the excellent educational interest taken at Odebolt.
Regarding the earlier conflagrations in Odebolt, it may be stated that on February 1, 1880, a fire originated in the carpenter shop of Geist & Buehler, at eight o'clock in the evening. It spread rapidly, getting beyond control in a few minutes. That fire destroyed the office and implement house of the best concern in town; also the clothing store of Todd & Company. The latter building was worth eight hundred dollars and the insurance was six hundred dollars. Todd & Company saved most of their stock, fully in- sured. Geist & Buehler lost two thousand dollars, with only four hundred dollars insurance paid. It has always been believed that the fire was started by an enemy of one of the firms which lost in the fire.
A history of the newspapers and lodges and Grand Army post will be scen elsewhere in this volume.
COMMERCIAL INTERESTS.
Odebolt is an excellent business point-well thought of by the farming section surrounding it. Among the early enterprises may be recalled the flax-mill operated by Winslow & Son in 1880, when a large warehouse, with
222
SAC COUNTY, IOWA.
steam power for driving the necessary machinery, was installed. Two years later the plant was owned by John Dement. Great quantities of flax were then being grown in this section of the country, the crop being both profitable to market, as well as one of the best soil-subduing factors possible to employ on the tough, wild prairie soil. This has all passed away and others crops and other methods have long since obtained.
When Odebolt was only five years old (in 1882) a business directory gave the following concerning the local business houses: Seven general stores, three groceries, two harness shops, two hardware stores, three drug stores, two jewelry shops, two furniture stores, three restaurants, two banks, three hotels, three grain elevators, three lumber yards, four agricultural implement dealers, three livery stables, four blacksmith shops, two wagon shops, three millinery stores, three barber shops, two meat markets, one photograph gallery, two printing offices, one ready-made clothing store, one exclusive dry goods store, three saloons and the postoffice.
Coming down to January, 1914, the business is in the hands of the following persons and firms :
Attorneys-W. A. Helsell.
Banks-First National, German Savings Bank, Farmers Savings Bank.
Barber shops-Martin Lanth, Charles Kellogg, G. J. Freese.
Bakery --- G. B. Dolan.
Blacksmith shops-Kistler & Skeppstedt, Carlson & Varner.
Clothing-Brynteson & Reynolds, F. H. Meyer.
Drug stores-Engstrom & Huglin, Selby, Potteriger Drug and Jewelry Company.
Dentists-W. N. Ousler, E. L. White.
Dray lines-James Ellinger, Roy Purdy, Fred Haustetter, F. W. Libby.
Elevators-Reuber & Bruce. A. C. Petersmeyer, Dickinson Grain Com- pany.
Furniture-C. J. Kircher.
Feed store-M. W. Smith.
Garages-Odebolt Auto and Supply Co., G. H. Frey and Ecinspaher Auto Company.
General Dealers-William Sampson, Kalin & Gilinsky, Co-operative Co., W. J. Ahlberg & Company.
Harness dealers-Odebolt Harness Company, Thomas Mckeever.
Hardwares-Joseph Mattes, Koehler & Hanson.
Hotel-The New Bell, by Mrs. Julia McMartin.
223
SAC COUNTY, IOWA.
Hospital-The Odebolt.
Jeweler-H. R. Stanzel.
Livery-Horan Brothers, Benjamin McMartin.
Lumber Dealers- Green Bay Lumber Company, Bowman & Co.
Meats-M. H. Paul, P. L. Hedberg.
Millinery-O'Daniel Sisters, Horan & O'Meara.
Newspapers-The Chronicle and the News.
Opera Hall-"The Odebolt," C. J. Kircher, proprietor.
Photographs-A. W. Dahestrom.
Picture Shows-The "Cozy" and the "Princess."
Physicians -- Drs. A. Groman, R. C. Sebern, R. C. Shaffer, E. H. Crane.
Pool Hall-J. A. Lampe.
Restaurants-Smith Brothers, Charles Larson, A. H. Shade, J. L. Jones, M. 1 .. Briggs & Son.
Real Estate-Mattes & Selby.
Racket Store-William Sampson.
Stock dealers-Krusenstjerna & Paul.
Shoe repairs-Andrew Brynteson.
Tailors-Richard Horneisel.
Veterinary surgeons-Dr. F. E. Williams, Dr. L. J. Stratton. Wagon repairs-J. E. Einspahr.
THE FIELD-CARNEGIE LIBRARY.
The public library is an institution of which Odebolt is justly proud. Having its beginning in a literary club, it has since 1900 been supported by the city.
Fifteen women of the Woman's Reading Circle started a fund for a library in 1897. When they had accumulated about two hundred dollars they organized the Odebolt Library Association, a corporation with shares at five dollars each. W. W. Field subscribed five hundred dollars and other citizens of the town and county adjacent subscribed seven hundred dollars more. Books were purchased and the library opened in an upstairs room on Main street. This was in July, 1898.
Two years later Mr. Field offered to contribute five hundred dollars more on condition that the town accept the library as a gift and agree to levy an additional tax of two mills for its maintenance. The citizens, by vote,
224
SAC COUNTY, IOWA.
accepted the proposition and the stockholders transferred their shares to the town of Odebolt.
For several years thereafter the library trustees repeatedly tried to secure funds for a building from Andrew Carnegie, but without success. Mr. Carnegie had issued instructions to his secretary to ignore all requests from towns of less than five thousand population and consequently letters from Odebolt were never brought to his attention: After repeated failures, through the efforts of W. E. Hamilton, Mr. Carnegie sent a favorable reply. If the town of Odebolt would furnish the site and agree to maintain a library at a cost of not less than four hundred dollars per year, Mr. Carnegie would be pleased to furnish four thousand dollars for a library building.
The proposition was accepted and Mr. Field purchased for five hun- dred dollars and presented to the town the lot on Second street where the building now stands. The site was a part of the residence property of A. C. Petersmeyer.
The plans were drawn by G. W. Burkhead, of Sioux City, and the con- tract awarded to Mr. Ketterman, of Ida Grove. The building has a front of fifty-one feet four inches and a depth of twenty-nine feet. The foundation at grade line is a coursing stone surmounted by Boone blue paving brick. with water table of Bedford stone. The roof is of slate, with a half pitch. On the front is a portico, upheld by pilasters and round columns of Bedford stone. The steps leading up to the portico are of cement. The walls and ceiling are tinted and frescoed, and all the furniture and book stacks are in quarter-sawed oak. The building is heated by furnace and lighted by gas.
The library is known as the Field-Carnegie library, in honor of the men who were the principal contributors. At his death, Mr. Field left in the hands of trustees an endowment fund of two thousand five hundred dollars, the interest of which is to be used for the purchase of books alone.
There are now over three thousand volumes in the library. Of these about one thousand are adult fiction, one thousand three hundred general reference, six hundred and fifty juvenile and eighty-five volumes of bound magazines.
In the reading room are two large tables surrounded by comfortable chairs where are found twenty-seven of the best current periodicals. These are kept on file and prove very valuable for reference work. The children's department occupies the east end of the reading room, with shelves along the wall filled with the best literature for children. A long low table, with small
.
ODEBOLT HIGH SCHOOL
225
SAC COUNTY, IOWA.
bent willow chairs, for the use of the children alone, is found here, where they can read comfortably their own magazines and picture books.
The library is free to all who reside in Odebolt and a fee of one dollar per year is charged to those outside. It is open three afternoons and even- ings during the week and on Sunday afternoons for reading only.
The officers and board of trustees from 1911 to 1915 are as follows : Joseph Mattes, president ; W. F. Bay, secretary ; Lillian E. Hanson, librarian. The board consists of Mrs. C. K. Hinkley. M. D. Fox. A. C. Petermeyer, Joseph Mattes. W. F. Bay, W. N. Ousler, Mrs. W. A. Helsell, Mrs. W. A. Bennett and Mrs. Charles Coy.
This library was opened up to the public in March, 1905.
POSTOFFICE HISTORY.
Odebolt office was established in 1877 and the following have served as postmasters : Ward Van Deusen, F. R. Bennett. F. P. Motie, Walter E. Mathews, Mrs. Walter E. Mathews, W. W. Shanks, W. N. Ousler, the last named being the present incumbent of the office.
During the last fiscal year this office transacted a business amounting to six thousand dollars outside of all money order business. It is a third class postoffice, and has three rural free delivery routes extending out into the surrounding country. The present office force are: O. W. Larson, deputy postmaster ; J. C. Blakley, clerk. The office is kept in the Joseph Mattes brick block, in the heart of the town.
CONCERT BAND.
The Odebolt Concert Band was organized January 2. 1914, under the patronage of the Odebolt Boosters Club. The musical director is D. W. Duncan. Its members consist of the following gentlemen: Charles Bab- cock, Russell Searight, John Kuhl, Jacob Konradi, Dewey Lonberg, Fred Steuckrodt, Paul Dahlnerg. Carl Korneisel, Eugene Reynolds, M. Billings, George Teaquist, Carl Peterson, Herman Godberson, Nicholas Konradi, Walter Searight, Harry Evers, Otto Freese, Lloyd Babcock, Walter Libby. John Erickson, Clifford Fuller, Frank Mattes, Art Anderson, Leslie Kiner, Wilkie Kiner, James Ellis, Vernie Paul, D. Kornsisel, Guy Babcock, Edgar Ellinger. Cloyd Levell. Ralph Cunningham, Theo. Erickson, Leslie Hanson, Harold Frevoit, Royce Engberg. Merritt Furrow.
(14)
226
SAC COUNTY, IOWA.
FAMOUS POPCORN INDUSTRY.
Let it be known that Odebolt is sitttated within the most famous pop- corn center of the entire world. But few persons who purchase a sack of popcorn at a street corner or of an urchin at the train, ever stop to think where all this product comes from. It does not thrive in many sections of the world. and it is mostly grown in the Western states, with the largest acreage growing on Iowa soil, with Sac county as its center, and Odebolt the shipping point from which the major portion of it comes. Field and garden seeds and popcorn are the two greatest industries of the town of Odebolt. This county has just the right soil and climate to give the best results in pop- corn production. Others nearby may be as good, but here the business has been successfully carried on for a number of years so satisfactorily that deal- ers and buyers seek no further in making their selection of corn. There is a great difference in popcorn, some being unfit for market and unfit for use. The dealers who handle this commodity at Odebolt have come to know just how to cure or keep this corn in a suitable condition to have the "best popping results," as they term it.
Recent writers who have looked into this industry state that nowhere in all the world is there as much popcorn bought, housed and shipped as from the town of Odebolt, Sac county, lowa. It goes onto the world's market by the hundredweight and not, as other corn, by the bushel. An average yield per acre is two thousand five hundred pounds and the price per hundred pounds is about one dollar and twenty-five cents. While the expense of cultivating it is about the same as field corn, the cost of harvesting is fully three times as much. Many farmers have separate cribs and keep their corn over until the following season. Much money has been made from this simple crop. Some seasons, when the supply has been short and the demand large. the prices have reached as high as four dollars per hundred pounds, while at other seasons it has sold for much less than half that amount. The loss in cobs and shrinkage is about twenty-eight per cent. At two dollars and fifty cents per hundred, an acre of land will produce popcorn to the value of forty-three dollars and seventy-five cents. The corn is either grown in drills or check- rows. Planters are the same as for field corn and from five to eight grains are used for seed. In 1912 the Trans-Mississippi Grain Company bought popcorn at Odebolt, Arthur, Early and Battle Creek. The Odebolt crop averaged about three hundred and fifty pounds per acre, more than at any other of these points. It is said by experts that the most successful locality
227
SAC COUNTY, IOWA.
to produce this crop in all the corn-growing belt is within a radius of about fifteen miles of Odebolt.
Among the earliest dealers and growers of this crop was the firm of Reuber & Bruce. Mr. Reuber commenced it about 1893. This firm now ships popcorn from coast to coast and from Canada to the far-off Gulf of Mexico. Shipments are made in car-load lots and in packages of a few pounds sent through the mails. All corn is graded and tested before it is sent out to customers. Three other firms also handle popcorn in Odebolt. The Dickerson Company, of Minneapolis, are exclusively engaged in this line of business, except that they usually carry a side-line of general garden and field seeds. Then there is the "Cracker-jack" and the "Checker-package" people, who come to Odebolt to purchase their supply of popcorn. At Arthur, near here, these companies recently erected popcorn elevators of their own. So great a demand is there for good corn that competition is sharp among the dealers at Odebolt, and therefore the farmer who raises it gets best pos- sible prices. Not only do these firms secure the crop grown here, but also much from Nebraska, South Dakota and even up in Minnesota.
A use recently discovered for popcorn is that of making soft chocolate candies. It is used as a flour, which, as a mixture in this class of candy. causes it to stand up as no other ingredient will make it. Before ground. the corn is nicely popped. Candy firms are now buying this in carload lots. For this, and other reasons, the popcorn trade is annually increasing with immense possibilities for the near future.
Farmers have made good money at raising popcorn. One man, a few years ago, in this section, cleared ninety dollars an acre on a forty-acre tract. One industrious young man leased a farm of one hundred and sixty acres, agreeing to pay one thousand eight hundred dollars rental in cash. He com- menced without tool or teams, bought all on time, and the first year planted forty-five acres of popcorn; the second increased his field to sixty-five acres, making a total of three thousand five hundred dollars in the two years.
CEDAR TOWNSHIP AND LYTTON.
By C. Everett Lytton.
This township is situated on the east line of the county and on the second tier of townships from the north and is one of the best portions of the county.
The first settlement made in the township was about the year 1859, when a party, not known to the writer, settled on the southeast quarter of section 20 and built a cabin, broke out a few acres of sod and afterwards abandoned
228
SAC COUNTY, IOWA.
the place as no good and in 1862, when the writer came to the county, the house had been about all carried away by settlers and the land had grown up to weeds. The next settlement was in 1866, when J. O. Tuffs and the writer moved onto section 16 and built a log cabin on the south side of the little grove that stood on the Cedar in the northeast corner of the section. After living there one winter and deciding that the bleak prairie was not the spot most desirable, the place was abandoned, thus leaving the township uninhabited again. In the fall of 1868 Oscar Whitney, an early resident of Sac City and one of the pioneer stage drivers, moved onto the west half of the southeast quarter of section 30 and became the first permanent white settler of the township. During the next year or two Henry Jones settled on the north half of section 31, across the road from the Whitney home. Soon after this settlers commenced to flock to this part of Iowa and in a short time the Blanks, Stadlmans. Arndts, Herrolds, and Youngs and others took up land and soon settlers could be seen on nearly every section in the township.
Cedar township bears the distinction of being the scene of the last battle between the Sioux and Sac and Fox Indians. The fight commenced near where the Cedar empties into the Coon and continued up the stream, the Sioux steadily retreating until they got near where R. M. Long and Joseph Young now reside, when they "took to the woods" and left the Sac and Fox the victors. This was the last time these tribes ever joined issues. The township also bears the distinction of having the first white-man murder ever committed in the county. During the fall of 1858 a man who had been murdered was found on what is now the R. M. Long farm on the west side of the Cedar, and the body left for the wolves and coyotes to devour. The parties finding the body buried it where found and a few days afterwards parties going past the place found the body had been dug up, the teeth all knocked out, the face disfigured and again left for the wild beasts to destroy all clues to the murder. It was never known who the victim was nor who committed the deed.
In an early day a town named New Munich was laid out on the west line of the township, on the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of section 19, but as no houses were ever built in the town, the site was turned back to farm land.
Lytton, a hustling little town of about two hundred and fifty inhabitants. electrically lighted, is the only town in the township. When the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad built their Storm Lake line from Rockwell City, the road passed through the township from east to west on the center of
229
SAC COUNTY, IOWA.
the third tier ot sections from the south. The town was platted on the P. B. Trumbauer farm on section 24 and has been a thriving little berg since first started. Gust Holm, F. H. Hollway and James Webb were the first men to enter business in the town. The business of the town is now composed of a bank, with twenty-five thousand dollars capital, three general stores, two hard- ware stores, drug store, furniture store, meat market, two lumber yards, two grain elevators, two agricultural machinery dealers, printing office, two res- taurants, hotel, barber shop, pool hall, creamery, blacksmith shop, moving pic- ture show. The Presbyterians have a church building and manse and the Odd Fellows are represented by a subordinate and Rebekah lodge.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.