USA > Iowa > Story County > History of Story County, Iowa: A Record of Settlement, Organization. > Part 47
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The school matter was also suggestive of a long step forward. As has already been shown, Nevada had established a regular organized high school, with a definite course of study, and was beginning to graduate classes. This was the first high school so organized in this part of the state, and the first graduation of a high school class in Nevada antedated the first graduation at Marshalltown, at Boone and we think at any other similar town about. The example of Nevada was, however, in this respect not left long without imitation. In due time, Ames organized its High school, and the smaller towns of the county, as they became better developed, did the same thing. This development of the high school was a matter of profound importance to the youth, not only of the towns but of the country as well. The high schools in the first instance, were town enterprises, but they were open to the attendance of boys and girls from the country, upon the payment of tuition; and the privileges thus afforded were eagerly seized. Boys and girls from the country joined with the boys and girls from the town in filling up the schools, pursuing the more advanced branches and qualifying themselves for entry into the colleges, to which many of them later went. In a very short time the contrast which might have been made with the conditions in the county ten years before, was very marked. At the earlier time, the
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college at Ames was about opening, and the classification of the students who first entered and who filled the college for the first few years, shows plainly that in this portion of the state, there were at that time practically no youth whose educational advancement had reached the standard which is now recognized as necessary for admission to college. The few who did go to college entered as preparatory students; and the average of the best public education that was to be had in towns of the class of Nevada or Ames, was at least two years short of what is now recognized and estab- lished as the standard for high school graduation. In communities where educational advantages had, therefore, up to this time, been so restricted, the inauguration of the high schools in the latter seventies and earlier eighties, marked a very material stage in educational development.
Another educational institution, which in these times became recognized as of considerable value and importance, was the Normal Institute. Prior to the latter seventies, it had been the fashion to hold annually or semi- annually, Teachers' Conventions, at which the more active teachers of the county assembled and organized somewhat upon a town meeting basis. But along about the period now under consideration, the Normal Institute became a school of a few weeks' duration, in the summer, devoted largely to the review of those branches in which the teachers of the country school had greatest need of proficiency; and the opportunity which they afforded to graduates of the town high schools and to others of somewhat similar attainment for becoming thoroughly grounded in the rudimentary studies, was improved by probably the large majority, at one time or another, of the more ambitious youth of the county. Supplementing the high school, together perhaps with some practical experience in teaching country schools, the normals gave the finishing touches to the schooling of great numbers of capable young men and women, and were the source of corresponding profit to those to whom favorable fortune gave the chance to go on to col- lege. This institution probably reached its maximum of popularity and usefulness during the ten year administration of Ole O. Roe as county superintendent from 1881 to 1891, he being possessed of especial talent for its successful management.
The Agricultural College at this time was also gradually gaining in use- fulness and prestige. Its standard for admission was about that which it was possible to reach in the country schools and schools of the towns that had not yet organized high schools; but the students whom it attracted were likely to be of greater years and experience than is the case with the aver- age youth who now enters college, and the general work of the institution, therefore, probably did not differ so very greatly from what that work is today, save of course, that in the intervening years the scope of the institu- tion and its opportunities for choosing between various courses of study, have been very greatly enlarged. The time was years before the construc- tion of the Motor Line between Ames and the college, and still longer be- fore the construction of the cinder path over which the youth of the present
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time are wont to pass and save their nickles; so the relation between the college and the town of Ames was very much less intimate that it is now. The students very generally lived upon the campus, and their number was not so great but that the most of them could find accommodation in the dormitories provided. The old main building of the college was admirably suited to the uses of such an institution in the country, and the other homes and houses upon the campus, which, in increasing numbers, supplemented the main building as the years passed by, helped the institution to grow without in any wise impairing its unity or compactness. In these days all the public exercises of the college were held in the chapel on the main floor of the north wing of the main building; and the Nevada young people, who upon occasion found it pleasant to drive over to the college for a junior exhibition or similar exercises, discovered that the college chapel and the college audience fitted each other fairly well. At these college exercises, President Welch always presided with tactfulness and grace, and the gen- eral merit of the institution for the purpose of its founding was already well established.
In the matter of transportation, the event of this period, was the ex- tension of the Narrow Gauge north from Ames, the absorption of the whole Narrow Gauge Line by the North-Western, and the conversion of the Narrow Gauge road to one of standard gauge. The extension north from Ames was made about 1877, and in the summer of 1878 the line is remembered as terminating abruptly at a newly built village called Calla- nan. There was no apparent reason for ending the road at that point; but the road had been brought up across the prairie to a grove and work suspended and the village started. Some time later, when the road was standardized, and extended to Webster City and Eagle Grove, the railroad management laid out a new town near by, which new town was Jewell Junction and Callanan was laid away in the cemetery of prairie towns that the railroads have failed to support. It was in 1878 that the Northwestern bought the Narrow Gauge and the conversion of the line between Ames and Des Moines to standard gauge was made about as speedily as possible. It was at state fair time in this year that the writer made, over this line, his first and only trip to Des Moines and back. The accommodation of the state fair patronage, even though the patronage was but a tithe of the present state fair rush, taxed the facilities of the road to the utmost. All of the passenger equipment, and, we think, substantially all of the freight equipment, were devoted to the purpose; and the editorial recollection is clear that a seat on a plank in a box car was something that he was fortu- nate to get. Our clear recollections of the trip are that the line went through Polk City and up a rather steep grade on the South side, and that, on the return trip, there was much chorus singing, and that Ike Hawthorn led in the ditty, "Go Tell Aunt Rhoda." But it was only a few weeks after this that the standardizing of the Narrow Gauge began, and this incident may be set down as one of the matters of more or less humor to
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be related concerning the Narrow Gauge. The widening and reconstruc- tion of the road south of Ames and soon afterwards north of Ames and extension north, gave Story County its first railroad of consequence cross- ing the county north and south. Gilbert Station was added to the other towns that had been established in the county, and the general facilities for getting away from home and getting back were very greatly improved.
It was along about this time that the more prosperous of the farmers began to build a better class of farm residences. W. K. Wood had, a few years before, built his residence south of Iowa Center, which residence at the time of its erection, was undoubtedly the most pretentious farm home in the county. About 1878, Frank Curtiss, then one of the most pros- perous farmers of Milford township and representative of the county in the general assembly, built on his farm, what, we think, was the first brick residence upon a farm in the county; and a year or more later, his similarly prosperous neighbor, Turner McLain, built another brick residence and made it slightly larger than the Curtiss one. These two residences put Milford Township distinctly to the fore in the matter of farm residences. They also put Milford ahead of the towns so far as our recollection goes, and we are sure that it was later than this that Otis Briggs built the first pretentious brick residence in Nevada; although, we think, Oscar Alderman had, about the same time, converted the brick of the old school house into his house in town. The example of Milford, however, was followed only with much moderation. The farmers, as a rule, had about all they wanted to do to pay for their farms, improve their live stock and put up buildings of standard architecture.
LIVE STOCK.
It was about this time also that a very important change was intro- duced in the matter of raising live stock in the county. The Shorthorn cattle came to be talked about, and the drove of Shorthorns which Col. Scott had was a subject of considerable interest, and was looked upon as much of a novelty. The difference between the Shorthorns and the com- mon scrub cattle that had been in the county was important, and is abun- dantly understood now by everyone who has anything to do with live stock; but more important yet was the introduction of heavy draft horses. Prior to this time, Story County horses had as a rule, been small, as the size of horses is now understood; and interest in horses, where it was at all active, pertained to trotting stock. Around Nevada at that time, there were numerous horses of Hambletonian ancestry or qualities, and numerous of the townsmen in particular, and some farmers near town, were giving much of their time and attention to the development of speed in their colts. The subject gave bent to much of the local conversation, and the numerous race meetings, more or less formal, at the county fair grounds, were occasions of considerable excitement. The most speedy of this breed of horses was
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a mare that was named Trampoline, and the question as to how fast Trampoline could go, and whether she would develop so as to take the world's record from the Goldsmith Maid, was one of the most vivid with which the local public had to deal. She was a good mare; but it may be said, in passing, that she was also slightly dyspeptic and did not feed as well as she should in order to realize the hopes of her owners and the confident expectations of the local public. She was taken down east, where she made something of a record and was sold to advantage; but her fame was lost soon after her permanent removal.
While the race meetings were interesting and the hopes of Trampoline high, the local interest in fast horses was undoubtedly one of the real difficulties with which the local community had to deal and which it had to overcome before it could enter upon its ultimate prosperity. The re- moval of the difficulty began when a bunch of farmers in and about Mil- ford, joined together and imported the first French draft stallion. The importation proved to be profitable to the men who made the venture, while the idea also spread very rapidly that it would be a good thing for the county to breed a heavier grade of horses than was then to be found in the county. There soon arose, therefore, considerable emulation in the matter of such importations, and Black Normans, Gray Percherons, Bay Clydesdales and Bay English Shires were all brought in, and their merits were sharply contrasted and much discussed at the county fairs. The dis- cussion was not so lively nor the excitement so high as it had been when the sons and daughters of old "Tramp" used to come down the home stretch, nose to nose, as they approached the wire; but there was a lot more money in it for Story County, and some of the results are indicated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of fine draft horses that are shipped out of the county every year. In this matter of breeding draft horses, Story County seems to have been first in this part of the state almost as distinctly as it was in its bidding for the Agricultural Col- lege in pioneer days, or in its voting for the court house and establishing high schools later on. In all there was demonstrated a characteristic ability to appreciate really good things and to make them a part of the community.
COUNTY POLITICS.
It was in the period now under consideration that the editor of this commentary first became an observer of Republican County conventions. The first convention after we came to the county was that of 1876, but the boyish interest had not yet been sufficiently stimulated in politics. We are clear, however, that the main issue of the convention was the nomina- tion of a new county clerk. J. A. Fitchpatrick, who had been first nomi- nated for the vacancy in 1865 and had held the office without much difficulty against all opposition, for eleven years, had concluded voluntarily to retire. His deputy, in the last years of his service, had been Captain I. L. Smith,
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of Ames, and the latter became a candidate for the place, with the backing of the Ames contingent. The Nevada candidates were M. C. Allen and J. R. McDonald, who divided both the Nevada delegation and the Nevada influence, with the general result that, after some balloting, Smith was nominated, and thus was enabled to enter upon his ten years of very suc- cessful service in the clerk's office. Ole K. Hill was renominated, as a matter of course, for recorder, and S. I. Shearer was renominated for supervisor. There was no fight in this year over the congressional nomi- nation, and Judge Addison Oliver, of Onawa, received his second nomi- nation, without open or latent opposition. Judge Bradley was also renomi- nated for circuit judge, and it being presidential year, and county politics having pretty well settled down, and Iowa being that year the banner Re- publican state in the Union, the Republican ticket was elected without diffi- culty.
The convention of 1877 was a very good one for a person of political bent to begin on. It had some hard fighting and protracted balloting. The leading contest in the convention was over representative. Dan McCarthy was a candidate, with the West side support, and the Nevada factions, as usual, had divided their influence and the delegation, the candidates being T. C. McCall and T. J. Ross. Frank Curtiss was also a candidate, with the backing of Milford, Howard and Warren Townships. It was before the day of open roll call in the county convention, and the ballots were taken by the passing of the hat. It was not apparent, therefore, by the record, what delegations were supporting which candidate, but the number of votes cast by the larger delegations indicated the situation fairly ; and, after a time, Nevada got together on McCall, which was a good deal for Nevada to do in behalf of anybody, but this coalition was not effected soon enough, if it ever would have done any good, and, in time, the support of both the leaders was broken up. A strong movement was started in the convention for J. W. Maxwell, whose vote grew until it took first place ; but the movement towards Maxwell was met by a counter-movement towards Curtiss; and, as Curtiss had a bunch of nine votes to start with, he was thus able to land the nomination. Jay A. King for treasurer; John R. Hays for auditor, and J. F. Gillespie for sheriff, were renominated with- out opposition. The Ames crowd made what was really something of a score by nominating D. A. Bigelow for supervisor. Bigelow served for only one term; but he was a very capable officer and much devoted to the interests of his own locality. So he secured for the roads leading toward Ames, appropriations for improvements that were very important for the roads, and that were consequently of much value to Ames. The principal fight in this convention for a county office was that for county superin- tendent. C. H. Balliet had been nominated two years before and had ousted Jerry Franks from the superintendency ; but Franks had a genius for making trouble for his successor and his plan of operation was to beat Balliet in the Republican convention. This he succeeded in doing,
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there being before the convention quite a field of candidates for superin- tendent, and ultimately the nomination went to L. B. Baughman, who was teaching at Iowa Center, but had had relatives at or near Ontario. Baugh- man was not strongly identified with the county, but he proved to be strong enough to get the most of the Republican votes, and although Franks was enthusiastically nominated by the fusion opposition and made really the one fight that was made in the county in the ensuing election, Baughman was duly elected along with the rest of the ticket. In the course of this convention, while the balloting for representative was still in progress, but after the McCarthy vote had begun to disintegrate, Dan is remembered as traveling around through the rear part of the court room looking for his hat, and observing disconsolately but good naturedly that he was more interested in that hat than he was in the balloting.
In 1878, there were two county conventions and the biggest fight was in the first one, which was called to elect delegates to the state, congres- sional and judicial conventions. The issue was over the judicial delegation. There were contests in the Judicial District for both the nomination for judge and the nomination for district attorney. The former contest was of the more general interest; but Story County had concluded to go after the district attorneyship, in place of M. D. O'Connell, who was voluntarily retiring, and in the county there were three candidates for the local en- dorsement. These were John L. Stevens of Ames and S. F. Balliet and G. W. Dyer of Nevada. Balliet defeated Dyer for the Nevada delegation and the issue in the county was joined between him and Stevens. When the convention met it was apparent to the managers on both sides that the result would probably depend upon the delegation from Grant Town- ship, which was contested; and the contest was about as clear cut and sectional as any that ever occurred in a Republican convention in the county. Ames had the chairman of the county committee, who nominated an Ames man for chairman of the convention, and he appointed a commit- tee on credentials consisting of three men from the west side of the county. This committee reported in favor of the Stevens delegation from Grant Township; but the report was rejected, as was also a motion from the other side to seat the Balliet delegation. The facts of the case were that the caucus in Grant Township was called in a time of high water, when Skunk River and West Indian were both somewhat obstructing travel, and the people of neither side of the township were getting their papers. Also there appears to have been neglect of politicians on both sides about going into the township and stirring it up. The call for the caucus, however, was properly published; but when the time came, the only person at the caucus was the township chairman, G. W. Shugart, who elected himself and two other Balliet men as delegates. Later, the west side of the town- ship was stirred up by Ames politicians, and a caucus quite representative of that side of the township held, without notice, and a Stevens delegation elected. Ultimately, the convention seated both delegations and divided Vol. 1-27
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the vote between them; and a ballot, being taken, Stevens won the endorse- ment of the county by a majority of one. The result was accepted, how- ever, and Stevens authorized to name the delegation. He did this; and the delegation, which was representative of the whole county, went to the convention and secured his nomination, although not without a big fight. In this judicial convention, Judge Mckenzie of Hampton, was the nominee for district judge. He was a very able and prepossessing man and was much admired and esteemed, and he had been somewhat famous in the time of the Atlanta campaign, as being the signal officer, who, on behalf of General Sherman, signaled from one mountain across the valley to Gen. Corse, at Altoona, to "Hold the Fort for I am Coming." His service as judge, however, was brief; for he was not in rugged health, and he died after only about two years of service.
The later county convention of 1878, nominated Capt. Smith for his second term as clerk, by acclamation, and also nominated Ole K. Hill for his third term in the recordership, against opposition. A. M. Norris was nominated as supervisor, and he proved afterwards one of the forceful men on the board.
The congressional delegates, who were chosen at the earlier convention, went to Cherokee and supported Carpenter for congress. The other can- didates were Pendleton of Sioux City and Senator Russell, of Jefferson. O'Connell had also been a candidate for congress but had been beaten by Carpenter in Ft. Dodge, where they both lived. There was considerable finesse about this congressional convention. Owing to the prohibition bolt from Gov. Gear in the previous year, the governor's vote had been dis- regarded by the Republican state committee in apportioning delegates to this year's state convention, and the example of the state committee had been generally followed by county and local committees. The congres- sional committee, however, was controlled by the Sioux City faction, which figured that there were about half a dozen counties in the eastern part of the district which would lose about a delegate apiece if the vote for governor was taken as the basis of representation; so the committee called the congressional convention on this basis, and thereby planned to cut Carpenter out of just about so many votes. The counties affected, how- ever, of which Story was one, claimed their full delegations on the basis of the vote for Lieutenant Governor Campbell, and, by a close vote, their claims were recognized. The votes thus added to the Carpenter column were important; and, after protracted balloting, they carried him over the line. Carpenter had been register of the state land office in the latter sixties and in 1871 and 1873, had been elected governor; in 1878, upon the creation of the board of railroad commissioners, he had been named as one of the first board, and his candidacy for congress was well justified by his ability and experience. He served for two terms in congress, and his re- tirement by the Tenth District is a very interesting story, which will come up further on.
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The Republican convention of 1879 was one of the most hotly contested of any ever held in the county. There was a large field of candidates for nearly all offices and a compulsory line-up of the two sides of the county, it being impossible for leading candidates to get the united support .of their respective sections for themselves, without conceding the same support to candidates of less prestige for other offices in their same neighborhood; so Ames and Nevada went into the convention with nearly straight tickets, and the margins by which nominations were secured were very small. In Nevada, there were three candidates for sheriff, and it had been agreed among them or by their friends that the Nevada caucus should take a ballot for sheriff and that the delegation should be divided between them pro-rata, all fractions to go to the benefit of the candidate having the most votes; the result being that A. K. Banks went to the convention with four votes from Nevada; J. F. Gillespie with two and Z. Shugart with one, the whole delegation being committed to other Nevada candidates. In the convention, there were 59 delegates and Oley Nelson was chairman and made an eloquent speech. It took thirty votes to nominate; and for rep- resentative, W. D. Lucas of Ames got just 30 votes, McCall, as the Nevada candidate, being just a little short. Lucas, however, had traded too hard for this nomination, and he was unable to hold his seat as long as a man of his ability might have been expected to do. For auditor, J. R. Hays was nominated also by thirty votes; and one of the stories of this nomina- tion is that the Milford delegation was instructed to vote for no third term man, but that Hays placated this opposition by assuring them that it was not his third term but his fifth term that he was running for. King got his third nomination for treasurer by a little better margin ; but Banks, after the elimination of weaker candidates, had about four majority over W. H. Stevens of Grant. There was confusion also on the superintend- ency, but Baughman was renominated; and for supervisor, Anfin Ersland, in whose behalf the Union delegation had been diligently trading, was duly successful. So much struggle in the convention might easily have resulted in dissension at the polls; and perhaps a few years before such would have been the case, but at this time the politics of the county had settled down, and the ticket was all elected-Jerry Franks making his last run for super- intendent, but not making great impression.
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