USA > Iowa > Story County > History of Story County, Iowa; a record of organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 53
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for treasurer, H. E. Hadley of Nevada, for county attorney, and Ira J. Scott of Ames, for county superintendent, all over a field of opposing candidates. In respect to the office of sheriff, the provision of the law requiring the leading candidate to have at least 35 per cent. of the whole number of votes cast in order to be nominated, became effective, War- rick having a plurality, but lacking a little of the required per cent. This nomination therefore, went to the convention in which, after some ballot- ing, Warrick was nominated. In 1910, Dunahugh in the anditor's office gave way to his deputy, C. A. Batman, who was duly nominated ; but Soper in the clerk's office and Tesdall in the recorder's office challenged the third term rule and although the opposition was vigorous, both were renominated and later elected. Also, the candidates first nominated in 1908 were duly renominated and elected.
In all these years the county primaries have commanded, uniformly, the attention of the great body of Republican voters in the county, the attendance at the Republican primary, in fact, being ordinarily, perhaps a thousand larger than the Republican vote in the general election; so great a discrepancy is to be accounted for rather by lack of interest in the election than by the participation in the Republican primary of members of the opposition parties, it being a recognized fact that the membership of the opposition parties has not been especially numerous in the county.
In judicial matters, there have been some fights. In 1901, Judge Weaver having been nominated for supreme judge, a convention was held at Boone to name his successor. Story County presented E. H. Addi- son, and Judge Evans was also a candidate, but the nomination was finally captured by some peculiar convention methods by J. H. Richard of Web- ster City. At this time, the three judgeships of the Eleventh Judicial Dis- trict were held by the three counties of the district which were in the Tenth Congressional District. Richard being from Hamilton County ; Whitaker from Boone County, and Kenyon, who had succeeded Birdsall upon the latter's resignation on account of failing health, from Webster County. In 1902, Kenyon declined a renomination, and there were several candidates for his place. Story County again presented Addison, but Judge Evans was nominated, and Whitaker and Richard were also re- nominated. After this convention, Judge Kenyon resigned, and Mr. Evans declined the temporary appointment. A six months' term in the judgeship was therefore open, for which Governor Cummins appointed Mr. G. W. Dyer of Nevada, who had twice been presented by Story County for judicial honors, in 1894 and 1898. and this appointment was regarded as a worthy recognition. In 1906, Judges Evans, Whitaker and Richard were all candidates for renomination, and the renomination of Judge Evans was generaly conceded, but there was definite opposition to both Whitaker and Richard; and the judicial convention at Iowa Falls was one of unusual interest. Its presiding officer was W. J. Moir of Eldora,
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a veteran politician of the Fifties and Sixties, who had been the presiding officer of the famous congressional convention at Webster City in 1882. After the nomination of Judge Evans by acclamation, the convention set- tled down to balloting for the other judgeships, the candidates, besides the retiring judges, being Lee of Story, Wright of Webster and Williams of Hardin. The balloting continued all the afternoon without result; but. in the end, Webster County, which had sought to nominate its candidate in place of Richard but to hold Whitaker on the bench, was compelled to abandon this alliance with Boone and accept one with Story. This alliance being affected, Judge Wright was nominated on the first ballot after supper. and Judge Lee, of Ames, was nominated on the next ballot. In 1908. the death of Judge Bishop occasioned a vacancy on the supreme bench. to which a Republican State convention, especially called, nominated Judge Evans, thus occasioning a vacancy on the district bench. The nomination for this vacancy was made in a special convention and the balloting resulted. after a time, in the nomination of C. A. Albrook of Eldora. The district bench is thus constituted of Lee, Wright and Albrook. being generally re- garded as quite as satisfactory, taken as a whole, as any that has ever presided in the county, and the whole bench was unanimously renomi- nated and reelected in 1910.
CHAPTER XLVII.
CONCLUSION.
No one will understand better than does the author the imperfections of the foregoing recital of incidents and events in the History of Story County. The work was begun with a feeling that it would take about all the stuff on the subject he could find to fill a book ; it is concluded, or rather suspended, with a recognition that there are almost limitless mat- ters pertaining to the general subject, which the author has found it im- practicable to enlarge upon; and doubtless there will be a thought that some one of them have been ignored. In preparing the matter the author has been governed by no strict rule; but as a general practice he has endeavored to note those matters which might be of interest to the county as a whole, rather than to search out in detail matters which would be of especial interest to parts of the county but which have not particularly concerned the county as a unit. In this respect, however, the finished, or abandoned, work is farthest of any from the original intention. It was in the beginning designed to go more particularly than now appears into the history of the towns and townships of the county ; but the material for such narration has proved to be beyond our reach. Some information we have gathered from some spots; but the requests that we have made for local assistance have been productive of very meager results, and the failures thus experienced have discouraged the making of other requests. Hence it has proved to be really necessary to make the review general as to the various localities of the county and to confine attention, perhaps unduly, to the classes of subjects that are enlarged upon.
The writer began the work with a genuine admiration for the people who founded Story County and who in the intervening years have made the county what it now is, and he drops the work with this admiration greatly increased. If he shall have been able to convey to the reader some of the sentiment thus indicated, he will have succeeded in what has been the guiding purpose of the work. Without going too far, and too labori- ously into the details, it has been sought by narration, incident and illus- tration to indicate the steps by which the county has been built, and to account for the present conditions, so far as the writer is able to do so, and with this accounting to give the credit where the credit most appears to be due.
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This much we can say conscientiously for the history: it is a Story County work, and it is about the people who have lived in the county, have been a part of the county and have helped to make the county what the county is. Wherein we believe it has failed the worst is that it has not comprehended more of these people and told more about them; but there is a biographical supplement to this history, prepared under the direction of the publishers, and while the author of this volume has no authority or responsibility with respect to such supplement he has never- theless not felt called upon save in exceptional cases to duplicate the matter which is the especial province of that portion of the entire work. But so far as we have been able to go, we have tried to stick to the text. What we regret most about it is that we have not been able to go further.
A few matters in particular that have been very slightly, if at all, en- larged upon have been churches, newspapers, banks, public schools, secret orders and highways. Some of these subjects were referred to, more or less, in the pioneer chapters, but as the work progressed the particular places for telling about them did not appear ; and several of these subjects are large enough to afford the basis of a separate work. . As to all of these matters collectively, however, it should be said that they are features of an enlightened community as the same is understood in the United States and they are all of them distinctly features of Story County.
As to churches, the Ames papers have recently been discussing with some spirit the question whether the nine churches with which that city is endowed are all really needed or whether the interests of churches and city alike would be promoted by some consolidations. Nevada has seven churches in regular operation and has not yet raised that question. None of the outside towns, we think, have quite so many churches, but in every one of them the church interests are amply represented in proportion to the size of the town, while scattered through the county are quite a number of strictly rural churches. In the county as a whole the Methodist de- nomination is probably strongest and it certainly has at Ames the largest and finest church in the county. In the Norwegian settlements the Luth- eran church largely predominates, and its dominance is so strong that it is found divided into several distinct denominational organizations, the differences between which are not a matter for present analysis. The Evan- gelical church is strong in the eastern side of the county and the United Brethren are a force at Ames. Catholics are found chiefly through the central part of the county, as are members of the Church of Christ. There are Presbyterians at Nevada and Congregationalists at Ames. The Ser- enth Day Adventists are now very strong in and about Nevada. Friends and Cumberland Presbyterians are found in several places. All over the county there is fair opportunity for choice of religious affiliations and a creditable representation of church interest and zeal. The growth of the churches has been gradual and persistent. When the denomination in any place has spurred itself up to build a new church, the other denomi-
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nations have helped; and probably it would be impossible to find in the county-certainly so in the larger towns-a church edifice that is not a monument to the liberality and interest of the community as a whole. In the building of these edifices there has been a creditable but not excessive rivalry ; and the churches as a rule are in good financial condition and their pastors well supported.
It would probably be easier to run down the particular history of the newspapers of the county than of any other of the neglected subjects. But the earliest newspapers have been mentioned and the later ones have been largely merged in the general business activities of their communities. The conditions before mentioned which have favored the development of the smaller towns of the county have favored the establishment of local newspapers in such towns. So that every one of these towns that is to be fairly regarded as a township center has at least one newspaper. The oldest and undoubtedly the most successful of these local papers is the Maxwell Tribune, while the Visergutten, published at Story City in the Norwegian language, has a very large circulation among the readers of that language. In Ames, the Intelligencer, which was the first paper there to make a livelihood, is continued under the present management of F. R. Conaway, but has a rival in the Times, which was established there twenty years ago by Lon G. Hardin. In Nevada, the Representative, which as the Advocate was the original paper in the county, has for nearly thirty years been published by W. P. and W. O. Payne. The Watchman. which was established in the early 'zos, as the political opposition paper, survived but a short time the death of its editor V. A. Ballou in 1906. But the Journal, which was founded in 1895, by the Benjamin Bros., has in recent years been a notable success. Because of the number of out- side papers the county has more than the average number of papers. But it would probably be an accepted statement that their quality is not on this account below standard but is in fact correspondingly high.
The banks of the county began as private institutions, which in the middle 'zos were conducted by Otis Briggs and O. B. Dutton at Nevada and W. D. Lucas at Ames. By succession the Dutton bank at Nevada has become the First National. while J. G. Dutton, a son of O. B., has become president of the Farmers' Bank, which is the successor of the Briggs Bank. The Lucas Bank at Ames has become the Union National of W. MI. Greeley, while Parley Sheldon heads a very large private bank. The People's Savings at Nevada and the Ames Savings at Ames are respec- tively the third banking institution in each town and both of them strong. Out through the county, substantially every town has one or two banks, generally two and sometimes three. Altogether there are 28 banks in the county with about $900.000 banking capital and close to $4,000,000 de- posits.
The public school system of the county began with the first settle- ments in the county and it spread gradually over the county as the county
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was settled up, until with very few irregularities due to the course of streams and the location of towns, it comprised one school for each four square miles of territory. This number is, however, to be considered as the maximum, for the later tendency is toward a consolidation through the elimination of the smallest schools and the transportation of pupils where necessary to some of the larger and graded schools. The most striking illustration of this tendency has been at Fernald in Richland Township, where four rural schools have been consolidated into one graded school. While Grant Township is setting the example for the whole state of substituting three groups of graded schools-three to the group-for its aggregation of nine ungraded schools. The towns virtually all have high schools with annual graduations, and the whole school system of the county may be regarded as fairly up-to-date and progressive.
The secret orders of the county began with the founding of the Masonic Lodge in Nevada in 1856 and the founding of the Odd Fellows' Lodge at Nevada in 1857. These lodges have uniformly prospered and as other towns grew up kindred lodges have been established in them. In 1882 the first lodge of the Knights of Pythias was established at Nevada, which lodge has also prospered and has been succeeded by other lodges of the same order in several other towns of the county. These three being the strongest of the fraternal orders of the country, their local standing is about as would be expected. Of the insurance orders the first was the Ancient Order of United Workmen, which was founded in the middle '70s and was quite successful for about ten years, after which it declined. It was the first of the assessment insurance concerns to acquire consider- able growth, but it failed to grade its assessments according to age, and after a time, the young fellows found that they were carrying the burden for the old men. Later the Modern Woodmen of America came into vogue with a graded scale of assessments, and when this scale proved to be too low it had the fortitude to raise the same. Under this policy the order has distinctly prospered and is far stronger than any other similar organ- ization. The order of Red Men is a younger fraternal and insurance or- ganization that has pitched its wigwams in the county and has made con- siderable progress. The Masons. Odd Fellows. Woodmen and Red Men all have their associated feminine organizations, to wit: The Eastern Star. Rebekahs. Royal Neighbors and Daughters of Pocahontas. But the Knights of Pythias have so far failed to introduce their Pythian Sisters. An independently feminine organization, however, is the P. E. O. Sister- hood, which is the only order of that class to gain considerable standing in the country, and which has one of its earliest chapters at Nevada and also one at Ames, both of them strong and highly representative organiza- tions. Women's clubs abound, also, both in town and country.
An order which stands in a class by itself is the Grand Army of the Republic, the first post of which in the county was established at Nevada in 1884. This organization spread rapidly throughout the county until it
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had practically exhausted the number of those who by reason of their service in the war of the Rebellion were eligible to its membership. In later years this organization, having no source from which to recruit, has been declining in numbers through the course of nature. But it gains in honor as it loses in strength. The affiliated organization of the Woman's Relief Corps has been habitually strong and active and, not being similarly restricted in the matter of new members, it continues in full vigor. Other patriotic orders are the Sons of Veterans and the Veterans of the Spanish War, both of which are represented in the county.
As to roads, the first of them in the county were trails and next of consequence were the old state roads which followed the most convenient route from one pioneer town to another. As the country settled the roads were crowded by stretches onto the section lines, but angled at con- venience across the intervening pieces of prairie. But in time these pieces were fenced also and then came in increasing measure the need for sys- tematic road improvement. It would hardly be true to say, however, that the improvement followed immediately upon the need. But gradually the money and labor that have been expended by county and townships have told in their results. Concrete culverts have replaced wood upon most of the roads, while iron bridges span most of the larger streams. Grading and graveling and ditching have all been resorted to and in later years the King drag has had a marked effect on the smoothing of the highways. The age of concrete pavement has not yet come but it is to some degree imagined and by its very suggestion is indicative of the in- creased disposition to spend money for good roads; while it is a fact that through a great part of the year Story County now has good roads. The time when people stayed at home or away from town because the roads were impassable is practically forgotten, and the troubles that are now experienced in the spring are trifles in comparison with the conditions in the olden time.
But this story must stop somewhere. Story is a great county in the very center of a great state. Conditions that retarded its earliest develop- men have been found to promote its ultimate prosperity. It is a county which represents the best of American standards in thrift, education, politics, industry, transportation, charity, good fellowship and all else that goes to make up the ideal of American existence. It is a good thing to live in such a county. It is a privilege to set down something of its story. To the advisory committee and to all the many others who have helped in one way or another to get this story together we herewith return most grateful acknowledgments !
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