The Establishment of the Town of Marne

The origin of the actual town of Marne preceded the 1875 platting by the Marne Town Company by approximately seven years. The area lying south and east of Camp Creek had its beginning in 1867 as a temporary construction camp for workers employed in building the railroad. When the railroad was completed in 1869, only a small trading post remained, but additional settlers were soon attracted primarily due to the existence of the railroad and a number of business establishments were in existence by 1870 including a grocery for staple goods, wagon shop, blacksmith shop and carpenter shop and perhaps others. Thomas Meredith, who had arrived in 1854 and purchased several hundred acres of land, was the principal landowner in Brighton Township and in fact sold to the Marne Town Company 160 acres of land where the new town of Marne was to be platted north of the railroad. The town of Marne was platted by the Marne Town Company and the plat was filed for record at the Cass County Court House in Atlantic on May 17, 1875. The Marne Town Company was an investors' corporation and included five citizens of the city of Davenport, Scott County, Iowa. These men were Henry Buch, Emil Geisler, Christian Hanneman, Adolph Langefeldt, and Paul Weise, the first mayor of Marne. These men were all originally from Northern Germany and the province of Schleswig-Holstein in particular, which contained a mixed Danish-German population. After emigrating to the United States, these men settled in the large German community at Davenport. The five investors decided to buy land and establish a town, then sell off the lots in the town at a good profit. The name of the town would be Marne, honoring the city of Marne in the western part of Holstein province in their native Germany. Thus the Marne Town Company was formed. It was no doubt felt that the increased Danish and German immigration to the western United Stated in the mid-1870's would be attracted by the name of the Danish-German city of Marne on the maps of Southwest Iowa and that the name would be magnet to the new arrivals. Indeed, their hopes were well-founded, since a fair portion of the early townspeople of Marne, Iowa were of either German or Danish extraction; many of them were from the province of Schleswig-Holstein itself. The proprietors of the Marne Town Company purchased 160 acres from Thomas Meredith where the new town was to be located. This tract of land was all situated within Section 21 of Brighton Township and included land on both sides of the main line of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, but the original town of Marne was platted on the north side of the railroad tracks. The streets leading north from the railroad were named Madison, Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and Franklin, with Madison on the east town boundary and Franklin on the west side of town. The east-west streets included Main Street, which was aligned with the railroad right-of-way, and the streets north of Main, which were numbered Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth Streets. One of the first lots to be sold in Marne was on the northwest corner of Main and Washington Streets, overlooking the Rock Island tracks. This land was purchased by Hans Simonsen, a native of Schleswig-Holstein who removed to Marne after spending his first ten years in America as a farmer in the vicinity of Davenport, Iowa. Lots were quickly purchased along Washington Street for retail business locations and along the railroad south of Main Street for warehouse and shipping facilities. The earliest residences were built in the northern and western parts of Marne so as to be placed at a distance from the business district and the noise, dirt and sparks of the steam locomotives at the depot. There was never anything resembling a "land rush" at Marne, but the town did develop rapidly. The areas to the north and south of the town were being settled and developed as new farms and marne was the nearest town with access to a railroad. Marne soon became an important grain and cattle-shipping center with a large business district for a town its size. Farmers from the outlying districts would come to Marne to sell cattle, hogs, or grain and to purchase supplies for the farm and the needs of the family. With the development of the Town of Marne and the growth experienced within the short time since its establishment, Thomas Meredith filed a plat for an addition to the south side of Marne on May 24, 1876. This addition is known as the South Hill, and includes Lincoln Street (now realigned as Highway 83) and what is now known as Taft Street on the summit of the hill; both of these streets run east-west. Washington Street continues south of the original town and ends on Taft Street. The next street east of Washington and running between Taft and Lincoln Streets is known as Brighton Street. In the early years considerable rivalry existed between the citizens of the original town and Meredith's Addition. The Marne Town Company platted an addition to the east side of Marne north of the railroad in September, 1877, Second, Third and Fifth Streets were to be extended one block east of Madison where they were to connect with Hayes Street, which was to exist between Fifth Street on the north and Main Street on the south. However, economic troubles of the times and teh consequent slowness in selling lots in the new addition caused the Marne Town Company to vacate and abandon Hayes Street in August, 1881. This was the last attempt to expand the Town of Marne. Marne was governed under the auspices of the Marne Town Company until the early 1890's. The Company still held title to some parcels of land in the town, but it is not clear at this point how the Company governed Marne or whether the Company's administration was confined to supervisory powers. It was discovered that the town of Marne would have to be reincorporated as a town in accordance with the law of the State of Iowa in order for a properly ordained town government to have the powers to administer justice, levy taxes, sell revenue bonds, and set up town ordinances. The existing town government could do none of these, since it did not have the legal authority. Ed Wheeler and Martin Peterson conducted the required census of Marne on April 5, 1892. Ed Wheeler counted 264 citizens living north of the railroad tracks and Martin Peterson numbered 117 persons living south of the tracks, making a total of 381 inhabitants in the town. A petition of the court was approved, and an election was held at the Green Bay Lumber Company's office on the southeast corner of Main and Washington Streets. 63 votes were cast in the election - 45 for incorporation and 18 against. The act of incorporation and the election results were published in the Atlantic Weekly Telegraph on June 1, 1892, and the present government of the town of Marne was established. During microfilming operations at the Cass County courthouse in 1973, the original ballots of the 1892 election were found. Some ballots cast during the election had been disqualified because of rather colorful remarks placed on them by the voters.

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Transcribed from "The First Century, A History of Marne, Iowa 1875 - 1975", published in 1975, Marne, Iowa: The Marne Centennial Historical Committee, pp. 10-12. Transcribed (2015) by Cheryl Siebrass and contributed September, 2019.