History of Cherokee County |
History of Cherokee County |
| The
village of Cherokee, the county seat, is located at the intersection of
the Little Sioux River by the Illinois Central Railroad. The railroad
having made a circuitous descent to the river, approaches the town from
the south, winds about the base of an easy bluff, then suddenly tacks
to the west, making a rapid ascent along the course of a streamlet
until the high prairie is gained, almost six miles distant. The site of
the village is considered very beautiful, and not a little romantic for
a prairie town. Gentle bluffs circle it on three sides, the valley
widening out into a series of benches, affording very beautiful
locations for residences, while the "bottom" is sufficiently extensive
to accomodate the business of a large city. The railroad reached Cherokee in January, 1870, from the west, and remained the terminus up to June of that year. Token Lots were not thrown into market until November following, from which time the age of the town should properly be dated. Its growth has been rapid, and the immense business in every department of trade carried on in the place would seem incredulous if told. That from a mere handful of settlers in 1868, the growth of the county had been so rapid that four great elevators, with a capacity of 95,000 bushels of wheat, one operated by steam, should be daily thronged and required to handle its wheat product, would seem too much for eastern credulity, and yet it is literally so. From the raw, unbroken prairie of 1870, Cherokee village is today a place of 1,200 inhabitants, with many handsome brick and frame business houses, numerous beautiful residences, several interesting and valuable manufactories, with graded streets, and a good system of sidewalks; with a slightly and valuable public school house, employing five teachers, attending by over 800 children; with commodious hotels, and many places of amusements; with great houses of merchandise and busy thoroughfares; with six churches, presided over by as many good shepherds; with a city government, a mayor, a council and recorder; with several civic organizations and a number of social societies; with two newspapers and a public library; with an array of attorneys and physicians. This rapid progress is not spasmodic, it is genuine and natural, permanent and substantial, a mere prelude to the great future that awaits this young city, which inside of a few years, will probably contain a population of five thousand inhabitants. During the present year no liquor was allowed to be sold in the village. There is scarcely a branch of business represented in any moderately sized city that has not an interest here. Main street is a business thoroughfare that usually presents a picture of intensified western go-ahead-itiveness and as a general thing the merchants handle as many goods exchange as much money, and have as much trade as a corresponding area in the metropolis of large cities. The past year has been one of general depression through out the West, and yet, the progress of this "city", as it is generally called, indicates a healthy growth. The city improvement cannot fall short of $45,000, the principal of which are James Archer's beautiful residence, value $4,000; Hixson & Fisher, sash and door factory and feed mill $5,000; the Cherokee Times office, $2,500; Eugene Cowles' residence, $1,500; Dr. Sherman's residence, $1,800; Dr. Cleaves' tenement house, $1,200; P.N. Brown, a residence, $1,000; T. H. Steele, residence, $2,000; G. W. Young, improvements, $1,000. These are a few of the principal that occur to the mind of the writer, while the aggregate will not fall short of $45,000; and this in the face of such a great financial oppression as has overtaken the entire country, and especially the East, is remarkable. In this young Hercules among the cities there are eight dry goods stores, two clothing stores, two merchant tailoring establishments, eight boot and shoe stores, ten grocery stores, two exclusively hardware stores, three restaurants, three banking houses, two drug stores, two printing offices, two jewelry stores, three harness shops, five blacksmith shops, six churches, four lumber yards, three agricultural firms, five coal yards, four hotels, five land agencies, four millinery establishments, two leather shops, two meat markets, three livery stables, two furniture stores, one wagon shop, one paint shop, one photograph gallery, one door and sash manufactory, one feed mill, one brick yard. The professions are represented by nine practicing attorneys and six physicians, the business cards of which will be found in this paper. The lumber business is very extensive, the firms handling about a million of feet annually. The price of lumber ranges from $15 to $45 per thousand. The oldest yard is that of James Archer, established in 1870; the most extensive that of Hixon & Fisher; J. P. Dickey & Co. have a large stock, and Robertson & Patton, the most recent firm, are also doing well. Everything in the way of building supplies from a tiny molding to the heaviest timber can be obtained at these yards. The manufacture of brick is carried on extensively and the quality is reported as the best in the State of Iowa. The yard of Mr. C. A. Dow is operated by a steam press, and during 1877 three kilns of 300,000 each were burned and sold. These are sold in quantities at $8.00 per 1,000 and as facilities increase to supply the demand, may be had for less. In a few years Cherokee County will have more brick buildings than any county in Iowa, the likelihood being that brick will supplant frame buildings. Hixon & Fisher's planing mill and sash factory is a creditable institution. Instead of doors, windows, sash and molding being shipped here as formerly they are now articles of expert. The mill has the most approved machinery, and is turning out work equal to the largest manufactories in the country. Grocers - The leading grocery houses are A. B. Ross, O.C. Ford, L. Ballard, H. Kennedy and Pelton & Smith. Dry Goods - H. D. Walrath, Allison Bros., H. Kennedy, G. A. Johnson. Clothing - Wm. Jones, E. S. Block. Hardware - C. H. Kellog, Cornish & Millard Hotels - The Washington House and Greer House. Bankers - Scribner & Burroughs, T. S. Steele & Son, C. Goldsbury Agricultural Machinery - C. A. Dow, R. Hall & Son, Wm. Whipple. The sales of farm machinery are usually very extensive, some seasons aggregating $150,000. Jewelry Stores - G. S. Brown, D. C. Bothwell Land Agencies - Corbet & Whitmore, Scribner & Burroughs, James Henderson, and O'Donnell & McNeal. The land agency of Scribner & Burroughs does a large business. This firm owns about 8,000 acres of its own, and has the title of agency of thousands of acres in this and adjoining counties; they sell on good terms. Their agency is located in the handsomest structure of the city and they have a considerable allotment of titles to all the lands in the county. The agency of Corbett & Whitmore has the sale of the railroad lands which give it a very wide range of choice. The land company sells on three or four year terms; for cash they give ten per cent discount. G & W have also a large list of other kinds which they sell on easy terms. This old and tried firm can be relied upon. James Henderson's agency offers a very fine selection of land on favorable terms. Mr. Henderson was County treasurer for four years, and knows the county thoroughly. He is a painstaking gentleman, and perfectly reliable. Any business entrusted to him will be attended to. O'Donnell & McNeal have a large list, and offer for sale on as good terms as any other agency. They desire correspondence and will attend to all orders faithfully and well. These firms are all excellent gentlemen, and no stranger need have any fear to entrust their business to them, nor should doubt their representations. The following firms can also be recommended as correspondents, though not directly real estate agents, T. S. Steele & Co., C. Goldsbury and Wm. McKay. The churches are Congregational, Presbyterian, Catholic, Baptist, Methodist and Advent. The Episcopalians have a house in process of construction. The civic societies are Masons, Odd-Fellows and Good Templars. The city has a splendid brass band and a more than usually well drilled dramatic club. There is a strong passion among the citizens for cultivated music, and to the number of inhabitants, the number of pianos and organs is unusually large. The corporation is not a dollar in debt, but had at the last settlement $800 in cash in the treasury. The village is also an independent school district, employees five teachers, and pays $2,400 for salaries. The school is in a prosperous condition and the citizens are justly proud of it. |
| The
village of Aurelia is located nine miles east of the Sioux River, near
a branch of the Maple, occupying a cheery site in the Maple Valley.
The population of the adjoining township is more dense than
elsewhere in the county. The farms are in a high state of cultivation
and the face of the county wears the aspect of an old settlement, as
compared with the west side of the county. The cause of this part of
the county settling before the west is due to the fact that the
townships of Pitcher and Afton had a great deal of land taken under the
homestead law while the west part around Marcus was held almost solely
by the railway company and by speculators. The homesteads being
settled on naturally facilitated the sale of the railroad land
adjoining, and thus these townships have become largely absorbed. Aurelia is a lively, bustling little town. It has this fiscal year whipped about 200 cars of wheat, and very considerable consignments of live stock. The crops of the Maple Valley were luxuriant in 1877, the corn yield being altogether unprecedented. There trade hs been very lively and business received an impulse that will make 1877 a memorable year in the history of the village. The population will aggregate about 200, composed very largely of the business class. Aurelia is noted for her elevators, having three very substantial and commodious ones. R. R> Whitney, the pioneer of the place, has an elevator that can store away 18,000 bushels. The Miller Brothers have the first elevator built in the village, and Alex Frazer has a neat little gem of a building run by improved machinery. The lumber business is represented by two yards, the pioneer one being that of the Miller Bros. and the other of T. W. D. Orswell, both well supplied. It contains a number of fine business houses; dry goods. grocery clothing, hardware, boots and shoes, shoe making shops, harness shops. The postmaster J. W. Miller, has a large, well furnished store. Mr. Enright has a large stock of drugs, Mr. Hinkle represents the clothing business; Mr. Orswell carries on an extensive building establishment; Harker & Wharton have a well selected stock of goods; the Marsh House is a popular resort for travelers and Ruden & Kenyon have facilities for adjusting the human barometer. The town has a harness shop, shoe shop, livery stable, blacksmith shop and other business places. The health of the town is in charge of Dr. Quirk, and is in good hands. The people are enterprising, intelligent and refined. The lumber and coal trace is heavy; of the latter the Miller Bros. have a large share. It has a good school house and three church organizations, viz: Dunkard, Methodist and Lutheran. |
| Six
miles west from Cherokee is located the village of Hazard, in the midst
of a fertile plain. There are no large streams of water near the place,
but its lands are unsurpassed by any in the county. Adjoining the
village, the country is thickly settled and many of the farm buildings
substantial and even beautiful. Tall groves bedeck the face of
the level landscape, and silvery streams glistening in the sun, meander
through the grassy meadows. The village is not large, but is represented in the mercantile line by the firm of Prescott & Upton, who do an extensive business. The town met with a server loss this winter by the burning of the grain houses, one an elevator of 18,000 bushels capacity, owned by Mr. F. Prescott; the other a company warehouse. Both will doubtless be replaced in the coming season. Hazard has a good school house and two church organization, a shoe shop and blacksmith shop, the latter conducted by Mr. P Tobin. It has also a good hotel, Mr. McCowen (McCoun) the proprietor. Messrs Prescott & Pierce are engaged in shipping livestock, and N. C. Buswell does a large business in handling coal and building material. A well asserted lumber yard is run by Mr. F. Prescott. There are elements about the place that make premises of a prosperous town. It has a number of good business men; already it possesses a thrift and intelligent people so that Hazard has reason to look forward to becoming a place of importance. |
| The
village of Marcus, on the western limits of the county, is the second
most populous in Cherokee. It is located on a sightly eminence,
surrounded by gently sloping prairie on all sides. There are no bluffs
or broken lands within miles of it, the country around being an
uninterrupted unbroken meadow, with its face somewhat diversified by
swelling lines as if heaved from the bosom of a prairie ocean. Marcus
has made a remarkable growth with in the past two years. Then it had
but one store and its lumber yard, now it has 11 stores of various
kinds, 3 hotels, 2 lumber yards, 2 elevators, 2 blacksmith shops, 1
broom factory, 1 wagon shop, 1 harness shop, 1 coal yard, 2 land
agencies, a good school house, a public hall, a Masonic society, an
Odd-Fellows society, and three church organizations. For some time past, immigration has been pouring in at a lively pace and around the village. There is a large colony of Norwegians and Germans settled around it, hardworking, honest people who are fast transforming the beautiful prairie into pleasant, peaceful and happy homes. A few short years ago, Marcus seemed a mere spot in a boundless expanse of tenantless prairie; now houses can be counted all over the prairie as far as the eye can reach, and when one thinks of what the village was then compared to its well built streets of today, it seems almost a dream, and an impossible one at that. Many of the buildings are really good and substantial. The Wilmot Hotel would pass for a likely home for the traveler in any ordinary town, and is inside all that its appearance would indicate. The elevators of Mr. Gund and J. Clarkson are well built and commodious, the lumber yards of Jackson and Wilmot fully supplied, and the stores of Hyndman, Weaver & Sheldon, RIcker & Hiltgen, are well stocked and Commodious. Mr. Beck has a fine hardware store, and manufactures wagons, buggies, etc. The broom factory of Mr. Day is quite an institution, employs three hands, and turns out 150 dozen brooms per month. The Marcus broom has gained a reputation and is fast displacing all others in the neighboring markets. Dr. Failing has a splendid drug store and in addition administers to the temporal necessities of the indisposed. Mr. Clarkson runs a feed mill for the accommodation of the farmers, and I.M. Jackson supplies building materials at low rates. R. Wilmot hs the principal hotel, A.H. Zwight is postmaster, and B. H. Wilmot the conveyancer of the town. Mr. Hardy is notary pubic. Like all other western towns Marcus has a good school house. The place is sufficiently metropolitan to afford all the varieties of life, literary societies, glee clubs, revivals, dances and other amusements. It is in fact a gay, lively place, with a big body and a much bigger heart. The railway company does a good business at Marcus. The receipts for the past year being unusually large. The shipments of grain and stock is whet gives Marcus its value as a shipping point, and as the land around it is not one-fourth settled upon, the future o the place is certainly bright. Its location is fortunate for its future growth, occupying a central position between Le Mars and Cherokee, affording sufficient tributary territory to nurture and sustain a town of 2,000 inhabitants. During the past summer, several land viewing excursions, gotten up by the I.C.R.R., had Marcus for their terminal point, a great many saw the pretty town and the magnificent country around it, carrying back to Illinois pleasant remembrances of the smartest and prettiest village between Chicago and the Missouri River. |
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