NORTHWESTERN

 IOWA

ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS

1804-1926

CHAPTER VIII.

TRANSPORTATION BY LAND AND WATER.

SIOUX CITY AS A STEAMBOAT TOWN - SIOUX CITY IN 1868 - THE COMING AND GOING OF A RIVER STEAMBOAT - STEAMBOAT TRAFFIC - ATTEMPTED NAVIGATION OF THE DES MOINES RIVER - THE SAWYER WAGON ROADS TO THE MONTANA GOLD FIELDS - RAILROADS OF NORTHWESTERN IOWA - CONGRESS ENCOURAGES RAILROAD BUILDING, 1850-55 - FOUR IOWA RAILROADS PROJECTED - IOWA LINES TO CONNECT WITH THE UNION PACIFIC - SIOUX CITY & ST. PAUL RAILROAD - THE CHICAGO, MILWAUKEE & ST. PAUL - SECTION OF THE NORTHWESTERN BUILT - JOHN I. BLAIR, FATHER OF NORTHWESTERN IOWA RAILROADS - IOWA FALLS & SIOUX CITY RAILROAD - CEDAR RAPIDS & MISSOURI RIVER RAILROAD, 1866-68 - COMPLETION OF IOWA FALLS & SIOUX CITY RAILROAD - ABSORPTIONS BY PRESENT-DAY RAILROADS - HOW BLAIR NEARLY GOT CONTROL OF THE DAKOTA SOUTHERN - DES MOINES RIVER GRANT REVERTS TO RAILROAD PROJECTS - STIMULATING VALUE OF RAILROADS IMMEASURABLE - THE AUTOMOBILE, A NEW PROBLEM - ELECTRIC AND AUTO-BUS LINES - IMPROVEMENT OF IOWA’S PUBLIC HIGHWAYS - THE
FUTURE OF THE GOOD ROADS MOVEMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

Long before there was a suggestion of a city at or near the junction of the Big Sioux River with the Missouri, travelers and merchants had fixed upon that locality as a leading center of river transportation for the fur trade of the Northwest. It was the natural half-way place for the gathering of Indians and traders and commercial leaders who were exploiting the headwaters of the Missouri and Yellowstone, as well as the region farther east tributary to the Big Sioux, and for gathering the peltry, both large and small, for transportation tot he St. Louis market. As Sioux City arose, and military posts and settlements were established to the north and northwest, the locality became a leading entrepot of barter and trade, and one of the best known river towns in the Far West. Although for more than twenty years before the railroads were in operation in Northwestern Iowa it was the hope of many public and business men to make the Des Moines River a great channel of communication between the
 

253

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primitive fur-bearing country of the North and the rapidly settling country of the Mississippi Valley, the most marked evidence of water transportation and traffic was furnished by the locality known as the Sioux City region.
 

SIOUX CITY AS A STEAMBOAT TOWN.
 

The first steamboat to arrive at Sioux City was from St. Louis in June, 1856, and was loaded with ready-framed houses and provisions. They were gratefully received by the settlers, who were then living in tents and rude log cabins. To them, frame houses were luxuries. The provisions were used to stock the little stores already established.

Backed by influential public as well as business men, soon after Sioux City was platted in 1854 a United States land office was established there, and it was made the headquarters and largely the outfitting point for all the government expeditions sent against the Sioux and other hostile Indians. About three years from the time that Dr. and Government Surveyor John K. Cook laid out the town it was a respectable-sized settlement of between four and five hundred people, its river front lively with mackinaws and steamboats, delivering buffalo robes and skins to be reshipped to St. Louis. The “Sioux City Iowa Eagle,” which had just appeared at Sioux City, thus advertised the commercial status of this only river town of consequence: “In addition to the large number of buffalo robes and skins brought her by friendly Indians, immense quantities are brought by mackinaws (small boats). Messrs. Frost, Todd & Company are the heaviest dealers in furs. during one week in June (1857) they received by steamboat from the headwaters of the Missouri and Yellowstone furs and skins to the value of many thousands of dollars. On consignment alone contained 7,567 buffalo robes (tanned), 739 beaver skins, 32 elk skins, 14 bear skins, 1 moose skin and 35 pelt packages.”

Even for a number of years after Sioux City secured railroad connection with both the East and West in 1868, it was substantially a river town and its transportation and commerce were based rather on the steamboat than on the railway lines. C. R. Marks says on this point: “The Northwestern transportation Company established a line of boats

PHOTO: HAGY HOUSE AND HEDGES STORE ON THE LEVEE, EARLY ‘60s

PHOTO: THE LEVEE, EARLY ‘70’s

PHOTO: THE LEVEE IN THE EARLY DAYS, SIOUX CITY

In the old times it was not an unusual sight to see half a score of craft lying at the Sioux City wharf, unloading from down the river or loading for ports above. The head of navigation then was Fort Benton, nearly a couple of thousand miles away, and Sioux City was sort of the half way station between the stream’s source and mouth. From 1856, when the first steamer laden with freight for Sioux City arrived, to about 1876 this business grew and flourished, and then gradually it oozed away.
 

HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN IOWA 257
 

here with warehouses, that goods shipped by rail to Sioux City would be taken from here by boat up the river to the forts, Indian trading posts and mining camps, and on over 1,900 miles to Fort Benton. Other boats that took their first load from Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and St. Louis would fill up here on their way up and come back only as far as Sioux City to get another load.
 

SIOUX CITY IN 1868.
 

“On July 4, 1868, there were eight steamboats tied up at our river bank, the crews celebrating in no mild fashion. Trade in all lines was brisk. Returning miners and soldiers bought new clothes. The miners exchanged the gold dust at the banks. the arrival of a boat from the south in earlier days, especially the first one, which was in the spring, was a town event. When the boat neared the city below where the Floyd monument now stands, it would blow several long, loud blasts with its whistle and repeat this at short intervals. It also would add fuel to the fires. The whole city would take notice, the smoke would be visible long before the boat came in view around the point, and the people flocked to the landing at the foot of Pearl Street.
 

THE COMING AND GOING OF A RIVER STEAMBOAT.
 

“At the first sound of the whistle, Charles K. Howard, until late years known as a South Dakota cattle man, but then a druggist near the foot of Pearl Street, would step out on the sidewalk and with a voice like a foghorn in long drawn=out notes would call out, ‘S-t-e-a-m-b-o-a-t!’ This would soon be echoed from the corner of Fourth and Pearl streets in tones equally sonorous by Bob McElhenny. Everyone then knew what was coming.
“As the boat approached the landing place on the river bank, there were certain necessary movements of the boat, backing and filling until it reached the desired point, when a gangplank would be pushed out part way from the boat, and a man or two would go out on the end of this with a big rope and jump for the bank. Usually there had been planted a big snubbing post. The rope would be run once or twice
 

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around this and the other end on the boat taken care of, while the boat with steam up pushed against the bank until the boat was fast. Then the gangplank, or platform, was pushed clear up the top of the bank, and passengers and crew rushed off.

“If it was a boat going farther up the river, the crew commenced to carry off the freight to be left here, and that which was soon to start from here was loaded. It might remain here but a few hours. The departure was less dramatic, but more rapid. The whistle blew a warning, the rope was loosened from the snubbing post, the gangplank hauled in, and the boat fell back down stream a little with the current, then, swerving its bow toward the center of the river with a curve, got into the channel and on upstream.

“I remember, on one occasion, the rope got caught at the shore end for an instant as the boat was leaving and, after a slack, jerked straight out, caught a negro roustabout and threw him from the boat into the river. The steamer never slacked its headway, but kept on in its course up the river. The colored man disappeared in the water, then at high mark, and was not seen again. No doubt the officers knew by experience that no efforts on their part could save the man, and that he must save himself. They did not value one negro’s life very highly.
 

STEAMBOAT TRAFFIC.
 

“Trade in all lines when the boat was landing was brisk. The returned miners sold their dust to the bankers, Weare & Allison and Thomas J. Stone, who had their scales for weighing the dust, and even merchants took a hand at it. Sometimes a return boat would be loaded full with buffalo robes, deerskins and tallow, as there was not much other return freight.

“While we remained the end of the railroad, farmers came from long distances with their grain and produce - dressed hogs in season. I have seen wagonloads of wheat from Yankton, Sioux Falls and intermediate points. Stores were kept open until late at night, and nearby farmers took a day off Sundays to come in and trade.”
 

HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN IOWA 259

ATTEMPTED NAVIGATION OF THE DES MOINES RIVER.
 

The main valley of the Des Moines River does not include any portion of Northwestern Iowa, and only the headwaters of its East and West forks water that section of the state. But as those who dreamed of improving the main channel of the Des Moines River so it should be the great western feeder to the Valley of the Mississippi and kill the trade and commerce of the Missouri Valley, the improvement of the chief waterway of interior Iowa was intimately connected with the progress of the northwestern section of the state. The plans of its projectors were never within sight of realization, however, so that the topic may be dismissed as of little importance in working out the theme of this history. Benjamin F. Gue writes truly when he says: “Of all the various grants of public lands made by Congress to aid works of internal improvements in the several states, probably none has been the subject of so much and such long continued litigation as the grant of 1846 to aid in the improvement of the navigation of the Des Moines River. No land grant failed more signally in accomplishing the purpose for which it was made and none inflicted greater wrongs or hardships upon the pioneers who, in good faith, settled upon the public lands.”

The grant was made by an act of Congress on the 8th of March, 1846, for the purpose of aiding the Territory of Iowa to improve the navigation of the Des Moines River from its mouth to the Raccoon Fork of that river. The grant embraced each alternate section on both sides of the river for a distance of five miles of such lands as had not otherwise been disposed of, and was accepted by the Legislature after Iowa became a state, in January, 1847.
For a number of years before Congress and the Legislature set afoot this ambitious scheme in Iowa, the fur traders in their keel boats had been poling up the Des Moines and its tributaries, well supplied with beads, blankets, ammunition, war paints and, often hidden under all, that which was forbidden red men - a foreshadow of Prohibition. The return cargoes were, of course, furs and pelts, and their destination usually Keokuk, the Chicago of the Mississippi Valley, which was destined in the eyes of the prophets of those
 

260 HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN IOWA
 

day to be the rival of St. Louis, the metropolis of the Missouri Valley.

There are three authentic records of steamboats having ascended the Des Moines River, one as far as Fort Des Moines, previous to 1846. In the autumn of 1837, Capt. S. B. Clarke electrified the inhabitants of the little village of Keosauqua, now in Van Buren County, by blowing the whistle of his steamboat, “S. B. Science,” as he rounded the bend a short distance below. The village was at the gangplank to welcome the boat from Keokuk loaded with flour, meal, pork, groceries and perhaps a good supply of whisky. In 1840, a steamboat arrived at Pittsburg, just above Keosauqua, and loaded with corn. In May, 1843, the steamboat “Agatha” went up the river with two keel boats to Fort Des Moines, stopping along the way at Fort Sanford, as Ottumwa was being laid out, and leaving various supplies both there and at its destination. This trip was made at the time when Congress had thrown the eastern portion of the Black Hawk Purchase open for settlement, which act was expected to bring settlers into the Des Moines Valley and further its development.

Hardly had the Iowa Legislature accepted the Congressional land grant, which was to be the basis of the Des Moines River improvements, before there arose a dispute as to the extent of the lands to which the state was entitled, and the various governmental, judicial and congressional “authorities” differed in their estimates from the Raccoon Fork (Des Moines) to the state line. The Board of Public Works, which was to have charge of the construction of the improvements, was replaced by a West Point engineer, who was the dreaming prophet of what the Valley of the Des Moines was to be and the subsequent ruin of all that was progressive in the Missouri Valley.

The specter in the form of the railroad was already looming before the river improvements, and in 1858 the grant of lands intended to promote the improvement of the Des Moines was conveyed to the Keokuk, Des Moines & Minnesota Railroad Company, to aid in the construction of a railroad up the valley. Only two of the fifty-seven dams and locks contemplated in the improvement had been completed, and after the

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expenditure of more than $330,000, and twelve years of exploitation and work, no part of the river had been made navigable except a small stretch of the lower valley for small steamers during seasons of high water. It was not until forty years afterward that Congress fully indemnified the survivors and heirs of the settlers who had honestly bought lands included in the grant of 1846, which were generally understood to extend to the present state line.
The 1856 grants to the four Iowa railroads doomed river transportation on the Des Moines, which was closed under these circumstances, as narrated by Tacitus Hussey, the pioneer, editor and author of Des Moines City: “The year 1862 virtually closed Des Moines River navigation by steamboats. The near approach of the railroads made the business uncertain and unprofitable; besides, there was great demand for steamboat service on all the rivers of the South during the Civil war, which now began to assume alarming proportions and required much service in the way of transporting troops and supplies from one place to another; so our steamboat captains withdrew their boats to more profitable fields.” This last comment of Mr. Hussey also applies in a limited fashion to the steamboats of the Missouri River; for during the Civil war they were largely monopolized by the military authorities, although as a means of transportation for freight and passengers they have never been entirely abandoned.
 

THE SAWYER WAGON ROADS TO THE MONTANA GOLD FIELDS.
 

Northwestern Iowa developed at such a comparatively recent period that there was no gradual development in land transportation from the stage-line or plank-road eras to the inauguration of railroads. But while the iron ways were commencing to be projected into the at section of the state, the gold fields of Montana, which centered at Virginia City, drew many people from Sioux City, and emphasized the fact that there was no well-defined wagon route from Northwestern Iowa, across Nebraska and thence to the Montana gold fields. The popular route was the Salt Lake trail, by way of Council Bluffs and Omaha, and up the Platte Valley across Central Nebraska and, by a round-about northern course, to the placer mines at Bannock and Virginia City.
 

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A group of practical business men at Sioux City, with the enthusiastic support of A. W. Hubbard, their member of Congress, held that a more northern route by way of the Niobrara Valley, in Northern Nebraska, would save at least 500 miles of travel to Virginia City, if a practicable road could be opened. Congress appropriated money for this route, as well as other overland roads, and Col. James A. Sawyer, of Sioux City, was appointed superintendent of the Niobrara wagon road. He was well qualified to assume such leadership. In early life he served in the Mexican war and, in his mature years, as a cavalry officer in the Civil war. During the Indian troubles he established a chain of stockades from Sioux City into Minnesota, and was familiar with what was then the Far West. In spite of bitter opposition from the Council Bluffs - Omaha - Salt Lake people, Colonel Sawyer’s expedition, with his cattle, wagons and military escort, crossed the Missouri River at Sioux City and proceeded to Niobrara, where the final organization was effected. The escort of about 140 men comprised two companies of paroled Confederates, known as “galvanized Yankees,” and a detachment of twenty-five Dakota cavalrymen, supported by a six-pound brass howitzer. There was constant friction between the commanding officer of the military escort and Colonel Sawyer, who was the official superintendent of the expedition, and it was a mutual relief when the soldiers were left at Fort Conners.

The Sawyer expedition started from Niobrara June 13, 1865, and reached Virginia City October 12, 1865, having traveled in the four months more than 1,000 miles. Its greatest loss was the death of Nat Hedges, a bright and able Sioux City youth, who had been killed by the Indians on the North Fork of the Cheyenne River in the Powder River mountain district.

Colonel Sawyer also conducted a second expedition, in the endeavor of Sioux City to project a direct emigrant road to the northern gold fields and to make the city a leading outfitting point corresponding to the position of Council Bluffs and Omaha farther south. But neither redounded to the benefit of Northwestern Iowa or Sioux City, as the route did not receive the support of the high military authorities of

PHOTO: PRAIRIE SCHOONER

HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN IOWA 265
 

the country. In measuring the value of the Niobrara Wagon Road to western emigrants, an enthusiastic author writing in recent years says: “The route was the shortest and avoided the famous alkali lands (the scourge of the plains), and afforded an abundance of fuel, water and grass, with a road bed which admitted of carrying six tons’ weight on two freight wagons joined together, without even the necessity of uncoupling from Sioux City to Virginia City. That route became a great western thoroughfare, and was traversed by thousands of mule and ox trains of freight wagons until the country was finally settled up and the construction of railroads completed in all parts of the country, which at that time was but a barren, prairie wilderness. Much credit is due to Colonel Sawyer’s persistence and the interest manifested on the part of Sioux City men in general in the establishment of this great overland thoroughfare to the Rocky Mountains.”

A better authority than this unnamed and unidentified writer is Albert M. Holman, a young man of twenty who accompanied Colonel Sawyer’s first expedition in 1865 and remained in the Montana fields as a store-keeper and a miner for three years. He then returned to Sioux City, and for many years was a merchant, a manufacturer and a man of public affairs. When a Sioux City resident nearly eighty years of age, he wrote an interesting account of the expedition in which he was a participant and added a comment on the measure of value laid down in the words which have been quoted. Mr. Holman says: “This account covers in general the second expedition. The only misstatement in it, which is of importance, is that the route became a great western thoroughfare and was traveled by thousands of mule and ox teams. The fact is, no trains ever traveled over the route after this second trip in 1866.” He adds, in another place in his narrative concerning the first expedition: “That the country generally through which we passed was well adapted for an overland wagon road was demonstrated then, and has since been proven by the settling up of most of that region. But the building of the Union Pacific Railroad immediately following the efforts of the expedition made wagon routes unnecessary, and after the second expedition in 1866, no
 

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wagon train ever traveled the route to Montana.” Which seems to settle the matter beyond peradventure that, despite Colonel Sawyer’s perseverance and bravery, the Niobrara Wagon Road which he routed from Sioux City to Virginia City never became of practical value.
 

RAILROADS OF NORTHWESTERN IOWA.
 

About the time that Mr. Holman returned to Sioux City from his temporary sojourn in Virginia City, a young New York lawyer of twenty-seven also became a resident of the city and afterward became both prominent in his profession and in the public affairs of his adopted western home. In time, Constant R. Marks and Albert M. Holman became friends and, as old, honored men, issued a pamphlet together entitled “Pioneering in the Northwest,” to which valuable little book the writer has been much indebted. Mr. Marks has greatly increased his debt by contributing the following concise yet complete story of the expansion of the railway systems in Northwestern Iowa:

In 1851 the Iowa Legislature passed an act establishing the boundaries of forty-nine counties in Western Iowa out of what had been before that unsettled territory; in area about one-half the state, containing only a few scattered settlements, the principal one being at Kanesville, now Council Bluffs. Shortly after this many of these counties commenced to be settled and county organizations created. This region was reputed to be fertile, but the great need was railroads to promote settlements.
 

CONGRESS ENCOURAGES RAILROAD BUILDING, 1850 - 55.
 

Congress had established a precedent in 1850 by granting public land to the several states to aid in building a railroad from Galena and Chicago, in Illinois, to Mobile, in Alabama. These states were given all the even numbered sections of public land for six miles in width on each side of the line to be located, with indemnity in case some such sections had been previously sold. This indemnity was to be taken from land adjacent to the six mile limit, sufficient to make up the deficit. Under this donation the Illinois Central Railroad in Illinois had been built, and similar grants had been made to other states.
 

HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN IOWA 267
 

The senators from Iowa, George W. Jones of Dubuque, Augustus C. Dodge of Burlington, and Congressman Bernhart Henn of Fairfield, Iowa, were alert to do something for their own state. In 1854 Senator Jones had introduced in Congress a bill for an act to aid a railroad from near Dubuque to the Missouri River at some point to be designated, but estimated to be a little south of the present Illinois Central Line.

Sioux City was not then in actual existence. Early in 1855 prospective town promoters were showing where this proposed line would pass through their towns. This was especially true of Fort Dodge, in Webster County, and Sergeant’s Bluff, in Woodbury County, where promoters were showing that this eastern road would pass to the Missouri River and across into Nebraska and west. This bill failed of passage.
 

FOUR IOWA RAILROADS PROJECTED, 1856.
 

In the next Congress the matter took definite shape. Senators Jones and Dodge and Congressman Henn, together with other congressmen in other states, had become interested in Western Iowa development, and were partners in the town site of Sioux City, having nearly a half ownership therein. A land grant aid to the State of Iowa was passed May 15, 1856, for four lines of railroad across the State of Iowa. One line was from Burlington, Iowa, to a point on the Missouri River opposite the mouth of the Platte River in Nebraska, now known as the Burlington line. The second was from Davenport through Iowa City and Fort Des Moines to Council Bluffs, now the Rock Island. The third was from Lyons, Iowa (near Clinton), west as near as practicable on the west 42 parallel to the Missouri River, and this line was surveyed through Onawa to the Missouri River, but as changed now is the Northwestern Line. The fourth one was from Dubuque to Sioux City.

These grants being to the State of Iowa, the governor called a special session of the Legislature, which met July 14, 1856, and granted these lands to certain railroad companies, which had been organized to accept the grants, and actual surveys of contemplated lines had been started by some of these companies before the Legislature met. The survey on the one to Sioux City started at the Sioux City end July 1, 1856. These Iowa grants were of the odd numbered sections within six miles on each side of the line of the road when definitely located, and if any of these lands had been previously sold, as a great deal of it had, in Eastern Iowa, then
 

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they might select enough land to make up the deficiency from odd numbered sections within fifteen miles on each side of the located line.

Surveys were soon made, lists of land selected and filed in the local United States land offices and in the General Land Office at Washington. The price of the remaining even numbered sections was doubled to $2.50 an acre, and put on the market by the Government, it having been withdrawn from sale immediately after the passage of the act. Under this system vast tracts of land, granted to the railroads, were kept out of the market or settlement for ten years or more until the roads were built, and with other lands, later granted to other roads, form the basis of title to almost half the land in many Northwestern Iowa counties.
 

IOWA LINES TO CONNECT WITH THE UNION PACIFIC, 1862.
 

When the United States made a similar grant of land to aid in building a railroad line from Council Bluffs, Iowa to San Francisco, on July 2, 1862, as part of the same, a branch line was authorized to be built from Sioux City to some point on this Union Pacific Railroad to be designated by the President not farther west than the 100th meridian, which would be near the central part of Nebraska. This made it almost necessary that these three Southern Iowa land grant roads should be authorized to connect at Council Bluffs with this Union Pacific road. Hon. A. W. Hubbard, congressman from Sioux City, had provided for Sioux City’s connection in the original act.
 

SIOUX CITY AND ST. PAUL RAILROAD.
 

On April 12, 1864, Congress passed another land grant act to aid in the building of a road from Sioux City to the Minnesota state line at some point between the Big Sioux River and west of the west fork of the Des Moines River. This was built by the Sioux City and St. Paul Railroad.
 

THE CHICAGO, MILWAUKEE & ST. PAUL.
 

Another line was authorized from McGregor, Iowa, westerly along near the 43rd parallel until it intersected the St. Paul Railroad at some point in O’Brien County, Iowa. This is now the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad. These two line were given the odd numbered sections within ten miles on each side of the line when established, with indemnity for land previously sold to be selected from odd sections with twenty miles on each side of the established line. These
 

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grants of land were to the State of Iowa, which regranted them to the various railroad companies.

After the survey for these roads was completed maps of the lines were made and adopted by the railroad, filed with the Governor and sent tot he General Land Office at Washington. The State of Iowa appointed agents to select the lands. Bernhart Henn, ex-congressman from Iowa and one of the promoters of Sioux City, was such agent for the selection of the lands for the road from Dubuque to Sioux City. When these selections were completed, they were approved and certified to by the State of Iowa and so marked on the government plats and lists in the United States local land offices, which for this Northwestern Iowa were at Council Bluffs, Sioux City and Fort Dodge. The even sections and lands outside the limits of the grant were restored to public entry and sale July 4, 1858.
 

SECTION OF THE NORTHWESTERN BUILT.
 

The building of the roads commenced at the eastern end, but the general financial panic of 1857 stopped the financing of railroad building, and the Civil War, commencing in 1861, further put an embargo on railroad construction. After these failures to build by one company, the resumption of the grants by the Legislature and regranting to other companies, the actual building of these western ends of the roads from Dubuque to Sioux City and from Lyons and Clinton to Council Bluffs, commenced after the close of the war in 1865. This road is now the Northwestern and built west from Cedar Rapids to Council Bluffs, being completed by a company called the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Railroad Company. This was stimulated by the starting of the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad from Council Bluffs, Iowa. Land now had an actual small market value, and these granted lands and mortgage bonds on the lands and the road had a salable market value, and would furnish funds for building.
 

JOHN I. BLAIR, FATHER OF NORTHWESTERN IOWA ROADS.
 

John I. Blair, of New Jersey, who had made some money at home, financed the road and managed, with his associates, the building of this line to Council Bluffs, as well as the Sioux City branch of the Union Pacific and the other line from Cedar Rapids to Sioux City. They also laid out all the new town sites. John I. Blair thus became a historical railroad character. He had foresight, courage, and financial ability
 

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to complete these projects successfully, and reaped a rich financial reward. He was close-fisted and economical in his personal expenses, and wanted for himself wherever possible all the little side-line profits like the town sites. He had started life as a small merchant; he gained wealth by taking hold of difficult enterprises. He was tall, well formed, cool, and kept in touch with the work as it progressed, with all its financial requirements.

After he had finished the line to Council Bluffs and from Missouri Valley to Sioux City, which was completed in March, 1868, he commenced on the line from Fort Dodge to Sioux City early in 1869. He drove with a team from Fort Dodge to Sioux City over the contemplated line, going past Strom Lake, seeing there a fine prospective town site. He at once upon his arrival in Sioux City proceeded to the United States Land Office at that locality and entered lands close to Storm Lake; so people knew where at least one town-site was to be. All other towns west of Fort Dodge would be where the railroad chose to locate them.
 

IOWA FALLS AND SIOUX CITY RAILROAD.
 

The Twelfth General Assembly of Iowa in 1868 had, for failure to perform the condition of the grant, resumed the grant tot he Iowa Falls and Sioux City Railroad Company, and in April 7, 1868, made a conditional regrant of this land tot he same road. One of the provisions of the regrant to this and some other Iowa land grant roads was that each railroad accepting the provisions of this act should at all times be subject to such rules, regulations, and rates of tariff for the transportation of freight and passengers as might from time to time be enacted by the General Assembly of Iowa. This was the first attempt in Iowa to regulate passenger and freight rates, and it was assumed that without such provision in the grant there was no power to regulate rates. It created strong objections among the railroad people.

It was also provided in the act that the railroad company must accept this grant with the provision before July, 1868, or the state census board might grant it to some other road on the same terms. This road and others canvassed the members of the Legislature to see whether they would at a special session of the Legislature repeal this claim. This railroad company on March 6, 1868, had notified the Governor that they would not accept such a grant. No extra session was called and this same railroad in writing on February 18, 1869, accepted the regrant under the alternative clause in the
 

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act of April 8, 1868, authorizing the giving of it to any other company. This fact is not generally understood, as this rejection and acceptance are not matters of county record. The State later deeded this land to this same company after it built the road. Hence in showing the passage of title to land grant lands from the State to this company, abstractors show the act of April 8, 1868, tot he Iowa Falls and Sioux City Railroad Company simply as though the land title passed direct under the first part of the act, when in fact it passed under the rejection and later acceptance. But this is not especially material, as these lands after about 1870 were deeded tot he railroad company, and not, as before, by filing certified lists.

At the time of these land grants in 1856 there had been contemplated a line from McGregor westerly across the state, but this was omitted from the original act.

At the next session of the Legislature, on December 26, 1856, the Iowa Legislature memorialized Congress, to build a road from McGregor to the Missouri River, and at the same session passed a resolution asking Congress to extend the western boundary of Iowa across the Big Sioux River to the Missouri, taking all the country south of the north line of Iowa extended west to the Missouri, and at every session of the Legislature in memorialized Congress to aid this road from McGregor until it was finally passed.

In April, 1860, the Iowa Legislature asked Congress fro aid for a road from Council Bluffs up the Boyer Valley through Harrison, Monona, Crawford, Sac, Buena Vista, and other counties to the State line, or northern boundary of Kossuth County, and thence into Minnesota to reach the lumber regions and supply treeless Iowa with building material.

The Legislature had authorized mortgaging the roads, which had been granted lands to aid in building, and had authorized the counties to use the swamp lands granted to them to aid in building these roads, and some of them had done so. Woodbury County gave its swamp lands to its first road, the Sioux City and Pacific, for building that road to Sioux City. Theses roads were not completed within the periods provided for in the original grants and acts of Congress, and acts of the Legislature were passed extending the time.
 

CEDAR RAPIDS AND MISSOURI RIVER RAILROAD, 1866-68.
 

The actual building of the line west from Cedar Rapids to Council Bluffs was of these Northwestern Iowa roads completed first. It reached Denison in 1866; much freight
 

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reaching there was carried by teams to Sioux City, and settlements made between; and it was completed to Council Bluffs early in 1867. The people of Sioux City and vicinity had waited long for a railroad to the east and wanted it right away. The location of the line to join the Union Pacific was very liberal as to the point of junction; so it was located and built from Sioux City down the east side of the Missouri to California Junction, in Harrison County, and thence west across the Missouri at Blair, Nebraska, and to Fremont on the Union Pacific, with a short stub from California Junction to Missouri Valley on the Cedar Rapids & Missouri River main line. So its main use was and always has been to go east instead of west. This line to Sioux City was mostly built in 1867, getting into Sioux City and finished in March, 1868.
 

COMPLETION OF IOWA FALLS & SIOUX CITY RAILROAD.
 

The actual building of the Iowa Falls and Sioux City Railroad west of Fort Dodge commenced early in the spring of 1869, work progressing at both ends, as by the completion of the line of the Sioux City and Pacific Railroad, material could be shipped there. This road was completed in the summer of 1870. With the completion of this road the larger portion of Northwestern Iowa was within the reach of railroad transportation, and the great rush of immigration commenced and increased rapidly.

The Sioux City and St. Paul road from Sioux City to the northern State line was finished in the summer of 1872 and the road west of McGregor was finished to its junction in O’Brien County in 1874.
 

ABSORPTIONS BY PRESENT-DAY RAILROADS.
 

The road from Cedar Rapids to Council Bluffs was for many years leased to the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad Company, which company bought the road itself and also the Sioux City and Pacific, and has built its numerous main lines and branches in Northwestern Iowa, connecting at various places with its original main line.

The road from Dubuque to Sioux City was leased to and operated for many years by the Illinois Central Road, which subsequently bought it. The Illinois Central built the two branches from Cherokee to Sioux Falls and to Onawa about 1890, and later from Fort Dodge to Council Bluffs to meet the Union Pacific.
 

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HOW BLAIR NEARLY GOT CONTROL OF THE DAKOTA SOUTHERN.
 

While John I. Blair was the controlling owner of the roadbed of the Sioux City & Pacific and the Iowa Falls & Sioux City Railroads, he came near getting control of the line now owned by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul from Sioux City to Yankton and Sioux Falls. This road from Sioux City up the Sioux River had been the first projected to run on the Iowa side and had been organized as the Sioux City and Pembina road by Sioux City men, and aid had been voted it by the townships in Woodbury and Plymouth counties in 1872 and some grading done.

Soon after this a road was promoted from Sioux City to Yankton, called the Dakota Southern. The promoters (Wicker Meckling Company) joined forces with the Sioux City promoters of the Pembina road, and built a line to Yankton and Sioux Falls, running the latter line partly in Dakota. The north end of this road was not built for several years, as times were hard. Wicker Meckling Company appealed to John I. Blair for assistance, and agreements were made whereby Blair bought a half interest in the Dakota Southern and loaned that company $100,000 to finish the road to Sioux Falls, but the old directors of the Dakota Southern were to remain until the next annual meeting.

It dawned on Wicker Meckling Company that this $100,000 debt to Blair would be used by him to squeeze them out of their remaining half. The Milwaukee road had been finished to Canton, South Dakota and west, and Mr. Wicker approached that company and a deal was made whereby he sold his half to that company. They called a special meeting of the directors at Yankton and these directors and officials of the Milwaukee road took a special car to Yankton, stopped within the city limits and held the meeting. Wicker’s directors resigned and Milwaukee officials were elected to their places. It was also voted to sell $100,000 more stock and with proceeds take up the Blair note, thus giving the Milwaukee road a majority of the Dakota Southern stock. Blair started some litigation to regain his rights, but abandoned them. Had Blair succeeded, the Illinois Central might have had a main line in Dakota and the Milwaukee branch from Manilla to Sioux City would never have been built.
 

DES MOINES RIVER GRANT REVERTS TO RAILROAD PROJECTS.
 

I have spoken of the land grant along the Des Moines River to aid in the making of that stream navigable up as far as

18V1

274 HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN IOWA
 

Des Moines. This was later amended by an act of Congress, approved July 12, 1862, extending this land grant north from the Raccoon Forks at Des Moines to the Minnesota State line and authorizing the application of a portion of this land to aid in the construction of the Keokuk, Fort Des Moines & Minnesota Railroad. Much legislation and litigation followed. The project for navigating the Des Moines River was impracticable and was abandoned, and a railroad was built north as far as Fort Dodge and finished about 1871 by the Des Moines Valley Railroad. Later this was taken over and extended north by the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad Company, which built some branches. The Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific extended branches into Northwestern Iowa.

The Chicago & Great Western Railroad Company also built a line from Minnesota through Fort Dodge and Carroll to Council Bluffs, thus crossing the southeastern corner of Northwestern Iowa.
 

STIMULATING VALUE OF RAILROADS IMMEASURABLE.
 

By these numerous railroads with their connections and affiliations our region is traversed by or put in connection with every continental railroad line, and there is not a farm that is not within ten miles of a railroad; every one of these having been built within the last sixty years, many of them much more recently.

We can not measure the value of these roads in stimulating the growth of this fertile, treeless region. They have enabled us to market our immense agricultural crops and animals and in return brought us fuel and merchandise produced elsewhere. Our Northwestern Iowa is not surpassed by any other region of the United States in the proportionate acres of tillable soil, and quantity and value of its products.

Inland water navigation reached but few places and did not afford much aid in transporting produce raised at any great distance form the rivers which ran north and south and were frozen over and at low water nearly half the year, and the canals helped but little. Railroad building for long-and-short distance freight and passenger traffic in inland regions solved the problem and gave us the world’s market for our products and stimulated agriculture. Our land that we bought fifty or sixty years ago of the Government at $1.25 or $2.50 an acre, or bought from the land grant railroads at $5 to $10 an acre now is worth from $100 to $300 an acre, chiefly by the development of railroad transportation.
 

HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN IOWA 275

THE AUTOMOBILE, A NEW PROBLEM.
 

We are now experimenting with a new problem, the automobile, which is moving much local freight, long-and-short distance passenger traffic to the financial loss of the railroads, especially the branch short-distance lines, but we are paying for this in increased taxes and special taxes against the land itself for special highways.

ELECTRIC AND AUTO-BUS LINES.
 

The public transportation of passengers and freight in Northwestern Iowa has been substantially accomplished for many years by the steam railways, although electricity and “gas” have invaded the field to some extent. With the constant improvement of the public highways, through the cooperation of the Federal, state, county and township governments, auto travel has immensely increased and numerous auto-bus lines have been put in operation to supplement the passenger service of the railroads. In many districts of Northwestern Iowa, where the train service is infrequent, these comfortable and well-conducted auto buses have proven themselves of great public utility.

Electrical transportation is represented by the Sioux City system of Iowa which has been extended across the Missouri River to South Sioux City, Nebraska. In 1890 the original horse and mule-drawn cars gave way to electricity as a motive power, and the Sioux City lines were among the first electric railways in the United States. The system is now operated by the Sioux City Gas and Electric Company. It includes about sixty miles of street car lines and embraces not only Sioux City proper, but the outlying districts of Morningside, Leeds and Riverside, and also, as stated, South Sioux City in Nebraska.
 

IMPROVEMENT OF IOWA’S PUBLIC HIGHWAYS.
 

The Iowa State Highway Commission was established under an act passed in 1904 by the Thirtieth General Assembly, which constituted the Iowa State College as an institution to act as such commission. From 1904 to 1913, the work of improving the highways of the state was carried on under that law. The Thirty-fifth General Assembly (1913) created

276 HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN IOWA
 

the Highway Commission as it still exists. The dean of engineering of the State College is its ex-officio member, and each of the two other members represents a different political party. The term of office is four years. Under the law, as amended by the General Assembly from time to time, the commission is charged with many other duties than those delegated to it by the original act; these now include the making of all road surveys and the preparation of road and bridge specifications. Beginning with July 1, 1925, the commission had to its credit a primary road development fund of about $4,000,000 to be used on any portion of the system as might be deemed best by the commission. By act of the General Assembly, the commission assumed complete control of the maintenance of the primary road system, to date from July 1, 1925.

In 1917, the first law was enacted in Iowa accepting Federal aid in the improvement of the primary road system, and since that time to November, 1924, nearly $70,500,000 was expended altogether, of which $55,600,000 was applied to actual construction. The heaviest year was 1921, when more than $38,000,000 was expended in all kinds of highway improvements. That sum was divided as follows: Primary and county road expenditures, $22,763,290; for bridges and culverts, $9,305,352; for township roads, $6,672,985.

In 1924, the total expenditures throughout the state amounted to $29,126,000. In November of that year the total number of miles in the primary system of the state was 6,600, of which 2,164 had been surfaced with gravel, macadam or sand clay, 1,934 miles of earth road built to permanent grade and 502 miles paved, while 2,058 miles of earth road had not been improved.
 

THE FUTURE OF THE GOOD ROADS MOVEMENT.
 

Automobilists, merchants and farmers are all in close cooperation with the State Highway Commission and the Iowa Good Roads Association to get the full benefits of highway building and highway improvements throughout the state, and, in consideration of its wealth, each of the Northwestern Iowa counties which figures in this history is doing

HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN IOWA 277

it share to forward the good roads movement. In December, 1924, the condition of the primary road system in Iowa was represented by 2,164.4 miles of graveled road; built to finished grade, but not surfaced, 1,934.4; not built to finished grade, 2,058.6; paved, 502.3 miles. Total, 6,659.7. These figures mean much, but perhaps tot he average reader this simple statement made in the last annual report of the Iowa State Highway Commission will carry greater weight: “One can travel from Des Moines to the county seats of forty-four counties by direct route and be on gravel or pavement all the way.”

For a number of years, under the cooperation of the Iowa State College Good Roads Department and the State Highway Commission, an investigation has been conducted to determine by accurate experiment and by actual test runs, the comparative cost of transportation by motor vehicles over various types of road surfaces and varying grades. The conclusions, based upon this scientific investigation, bear out the theories which have long been held in regard to the economy of improved road surfaces and reduction of grades. The ambitious six-year program advocated by the Iowa Good Roads Association was largely based upon this prolonged series of experiments and investigations. The period proposed to be covered, covered the years 1925 - 1930, inclusive.

In one of the last quarterly “Service Bulletins,” issued by the Iowa State Highway Commission, all these matters are clearly set forth, as well as the summary of the series of tests and studies made by Prof. T. R. Agg upon the “Cost of Highway Transportation.” From the latter article these extracts are pertinent: “Motor vehicle operation, the prime factor in cost of highway transportation, costs Iowans approximately $300,000,000 per year. This is three times the total tax levy paid by the people of the State for state, county and municipal purposes. In 1924 the total Iowa tax levies to be paid were $107,361,779. These figures alone give some idea of the cost incurred in modern highway transportation.

“Arguments for improved roads in the past have been mainly based on the desirability of such a system, the satisfaction, convenience and pleasure to be derived from paved roads in any community, the elimination of isolation from
 

278 HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN IOWA

country life and the generally improved living conditions. Ability to et from farm to market to take advantage of seasonable prices on the commodities has been largely stressed. To actually show that paved roads were in themselves an economy, that they would actually pay for themselves in a limited term of years where traffic is moderately heavy, while incidentally believed by engineers, could not be actually shown with any definite and unquestioned figures available. This can now be done.

“Now that these figures are becoming known, even road engineers are expressing surprise that the points mentioned, while they might readily have been known, have actually never been fully recognized and considered.
 

“The operation of Iowa’s half a million cars in 1923 cost the State her entire corn crop. The cost of operation of these motor cars during the present year can not possibly be covered by the value of the 1924 corn crop. Operation of these vehicles is only a part of the transportation costs. These facts ought to give some idea of the staggering figures in Iowa’s total transportation costs and sober the minds of those who must shoulder the responsibility of formulating a policy and devising a road-building program for the future.”
 

There is no section of the State to which the foregoing facts and deductions apply more closely and vitally than Northwestern Iowa, as many of its most productive districts are far removed from railroad lines, and the better and more numerous the highways which intersect the country the easier it well be for farmers and country merchants to get into touch with the broad outside markets and give the local communities the benefits of such contact.