HISTORICAL
CHAPTER XII.
TRAVEL, TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATION.
STATE ROADS.
In the fifties the General Assembly of Iowa frequently went through the forms of establishing "state roads," very many of which were never traveled to any extent, for the reason that they were not improved or sufficiently marked and probably also for the further reason that the weary traveler could often pick as good a road himself as the one laid out.
By chapter X of the fifth General Assembly, approved January 13, 1855, it was provided that commissioners, consisting of Samuel M. Ballard, of Audubon county, William Garner, of Pottawattomie county, and Thomas Seeley, of Guthrie county, should locate a state road, "beginning on the west line of Dallas county at the terminus of the state road established in 1849, thence by the most practicable route via Bear Grove, Ballard's Bridge on the East 'Nishnabotany' river and by a point at or near the forks of the West 'Nishnabotany' river, in township 77 north, of range 39, thence on the most direct and practicable route to Council Bluffs City." It was further provided that these commissioners should meet on the first Monday in February or within six months thereafter. This road is of interest to Shelby county only because it struck the vicinity of the present town of Avoca, through which many of the pioneers of Shelby county came.
One of the very early pioneers of Audubon county, Hon. H. F. Andrews, of Exira, author of a new history of Audubon county, in a letter to the editor of this history, referring to the early state roads, writes:
"I was not able to make much out of the county records about the old roads leading from Audubon to Shelby county. They usually ran across country and did not conform to section lines. About 1873 I was appointed commissioner by the board of supervisors of this county to report on quite a number of the old roads. I reported on some of them that it was impossible to plat them from the field notes, which were in some cases manifestly defective, and recommended several re-surveys. I made re-surveys of several of the most important old roads. But several were never re-surveyed and were never used or traveled, and new roads were from time to time located to take their place. I think this was the case with old state road No. 2, from Audubon to Shelby. As near as I can tell, it crossed the county line five chains (twenty rods) north of the northeast corner of township 79, range 37, which is the northwest corner of Sharon township, in Audubon county, near what is now known as Poplar, in Audubon county. [This state road No. 2 would appear, therefore, to have entered Shelby county about the north boundary of Jackson township.--EDITOR.]
"By section 13, chapter 177, acts of the sixth General Assembly, January 28, 1857, Peoria I. Whitted, of Audubon county, James Adams, of Shelby county, and Owen Thrope, of Harrison county, were appointed commissioners to locate a state road commencing at Panora, in Guthrie county, thence west on or near the township line between the townships 79 and 80, as practicable, through Magnolia to the mouth of Soldier creek, in Harrison county, on the Missouri river. This was state road No. 2. 1 think it is totally disregarded in Audubon county. Probably was used a little in early times. I recollect traveling it about 1870 on the ridges leading to Bowman's Grove and there were primitive bridges for the crossing of Indian creek in Sharon township in Audubon county about the center of the township (79-37). By section 8, chapter 160, acts of the fifth General Assembly, January 24, 1855, Mansel Wicks, of Shelby county, and Daniel Brown and Peter Brady, of Harrison county, were appointed commissioners to locate a state road from Ballard's Bridge, in Audubon county, via Wicks' Grove, in Shelby county, and Harris' Grove, to the town of Calhoun, in Harrison county. [Wicks' Grove was in the vicinity now called "Rabbit Hollow."--EDITOR.]
"Ballard's Bridge was then, and is now, in section 36, township 78, range 36, the present civil township of Oakfield, in Audubon county. I don't think this road was over utilized in Audubon, except the first half mile of it from the bridge west, which was part of old state road No. 1."
Transcribed by Cheryl Siebrass, February, 2024 from the Past and Present of Shelby County, Iowa, by Edward S. White, P.A., LL. B.,Volume 1, Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen & Co., 1915, pp. 287-288.
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