Calhoun County

By Darcy Dougherty Maulsby

View the history of small-town, rural Iowa through the eyes of those who lived it. Images of America: Calhoun County showcases this unique heritage through remarkable glimpses into the past and intriguing stories that bring these images to life. Discover the region's pioneer heritage, the birth of the railroad and prairie towns, and the growth of some of most productive farms in the world. Calhoun County claims two nationally acclaimed authors as native sons, welcomed Babe Ruth in 1940 (but not on the baseball field), and was the target of a bank robbery by Bonnie and Clyde in the 1930s. Calhoun County offers a well-researched pictorial journey designed for native Iowans, transplanted Iowans, and those curious about the evolution of small towns and farms in the Midwest.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Sep 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781439653265

Darcy Dougherty Maulsby

Darcy earned her journalism/communication degree and master's degree in business administration (with a marketing emphasis) from Iowa State University. After working for several companies in the Des Moines area, including the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation and AgWeb.com, she became an entrepreneur and opened her own business; she has run her own marketing/communications company, Darcy Maulsby & Company, full time since 2002. Darcy has written several books, including the Culinary History of Iowa; Calhoun County; Classic Restaurants of Des Moines and Their Recipes; Dallas County, Iowa Agriculture: A History of Farming, Family and Food; and Madison County.

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INTRODUCTION

To understand Calhoun County, one must understand the land. The story begins more than 12,000 years ago, when the landscape of west-central Iowa was transformed by the massive Wisconsin glacier. In its wake, the glacier left land so flat, natural drainage barely occurred. The soil was often saturated in sloughs, which were interspersed with acres of prairie.

The first inhabitants of Calhoun County were Native Americans from the Sac and Fox tribes. Traces of their presence, including arrowheads and stone tools, have been found around the county, from the Raccoon River to Twin Lakes.

When Iowa became the 29th state on December 28, 1846, few pioneers had pushed west to this area. By 1851, the name Fox was given to the new county. When the legislature of 1853 assembled, however, several of the members expressed their dissatisfaction with some of the county names adopted by the preceding assembly.

One member, an ardent admirer of former US vice president John C. Calhoun, proposed to change the name of Fox County to Calhoun, in honor of the South Carolina native and slavery proponent. The proposition was finally accepted on the condition that the name of the county to the east be changed to Webster to recognize New England’s Daniel Webster, a fierce political opponent of Calhoun’s who fought the expansion of slavery.

In those pre–Civil War days, a few pioneers began moving into west-central Iowa, including Ebenezer Comstock, who brought his family to the Raccoon River valley in April 1854 and established the first domicile in Calhoun County near the present town of Lake City. Within a year, other settlers including Peter Smith moved into Calhoun County not far from Comstock. Smith used basswood logs to build a story-and-a-half house which was called the most pretentious residence north of Jefferson and west of Fort Dodge.

At this time, Calhoun County residents paid taxes to Greene County, as directed by an 1853 act of the legislature. Early settlers observed that very little revenue came back to make improvements in Calhoun County, however, so they took the necessary steps to organize in 1855, even though the county’s entire population was less than 100 people.

There were no buildings anywhere in the county that were suitable as a courthouse. County business was conducted in the homes of the officials until a courthouse was built in Lake City in 1856 at a cost of $1,100.

While the Civil War slowed the settlement of Calhoun County, people continued to move to the area. By 1876, early residents of northern Calhoun County wanted the courthouse to be more centrally located. The matter was put to a vote that year, and the county seat was moved from Lake City to the new town of Rockwell City.

As more counties in northwest Iowa were formed, it became easy to find Calhoun County on a map. One could simply count over four counties east from Lyon County in the extreme northwest corner of the state and then count four more counties down (starting at Emmet County) to pinpoint Calhoun.

From the 1880s through the early 1900s, new residents from eastern states, as well as immigrants from Germany, Scandinavia, England, and other parts of Europe, poured into Calhoun County’s 16 townships, which cover roughly 570 square miles. By 1900, Calhoun County’s population soared to 18,569, nearly twice as many people as the county claimed by 2013, when the US Census listed a total of 9,926 residents.

Two main forces fueled the rapid development of Calhoun County more than a century ago, including the westward expansion of the railroad and the availability of farmland. First, the sloughs had to be drained before this rich farmland could be accessed. An article appearing in the Des Moines Leader on March 1, 1892, declared that just 16 years previous to the establishment of Rockwell City as the county seat in 1876, there would have been few people who would not have regarded the center area of the county as worthless, a wilderness of ponds and sloughs, alternating with patches of tough prairie grass, vegetation of such rank growth as to be useless for hay or pasture, fit only for the habitat of muskrats, coyotes, frogs, and mosquitoes.

As the pioneers began developing farms throughout Calhoun County, new towns also emerged on the prairie, starting with Lake City in 1856, Pomeroy in 1870, Manson in 1872, Rockwell City in 1876, Lohrville and Farnhamville in 1881, Lytton in 1900, Somers in 1902, and Yetter in 1904, along with other small towns that got their start in this era, including Jolley, Knierim, Knoke, Lavinia, Piper, Rands, Richards, Sherwood, and Wightman.

Towns were platted close together (often about seven to ten miles apart) in that era before motorized vehicles and good roads, since farmers with a team and wagon needed to be able to travel to the local general store, implement dealer, grain elevator, or bank and still get home that same day to do chores. (The towns’ close proximity also reflected the need for steam locomotives to take on water at regular intervals.) Trips to town remained infrequent, however, even after the appearance of the automobile, since muddy roads made travel a major undertaking, especially in winter.

Small towns became vibrant trade centers by the early 1900s, as well as a source of culture and entertainment. Many had an opera house and, later, a movie theater. Students had the opportunity to enroll in new high schools. Sports, especially baseball, also thrived in small communities throughout Calhoun County. Some towns became known not only for their large number of churches, but even greater proportion of taverns.

The prosperity of this era made life easier for many town residents. By 1915, towns throughout Calhoun County typically had telephone, electricity, and water services. Many of these conveniences were not common on farms, however, where kerosene lamps provided light and hand pumps provided water.

The post–World War II era marked the beginning of many astonishing changes that revolutionized life not only in Calhoun County, but America as a whole. Television, interstate highways, the mechanization of agriculture, computers, and a host of other new technologies opened up isolated rural communities to the wider world, spurring the decline of the railroad, the growth of larger farms, and changes that continue to redefine small town and rural life in Calhoun County and beyond.

The world in which Calhoun County exists today is a vastly different world from the one the pioneers created in the 1800s. And yet, in many respects, it is the same world they knew. While there have been great technological