Lake City Graphic from Lake City, Iowa • Page 27

SECTION 2 Eight Pages CENTENNIAL EDITION SEVENTIETH YEAR No. 35 LAKE CITY, IOWA THURSDAY, JUNE 28, 1956 OFFICIAL COUNTY AND CITY PAPER Pioneers Founded Lake City A Hundred Years Ago Charles Amy Made First Survey And Matted The Town Of Lake Gty Lake City is 100 years old and Flappers of 1929 How Many Do You Recognize? Great Blizzard of 1856 Severe Test For The Pioneers of Calhoun County Calfeoun county is only three years senlers who buiit ordinary log i older than that! cabins, Smith built his house and, Governor Stephen Hempstead! story and one-half high, and on January 15, 1851, approved time it was regarded as act of the Iowa legislature creat-1 most pretentious Iowa residence in ing 50 new counties in the unor-jthis part of the country. Wooden ganized western part of the state. pins were used instead of nails, What is now Calhoun county was The only floor was "mother earth" designed as "Fox country" andifor a time but a puncheon floor! name stuck until the legisla-! was later added. Smith also built' ture convened in 1853.

a most unusual sod chimney, When the legislature assembled Probably one of the first in all in 1853 a number of members said I Iowa. they were dissatisfied with names i Many of the early settlers built; adopted by the preceding as-! cabins that really afforded hardly; sembly for some of the new I any protection against severe; counties. One member, an ardent! weather, but luckily for them the admirer of John C. Calhoun winter of 1854-55 was a mild one South Carolina, proposed to'and they managed to get through change the name of Fox county i without serious inconvenience. to Calhoun.

There was some op- i In the spring of 1855 Allen Me-, position to this proposition but it finally accepted on condition that Coy became a resident of the. county and in the fall of 1855 the name of thf county to the east Charles Amy came from Cass foimtv- Miehisran. should be changed to Webster county in honor of Daniel Webster. Webster, it may be recalled, was a famous political opponent of Calhoun in the early days. county, Michigan.

When the county seat was established at Lake City in the spring of 1856 it was Amy who surveyed and platted our town. He an act approved'was one of the contractors who by Governor Hempstead on Janu-' built the first courthouse and was ary 12. 1853. provided: "That the! elected treasurer and recorder in name of the County of Wahkaw 1 August, 1857. He later held the shall be changed to Woodbury and office of County Surveyor and tne name of the Countv of Fox to Justice of the Peace and also the County of Calhoun." That; served as postmaster of Lake City 15 Nowadays old-timers in Lake When the snow stopped, City tel! you that modern: the mercury climbed briefly above winteis "just aren't winters" and freezing and then came a heavy that in old days it was much! downpour of rain.

Then the wind rougher. i shifted to the north again and the There is room for argument thermometer dropped way down there, it you consult official to 30 below zero. Tire snow was 1 government records. One thing is: now covered with a thick coating certain, however, and that is the of ice. It took an axe to break the plain fact that Iowa never has had! crust.

Some houses were actually as bad a winter as the- one which covered to the roofs with snow- visited this state just 100 years land home owners had to tunnel ago I I out. Many a present day resident of The whole remainder of that Lake City remember hearing winter some settlers had to enter grandpa tell about that great bliz- heir houses through snow tunnels, zaiM of 185G. Records show there, xhis was only the beginning. One never has been anything to equal storm followed another through It: When the old-timers referred January and February into March, to that winter as being icugh they: jth the mercury seldom getting had something! high as zero and unusally fall- The previous winter had been far- 33 94 to 3C below at remarkably and pleasant for night Calhoun county pioneers. Not much snow fell and the temperature didn't reach the zero mark all winter long.

In the timber the When this act was passed by the August 24,18,2 legislature in 1853 there was Other early settlers 191 fev a single white man living within, Josiah Lumpkm and his sons braker ca rri es what is now Caihoun county. The Mortimer and Ezekiel; Jesse Hut- first white man to establish a home in Calhoun was Ebenezer Gomstoek who brought his family to Coon River Valley in April of 1854 and a claim in section 12, chinson and his two sons and two daughters, Norman, Henry, Olive and Estelle; Moses Sherman, William Ripley, Roma Maranville, George Gray and Rev. note: ground wasn't even frozen hard enough to prevent limbs of falling trees from dipping up the fresh earth. The mildness and beauty of that winter led some of the early settlers to believe this part of the country was a sort of banana belt, and wild stories added to the i tt i i i i lief that it wasn't unusual to have Ah! The Flapper, of 1919! This picture, by Hal Cleavelan4, the ehera. girl, who eather the vear round in play here 27 years ago.

They are, from left Hal, John Sharkey, Glenn Good- I As a result most of pioneers their great haste and anxiety homes, open up farms not make the preparations the post-, election was called on the for $ie coming winter that they ale, Don Hemck and Mark Jones. Wild game died by the thousands. Sharp hoofs broke thiough the ice crust and legs were broken. Lighrer animals died from want of food. Men went out to hunt with nothing more than a butcher knife and sometimes came back loaded with game.

Many families had venison steak that winter and had so macr. 01 tnat tney never On May 13, 1856, Peter Smith and Alford White and their wives executed a deed to the county if or the land upon which the new located a Claim sctuuu township 86, range 34, near the McGeorge and their the proceeds arising western limits of what was to be- Jonathan- Mantore, Locuras Morey, process ar come Lake City. Here he buUt his P. G. Hall John Skinner, E.

tbe log cabin and for. several weeks Scott place July 1, 1856. first fi the members of his family the only whites in the area. Other Jonathan Manlove married a. followed soon, however, daugater of Aliord WIvte and was The following summer William county judge of Calhoun county.

Alford White Lucius Morey was the first! ale A1Iora vmte i On that occasion A. W. Davis received S1.50 for his day's work. After Impson, John Condron and J. C.

M. Smith settled in the southwestern part of the county not far from Comstock. William Impson became the first blacksmith in the county, an important business in those days. He and Condron settled in section 28 south of the Coon river and J. C.

M. Smith located in section 9 also in township 86 but north of the river. master. David Reed was of granting a franchise to George i should have. al G- Fisher and his associates and teacher.

He this proposition carried by a size- tanght classes in a small building able majority. The Fisher company nflR'iB was also given a contract for 1 01 xooo. nflR'iB 01 xooo. it A. vear or two later a schoolhouse A or The country at that time, of course, was a wilderness of expansive prairies and all over the prairies were these settlers' homes AT purpose 01 th filled Keeping trae stdiiapipe iilieu.

On March 1.. 1900, Fisher and A i cabins of course were crude and inform man In the county to hold the of- fice The first white ch'ld born in the county was Reuben D. Smith, son of Christian Smith born in 1856. who lived to a ripe old before dying at Des Moines well! after the turn of the century. 1855 that received i i ill ujai churches held sei vices on alternate; company sold out to a new firm.

i tifrf was hav Because of i 0 tVia oi-o. pientixui was nay. Because oj. mild winter the year before, settlers gave little attention the wood-pile as the 1855-1856 approached. They reasoned by The first group newspaper in Lake B.

mith, Arne, Aha these sums being their City and the veiy first in Calhoun Carskaddon and M. E. Hutchison 'matt fue i ive shares resnlting from county was i Calhoun County comprised tne urst board 01 dur i winter and fiio prt in 1R71 directors. The new coir.oanv 1 respective the sale of lots. The county, after over to the Centra! Iowa Electric! About the middle of the winter wanted to eat it again.

The country of course was sparsely settled and houses were far aoart. Many women did not see a neighbor woman for weeks at a stretch. The savage winter caused a lot of people to repent at having come to Calhoun county and when spring finally came a few packed up and left and many more had to be "talked out of" the idea by their more hardy neighbors. So far as more recent weather records go, it appears that the low mark cr around 36 degrees (unofficial) set on January 30, 1951, is the lowest noted here. A lot of checking through the newspaper files, histories and other records shows that the three coldest winters of the 20th century probably were those of 1912, 1930 and 1936, so far as Calhoun county was concerned.

The coldest date recorded countj- Henry W. Smih, brother of Peter and Christian Smith, built i sum of money for that day and Early that autumn Peter mill the Coon river' about' eve the Christian Smith, two people who lived in Polk county learned from four miles west of Lake City. Ui iiiio.cs wcoi i The frame timbers for this! of tfte sale county authorities on the success a trapper named "Crumley, that early day mill, an important asset there was an abundance of game -on the upper waters of the Coon river and they decided on a hunting trip. Records show that on September 27, 1854, the two Smiths, Allen McCoy, Jesse Marman and the two Crumleys assembled at Mr. Cornstock's cabin for an elk hunt.

They encamped on Lake creek, a short distance northeast of what is now Lake City, and after killing three elk, Marinon and the two Smiths who must have loved their hunting, decided to locate claims in the county. It is interesting to note from the records of the Iowa State Histori- Like many other Iowa pioneer to any pioneer community, were! eomunities, Lake City did not ev- hewn from the native timber and perience a rapid growth until after the machinery was hauled from the coming of the railroad in 1881. Des Moines with ox teams. Henry Then the town expenerced what Smith sold the mill in 1858 to a boom and several William Oxenford and Christian new additions were platted. This Smith, and soon after Christian; off set for the time the changing sold his interest to John of the location of the county court- This was the only mill in thv, house to Rockwell City in 1876.

county for a number of years and' On April 30. 1881, Smith's ad- area. A sawmill, dition of 12 blocks directly west and the' of the original plat was filed with Early in 1881 the building of Co. in 1914. a massive blizzard suddenly swept IH xyj.

the Chicago and Northwestern! Lake City continued to grow, out of the northwest. For three rai'road to Lake City started a'after the turn of the century days and nights the wind moaned booin i The -ailroad was first it numbered 2,043 persons 1 through the trees and it snowed as the Toledo and North- by 1910. western). A move was started to incoinorate. without ever a let-up.

Hard-driven The first Fire Company was snow packed into mountainous organized at the same traie the city of frozen stone. In the hand. served a wide was lumber for the first frame in the county was made at Oxen-, ford's mill lant here However this ordinance elect cit 3 In the bie flood of 1S66 the mill later repealed because of the At this election 1 1 1 1 i tm- a-nti i H. H. was cnosen mayor; and about one thousand bushels contrpversj arose and asking for legal to Department appears else- low plish the incorporation.

Accompa- 1 where in this issue nying the petition were affidavits signed by T. B. Hotchkiss a Robeit Baldwin attesting to the' fact that the town had a tion of 320. An election was called for Thurscay, May 12, 1881. Results showed no wood on In Business Here Many Years Ago the recorder.

This was followed by favor and only seven against, so i Oxen- Peoria. 111., to establish an electric another election ordered to i 1881.1 mer. Because the history of Lake: It consisted of 17 warehouse lots closely with the' near the railroad and 100 lots for City ties in so 1853, there was no land office west of Iowa City. Western Iowa was then divided into two land dis- tricts and offices were opened at history of Calhoun county, we have business and residence purposes. Des Moines and Courzil Bluffs, set forth in the preceding para-j Later all the plat of tnis addition The eastern three-fourths of graphs incidents relating to the was vacated except the warenouse houn county lay in the Des Moines of first county set- lots, district and the western fourth'" was in the Council Bluffs district.

In the summer of 1854 the land office at Des Moines was closed until October. Sojwhen Jesse Mar-j ing the town mon and the settle in the their elk hunting be present a' tiers. Now to devote some space The plat of Sifford's to the early days of Lake City filed June 8, 1881, showing eight blocks between Main and particular. The first move of cs-ahlsh- Madison streets, east of the Lake Citv was original town. Tompkins' Addition -M i rt -4 Melzner.

trustees. By 1890 Lake had grown to where the official census showed it had a population of Upto this time the supply was draw from pi ivate wells and the water was not always of the best in dry seasons when some the weHs failed. Some citizens be- gan to call for a public waterworks the f.rst ordinance re- On Apul 17. 1893, the council or.a isue of $8,000 a wic: I T. t.

i not a single Reed in May, 1856. Before it ordinances rerealea by the st compla-ed, John Lumpkin i July 5. 1893 a the question brought into the town limits. an 3 ec t5on held the first Monday The first store in City was; author zed a lor.a isue of $8,00 Unfortunatelv Comstock In April. At this election 21 votes a frame building, 16 by 24 to derray tne of putung in claim bougn by Peter Smith and were cast in favor of locating the erected by Peter Smith and David or, ba, botn tr.es ciajm j.

cue. v. TinfTM-o it it-si, ordinances the lar.d selected by his brother! county seat ar.a Christian were in range 34, and' opposing vote was cast, the a their Moines More 1854 were James Reams, Joel Golden, Levi'and no credit for naming Lake 0 White and City seems to belong entirely to the tourtnouse bjut in I 8 a taken a Rian Charles Amy and Sherman. i who arrived in It seems there was general agree- merchant. Tne building later Novenioer Wilham Oxenford, ment that this should be the same moved to a different site.

namin Lake The second structure put up was was Lake Cuy had D. Tharp, Richard Bunting-, all of whom came any one individual. from Cass County, Michigan, and' The original riat of the town Then Charles Amy bu.lt himself Next on 12, the city cour.i took steps to John Smith, who came up "fiom' was filed with the county recorder a res-nenc-, the third building to Missouri. I June 10, 1856 and was the first go up City. It is interesting to note that town plat to be so filed in the The first i Pete- Smith built his house of County of Calhoun.

in 18o, ann Charles Peor.a. 111., and unlike the other, A history of the cour.tv written Amy the- first pc.t-' plant r.ere. H. ora.nance corner of the c.ty p.rk tain public belting. A franchi-t as panted at time to the B.

Hillman Co. an electric fore 1951 was January 12. 1912 when the mercury in Lake City registered 35 below. It is certain, however, that despite the one extremely cold day registered here in 1951, that winter was't the coldest of this century by quite a bit. if you take average temperatures for all the winter months into consideration.

For instance there was one 11- day period in 1912 from January 6 to 16 inclusive when the average reading was 12 degrees below zero! For the period from January 18 to February 10 that same winter the mercury averaged an unbelieveable 10 below again. At one time winter more than 20 inches of snow was reported on the ground. Rural mail delivery was cut off entirely on February 10 that year and dealers were rationing coal. It wasn't until February 23d when the thermometer finally climbed to 45 above and the back of the cold wave was broken. If 1912 never comes again it will still come too soon! Another memorable winter for Calhoun county residents was the winter of 1930.

In many respects it was most unusual. In fact December of 1929 was very warm with no zero weather and very little snow. On New Year's Eve things changed. A blkzard blew in burying much of Iowa under what gradually developed in to one of the heaviest snowfalls Iowa has ever had, possibly second only to the great blizzard of 1856. As the month of January passed by zero weather continued with scarcely an interruption.

snow piled higher and higher as storm after storm lashed the state. Below zero weather continued until mid-February when relief finally came. As Januarys go, the winter of 1936 was pretty decent up to a certain point. That point was reached on January 19 when the mercury fell to 27 below and a furious blizzard lashed this part of the country for three days, blocking roads and closing schools. This also started a long run of zero weather that lasted well into February.

Tne average mean temperature (of both highs and lows) from January 18 to January 28, 1936, was nine below. Oddlv enough, the When Ed O'Connell, now of Indio, Calif-, sold Paige and Dodge voii'rmv rempm i ou ma reniem- was one that saw a record here about 40 veart aeo this is the way he looked, according then publwW of the Graphic, had made of Mr. O'ConneU. The was Scaled on the northwest h'Sfh mercury readmjc of nearly 6a degrees in Lake City..