History of Appanoose County                                         (see below for links to other resources)

A Brief History from the State of Iowa Archaelogist

"Appanoose County was established by the Iowa Territorial Legislature on January 13, 1846. It is named for the chief of the Sac and the Fox Indian tribes who headed the peace party during the Black Hawk War. Appanoose means "A Chief When a Child."

Appanoose County was one of the main coal mining areas in Iowa during the first third of the 20th Century.

On November 1, 1844 the Legislative Assembly of Iowa ordered Andrew Leach and William S. Whitaker to locate the county seat of Appanoose County. It was soon located and named Chaldea. It was then platted by the county surveyor. The name Chaldea was later changed to Senterville, in honor of Governor Senter, of Tennessee. The spelling was changed and the county seat of Appanoose is currently Centerville.

In the summer of 1847 it was decided that the county would erect a courthouse, but nothing was done at this time. On September 10, that same year, the dimensions and plans for the courthouse were decided upon and bids were sent out. The contract was given to James Jackson for $160 and the finish work was done by Jesse Wood for $119. The building was ready for occupation in April 1848. This courthouse was used until 1857.

The construction of a second courthouse began in 1860 and was completed in 1864. During this time the county business was conducted in local churches. This courthouse was destroyed by a fire on the Fourth of July. It seems that people were lighting fireworks from the courthouse cupola and throwing them into the air. One rocket evidently landed in the box with all the other fireworks and exploded. The fire destroyed the cupola and most of the second floor. The county continued to use the building but finally gave up in 1903.

The cornerstone for the third, and current courthouse was laid on May 21, 1903. It cost $90,600 to build and was designed by the architects Smith and Gage. The exterior walls are covered with Bedford stone veneer and the roof is all tile. The clock tower, which rises from the middle of the building, sets the building apart from all others. The courthouse is situated on a large town square and is the pride of Centerville and Appanoose County.

Taken from History of County Governments in Iowa, published in 1992 by the Iowa State Association of Counties, Des Moines, Iowa"

The Dragoon Trail

"The first visit ever made by white men, so far as can now be ascertained, within the limits of Appanoose County, was during the summer of 1832, by a company of dragoons, who left Davenport for a reconnaissance as far west as the site of Fort Leavenworth. The company proceeded southwesterly, to the Des Moines, crossing near where Agency City now stands; thence by the points now occupied by Drakeville and Milton, and then west of southwest, through Appanoose, passing into Missouri near the southwest corner of Franklin Township. Not a foot of their route, after leaving Davenport, had been organized into civil divisions, and they had not seen a white settler for nearly a hundred miles when they reached the present limits of Appanoose. They were alone in the wilderness, and their horses' feet crushed the grass never before trodden save by the deer of the forest, the half-wild Indian pony or the moccasined foot of the red man. The Sacs and Foxes, who peeped out from behind their leafy barricades to see the dusty cavalcade troop by, well knew that erelong the Commissioners would come to enact the solemn farce of treating with them for their hunting-grounds; that the smoke of the emigrant's camp-fire would soon be kindled in every grove of their fair possession.

Little the dragoons cared, as they made their camp at the spring southwest of Cincinnati, what the Indians thought, and little they dreamed of the mighty tidal wave of emigration in their rear. The camp-kettles were swung, the horses picketed and sentinels placed. Supper was dispatched, and after an hour spent over various packs of cards, the tired horsemen rolled themselves in their blankets and went to sleep under the soft light of the stars that winked to each other from every quarter of the firmament, as if they knew more than the slumbering soldiers about the wonderful future of Iowa. Perhaps the stars could have foretold who would follow this party—who would seek homes on the prairies and along the streams of Appanoose; but if they could, they withheld their knowledge, and in the morning the soldiers broke camp and passed into Missouri, leaving a faint trail through the southern limits of the county, and the fragments of the unburnt fagots at their camping-place as the only evidence that the occupation of the Indian country by the Anglo-Saxon had begun. But the sun of the Nineteenth Century was mounting toward the meridian, and these soldiers were here because their masters needed more elbow-room."

Taken from The History of Appanoose County Iowa, Western Historical Company, 1878

More about the Dragoon Trail

Historical Links

• Poem about Early Unionville History
• 101 Historical Sketches of Pioneer Days in Appanoose County, Iowa
• The Chronicle of Moulton and its Surrounding Countryside (Family History Index)
• History of Appanoose from Andreas Atlas
• Appanoose County Historical & Coal Mining Museum
• Biographical and Genealogical History of Appanoose and Monroe Counties, Iowa
• Coal Mining in Mystic, Iowa - A Memoir
• Iowa Genealogical Society Library
• List of buildings in Appanoose Co. on the National Register of Historical Places
• Past Masters of Antiquity at Masonic Lodge #252, Moravia, Iowa
• State Historical Society of Iowa
• United Mine Workers of America - Mystic, Iowa (Oral Histories)