History of Pottawattamie County
The county was organized September 21, 1848 and has an area of about nine hundred and sixty square miles. It is the second largest county in Iowa. The public lands of the county were surveyed during the years of 1851-1852 and the United States Land Office was located at Kanesville (as Council Bluffs was originally called) in the spring of 1853 with Joseph D. Street, Register and Dr. S. M. Ballard, Receiver.
In 1855, land buyers came from all parts of the country and by the spring of 1856, a mania seemed to have taken hold of the men who were anxious to buy before the closing of sales under the railroad grant law. The result of that mania for land was that our county long suffered from her prairie lands being owned by eastern capitalists and railroad companies, thus keeping out actual settlers. Despite such enormous obstacles, the settlement of the county progressed and the population of less than 5,000 in 1860 increased to nearly 40,000 people by 1880, half of whom were farmers.
During the summer of 1838, Davis Hardin was appointed trader for the Pottawattamie Indians, having a habitation here. The same year he, with his family, landed at a point about five miles southwest of where Council Bluffs now stands. The landing was known as Council Point.
The various settlements scattered about the county included one a short distance east of Kanesville on Mosquito Creek, near the site of Wicks' old Indian Mill. Here, William Garner, Ira Scofield, Simon Graybill, Alexander Follett and Alexander Marshall remained after the exodus of the Mormons in 1852. Another was on Pigeon Creek at a place afterwards called Macedonia. In the northwestern part of the county near Loveland's Grove was another settlement..
The Mormons, of whom so much is talked and whom history gives a large amount of space, were the first pioneers and settlers of Pottawattamie County. Today hundreds of their descendants are numbered among our most prosperous farmers and businessmen.
The first county commissioners were A. H. Perkins, David D. Yearsley and George D. Coulton. They held their first session at the house of Hiram Clark in Kanesville. Thomas Burdick was the first clerk of the commission and, in 1851, Mr. Burdick was elected County Judge. The first representative to the State Legislature from the area was Henry Miller. Hadley E. Johnson was the first State Senator.
Of course, the heritage of Pottawattamie County began long before the settlement of the land by farmers and businessmen. Its roots go back almost 300 years when various Indian tribes crossed northern Iowa and migrated south along the west end of Iowa to what is now northwestern Missouri.
Pottawattamie County was named for the Sioux Indian tribe that once possessed the Iowa Territory. The name is an Indian term meaning "Blowers of Fire," "Keepers of the Council Fires," or "Makers of Fire."
French explorer-traders visited the vicinity in abou 1700 working up and down the Missouri River. Spain assumed administrative control of the Louisiana Territory west of the Mississippi River from the French in 1763. Indians settled in the vicinity of Mynster Springs about 1820 and in 1832 built a fur trade post. in 1837, the U.S. government moved other tribes to the area and Capt. Billy Caldwell was soon introduced as personal secretary to the Pan-Indian leader, Tecumseh, who kept his village on Indian Creek.
Eventually, Fort Leavenworth built a blockhouse near the junction of present-day Franklin and East Pierce Streets to protect the newly arrive Pottawattamie Indians from attacks by other tribes. In 1838, the Army allowed Belgian Jesuits Felix Verreydt, Pierre-Jean DeSmet and Andrew Mazzella to use the blockhouse as a mission home and school.
An agreement in Washington, DC in 1846 caused the relocation of the Indian tribes, and along came the great trains of covered wagons from the East. This vanguard of thousands of wagons and more than 31,000 religious refugees and pioneers who migrated through Kanesville (Council Bluffs) occurred between 1846 and 1853.
In their wake, roads were built, bridges constructed, ferries, mills, wagon shops, blacksmith shops, schools, churches, home and stores were established. Today our country enjoys the convenience of modern interstate highways, large shopping complexes, advanced educational facilities and high-tech businesses as well as the firmly planted and well established farming community.
References: Early Days by C. Babbitt; History of Pottawattamie County 1882 and 1907 editions; History of Pottawattamie County from the 1880-1881 City Directories; Celebration 150, the Daily Nonpareil, July 7, 1996; Bluffs Sports Multicultural History by Gail Holmes.
Go to
Frontier Heritage Library Page
Return to
PCGS Home Page