geographical center of the county and named for the first Republican United States Senator in Iowa. The first building was erected by Isaac Plum and in the fall of 1858 William W. Newton built a hotel. In January, 1859, the Shelby County Courier was established at Harlan by J. B. Besack and a determined campaign opened to secure the county-seat which was successful before the end of the year. In 1878 a railroad was built from Avoca, on the line of the Rock Island, to Harlan; in 1881 a branch of the Northwestern was built through the northeastern part of the county; and the next year the Milwaukee road was built through the northwestern portion of the county. Shelby is a flourishing town in the south side of the county on the Rock Island road.
SIOUX COUNTY was at one time included in the original county of Fayette and was created in 1851. Its western boundary is the Big Sioux River and it lies in the second tier south of Minnesota. The county has an area of seven hundred sixty-nine square miles and was named for the Sioux Indians who, at one time, occupied northwestern Iowa. The Rock and Floyd rivers flow through it in a southwesterly direction and the surface is rolling prairie with but little native timber. There are bluffs along the Big Sioux River rising to a height of from one to two hundred feet.
Among the first settlers in the county were E. L. Stone, F. M. Hubbell, W. H. and Francis Frame and Joseph Bell. They located in the valley of the Big Sioux River in 1859.
In 1860 the county was organized by the election of the following officers: W. H. Frame, judge; F. M. Hubbell, clerk; E. L. Stone, recorder and treasurer. There were but fifteen persons in the county at this time and for many years the danger from attacks of the Sioux Indians was so great that but few settlers ventured so far on the frontier. In 1860 a town was laid out on the Big Sioux named
