On the 4th of April, 1848, William Parker settled in a grove near the southeast corner of the county and was the first white man to make a home within its limits. In 1850 James C. Smith of Indiana, with a family of five sons, opened a farm. In the spring of 1851 D. W. and Mormon Ballard, William Brezley and Isaac Atkinson settled in a body of timber which was given the name of Ballard’s Grove. The same year J. K. Keighley and S. M. Cary made claims on the Skunk River and G. N. Kirkman settled on Indian Creek.
In 1853 commissioners selected for that purpose located the county-seat and gave it the name of Nevada. In June the land thus chosen was deeded to the county by J. W. Morris and a town laid out in which he was the owner of every alternate lot. The first election was held in April, 1853, at which the following officers were chosen: E. C. Evans, judge; Franklin Thompson, clerk; John Zenor, recorder and treasurer; Eli Deal, sheriff, and John Keagley, school fund commissioner. The first term of court was held in a little log cabin at the new county-seat in August, 1854, at which Judge J. C. McFarland presided. The first house in Nevada was built in October, 1853, by T. E. Alderman who was the first store-keeper and postmaster. The first court-house built in 1856 was burned on the night of December 31, 1863. The State Agricultural College was located in Story County in 1859 on a farm of six hundred forty-eight acres lying on Squaw Creek. Story County secured the college by a donation to the institution of $10,000 and several tracts of land from citizens. In 1857 the Nevada Republican, a weekly newspaper, was established by R. H. Shrall. The Northwestern Railroad was extended to Nevada in the summer of 1864 and the town of Ames laid out on its line near the Agricultural College in February, 1865. This town was named for Oakes Ames one of the largest stockholders in the construction company.
