western Railroad. It was first named Iuka but a few years later the name was changed to Tama City. In 1874 a company built a dam across the Iowa River and brought water by an aqueduct to the city making a valuable water power.
The Musquakie Indians have a reservation in the county where several hundred of them live. Traer is a town in the northeast part of the county on the line of the Burlington and Cedar Rapids Railroad.
TAYLOR COUNTY was created in 1847 and first attached to Pottawattamie. It lies on the Missouri State line in the third tier east of the Missouri River and contains five hundred forty-eight square miles. The surface is rolling and the principal streams are bordered by woods. The Platte, East Nodaway and West One Hundred and Two rivers and many smaller streams flow through the county in a southwesterly direction. The name “One Hundred and Two” was given to the river in early days by a party of surveyors who were running a line for a military road from some point in Missouri. The place where their line struck this branch of the Platte was one hundred and two miles from the starting point.
The first white family known to have settled in the county was that of Jonah Reed who took a claim near the Page County line in 1844. Stephen H. Parker took a claim in the county in 1846. In 1851 the population had reached three hundred ninety-three and Elisha Parker was appointed to take steps to organize a county government. At an election held in February the following officers were chosen: Jacob Ross, Levi L. Hayden and Daniel Smith, commissioners; John Hayden, clerk; H. Bennington, probate judge; John Hayden, treasurer and recorder; and J. B. Campbell, sheriff.
Most of the early settlers lived in the southern part of the county in the disputed territory, supposing they were in Missouri. Although they owned no slaves, on account of their poverty, they were strong advocates of the system.
