History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/1/1

by Benjamin F. Gue

NATURE'S supreme laws of never ending change from one degree of development to another, seem to pervade the universe. Man in all ages has been slowly reading these immutable statutes, unwritten, and only to be known through careful observation and patient investigation.

A little gained by one generation handed down to another, since the first appearance of man upon the earth, has made the sum of human knowledge. For how many ages on some other far off planet human intellect has been slowly pursuing the same great study we have no means of knowing.

Here the astronomer has discovered the existence of other worlds, has carefully computed their size, has measured their distance from the earth and each other, has observed their motion, their satellites, and learned some of the laws which govern them. He has even constructed a plausible theory as to how these planets were formed from the original elements.

As to the comparative antiquity of the eastern and western continents of our own earth, recent investigation brings evidence to reverse the old belief that Asia and Africa were earlier formations than America. Agassiz says:

“First born among the continents, though so much later in culture and civilization than some of more recent birth, America, so far as her physical history is concerned, has been falsely denominated the 'new world.' Hers was the first dry land lifted out of the waters; here the first shores washed by the ocean that enveloped all the earth besides; and while Europe was represented only by islands rising here and there above the sea, America already stretched one unbroken line of land from Nova Scotia to the far west.”

In our limited world the investigators have explored the beds of ancient rivers, lakes and seas; the caverns of rocks and mountains, and penetrated deep into the earth in search of knowledge that may be derived from rock formations, animal and vegetable fossils. These to the scientist reveal much of the story of earth's growth; its stages of development; its desolations and changes through the agencies of fire, water and air. In these reservoirs have been found keys to earth’s prehistoric changes. They reveal to the student a history of its geological growth, vegetable and animal development for millions of years before written history begins. Scientists explore every known country, every island of the ocean, examine rocks, clays, gravels and fossils in pursuit of knowledge of the past. From these they read much of the story of the earliest formations, convulsions, growth and population of the earth with almost as much certainty as though the events had been inscribed in legible characters on imperishable tablets. If is from these evidences that we learn some of the history of the remote past, relating to the land we live in, which men have named Iowa.

Professor Samuel Calvin has well said:

“The finding of a single genuine prehistoric arrow-point may enable us to write up an important chapter in the history of a people that no historian ever saw, and concerning whose existence there is not even the shadow of a human tradition. When, as is often possible, we may add the knowledge gained by exploring their homes, their shrines and sepulchers, we are in a position to write up somewhat more fully the portion of their history which deals with their daily occupations and their domestic life. Many records tell of other facts than the mere presence of human occupants in a region such as Iowa. Vegetable remains preserved in peat bogs in the mud that accumulated at the bottom of ancient ponds and lakes enable us to reconstruct the prehistoric forests. With such vegetable remains are usually found bones of the animals that lived in the forests. Human weapons or human skeletons are often there too. So in records preserved in the peat bog or in the lake bed, science may rehabilitate in a general way the prehistoric landscapes, and may see them enlivened with multitudes of struggling creatures, man among the rest; all bent on accomplishing the two great objects for which living things below the higher planes of humanity seem to strive,—'to eat and to escape being eaten.' Not only may we restore the forests in the shadow of which prehistoric man lived, we may know the size and habits of the animals that roamed through the forest; those that man chased and those from which he in turn fled; we may even go farther and determine the climatic conditions under which all this assemblage of animal and plant life existed.”

Geology unfolds to us a wonderful history of the most remote periods of time, which reduced to language reads like a fairy tale. It tells us nearly all we know of the countless years that passed away while the continent, of which Iowa is a part, was in the process of formation. Professor Calvin continues:

“These geologic records, untampered with, and unimpeachable, declare that for uncounted years Iowa, together with the great valley of the Mississippi, lay beneath the level of the sea. So far as it was inhabited at all, marine forms of animals and plants were its only occupants.”

During the ages of submergence, the sedimentary strata of Iowa, as well as of all the adjacent States, was being formed on the sea bottom. This formation contains a record of a period of duration altogether incomprehensible. Centuries pass while the light colored limestones so well represented at Anamosa are slowly forming by an imperceptible sedimentary accumulation. Other ages come and go while the limestones represented in Johnson County are forming. About this time a small portion of northeastern Iowa rises above the sea, while all the vast region south and west is still buried deep beneath the all pervading water. Odd shaped fishes and a species of ferns mark the highest point reached in the evolution of animal and plant life at this time.

Ages again go by while the sediment of the sea is forming beds of rock which appear in Marshall, Des Moines and Lee counties. Then slowly come the Coal measures and rocks above them. Ferns and air-breathing creatures have made their appearance. The sea gradually recedes to the southward and the surface of our whole State is visible. Later forests and other forms of vegetation cover portions of the land; birds appear in the woods and a few small rat-like animals are found, as well as reptiles.

But another great change comes; the waters again cover the northwestern portion of the State and ages come and go before the sea recedes, never to return. Iowa has finally been raised above the sea level and the waters drain toward the ocean, forming great rivers, and plowing deep channels through the oozing sediment. The sun and wind finally dry the surface; forests and rank vegetation again make their appearance; animals come forth from Nature's nurseries and spread themselves over the land, and roam through the jungles, preying upon each other in their struggle for food. The climate is that of the tropics, and myriads of forms of life are evolved.

All of the conditions are now favorable for the advent of man, but no evidence is found of his existence on any portion of the earth at this period. The rivers, which ages later were named the Mississippi and Missouri, were then carrying the inland waters to the sea which reached as far north as the Ohio river.

Where the upper Missouri now flows through the prairies of Nebraska, the Dakotas and Montana, where lakes spreading over a large portion of these States. Remains of forests and strange species of animals, long since extinct, have been found in the sediment that was formed in these lakes. Tropical trees such as the cypress, magnolia, cinnamon, fig and palm flourished in Iowa, Dakota, and far northward into British America; tropical birds sang in the forests; huge reptiles crawled about in the rank vegetation and swamps.

Then came the Tertiary period. Iowa was a part of the land area which then made up the half formed continent of North America. The drainage of the State must have been much the same as now, although the altitude above sea level was several hundred feet lower.

In the beds of Tertiary lakes were entombed animals and plant remains which man in these late generations has found. The sediment exposed to the action of the atmosphere has been converted into vast plains and prairies. In many cases the lakes have been gradually filled and converted into dry land. Modern streams, such as the Yellowstone, Missouri and the Platte rivers cut their way through these old lake beds. The surface of the sediment underwent continual changes through erosion. The remains of plants and animals were thus slowly laid bare, and the scientist was able to read the story of their lives. Such beds are believed to be the only places of importance where the records of Tertiary plants and animals have been preserved. While none of these lake beds have been found within the limits of our State, it cannot be doubted that the conditions which prevailed upon our western and northern boundaries were not unlike those which obtained here.

The animal inhabitants of this period consisted of opossums, a strange species of squirrel, beavers and gophers. There were large hoofed animals not unlike the rhinoceros; others bore resemblance to the tapir and the swine family. There were creatures with three hoofs to each foot and three toes on each hoof, of a species related to the horse. There were others resembling camels, oxen and cud-chewing animals that seemed to be a combination of the deer, the camel and the hog. There was a family of short jawed animals resembling the panther with sharp, knife-like teeth. There were saber-toothed tigers more powerful and cruel than the Asiatic species; there were monkeys, foxes and wolves. Huge snakes, lizards and turtles infested the swamps. Bright winged birds flitted among the forests and open glades. Bats and myriads of strange insects were present preying upon others.

Throughout the Tertiary period the climatic conditions appear to have been remarkably uniform over regions extending north to Greenland and westward to Montana. Iowa, and all adjacent regions far north and westward reveled in the luxuriance of a tropical climate. The air was balmy and laden with the odor of flowers and fruits. The bright summer days seemed never ending. A listless languor sent the birds and beasts into the shade at midday. Tropical vegetation grew spontaneously; brilliant foliage and flowers, luxuriant ferns and clinging vines mingled with the forests and open vistas in landscapes of surpassing beauty.

But in the course of time a change was perceptible. The intense heat of the long summer days was tempered by refreshing breezes, and the nights became delightfully cool. The winters were slowly growing colder. Snow storms came and piercing winds swept over plain and forest. Tropical plants were stricken with early frosts; ice formed in lakes and streams where it had never had before appeared. The more hardy animals sought the shelter of wooded ravines and deep gorges. Snow fell to unusual depths; year after year it came earlier, and winter continued later. The earth became frozen to great depths; fruits and trees disappeared. As the snow piled higher each succeeding year, and the summers were too short and cold to melt it, all animal life perished. The pressure of mountains of snow and the percolating rains converted the mass into a solid sheet of glacier ice that not only covered nearly all of Iowa, but reached out over the northern half of North America.

The ice sheet of this period had its southern margin south of the latitude of St. Louis. The ice was slowly moving outward from the center of accumulation, grinding over the underlying rocks, crushing them into the finest powder. Fragments of enormous size were frequently caught in the lower portion of the flowing ice and carried forward bodily, grinding the rock strata into rock flour, and being themselves planed and grooved on the lower surface. All bowlders of crystalline rock which we find strewn over our State were carried from their native ledges in British America by these ice sheets of what geologists call the Quaternary period.

BOWLDER IN BUCHANAN COUNTY

GLACIAL MARKING ON ROCKS IN DES MOINES COUNTY.

Another climatic change slowly came, and the ice began to melt. Rivers were gradually formed, carrying on their turbid waters the soil made by the grinding ice. This was deposited over the surface of the State, forming yellow clay.

Professor Samuel Calvin, State Geologist for Iowa, has told how the soils of the State were produced by the action of the ice in the glacial period. He says:

“Glaciers and glacial action have contributed in a very large degree to the making of our magnificent state. What Iowa would have been had it never suffered from the effects of the ponderous ice sheets that successfully overflowed its surface, is illustrated, but not perfectly, in the driftless area. Here we have an area that was not invaded by glaciers. Allamakee, parts of Jackson, Dubuque, Clayton, Fayette, and Winneshiek counties belong to the driftless area. During the last two decades numerous wells have been bored through the loose surface deposits, and down into the underlying rocks. The record of these wells shows that the rocks surface is very uneven. Before the glacial drift which now mantles nearly the whole of Iowa was deposited, the surface had been carved into the intricate of hills and valleys.

“To a person passing from the drift-covered to the driftless part of the state the topography presents a series of surprises. The principal drainage streams flow in valleys that measure, from the summits to the divides, six hundred feet or more in depth. The Oneota, or upper Iowa River, in Allamakee County, for example, flows between picturesque cliffs that rise almost vertically from three to four hundred feet, while from the summit of the cliffs the land rises gradually to the crest of the divide, three, four, or five miles back from the stream. Tributary streams cut the lateral slopes and canyon walls at intervals. These again have tributaries of the second order. In such a region a quarter section of level land would be a curiosity. This is a fair sample of what Iowa would have been had it not been planed down by the leveling effects of the glaciers. Soils of uniforms excellence would have been impossible in a non-glacial Iowa. The soils of Iowa have a value equal to all of the silver and gold mines of the world combined.

“And for this rich heritage of soils we are indebted to great rivers of ice that overflowed Iowa from the north and northwest. The glaciers in their long journey ground up the rocks over which they moved and mingled the fresh rock flour from granites of British America and northern Minnesota with pulverized limestones and shales of more southern regions, and used these rich minerals in covering up the bald rocks and leveling the irregular surface of preglacial Iowa. The materials are in places hundreds of feet in depth. They are not oxidized or leached, but retain the carbonates and other soluble constituents that contribute so large to the growth of plants. The physical condition of the materials is ideal, rendering the soil porous, facilitating the distribution of moisture, and offering unmatched opportunities for the employment of improved machinery in all of the processes connected with cultivation. Even the driftless area received great benefit from the action of glacier, for although the area was not invaded by ice, it was yet to a large extent covered by a peculiar deposit called loess, which is generally connected with one of the later sheets of drift. The loess is a porous clay, rich in carbonate of lime. Throughout the driftless area it has covered up many spots that would otherwise have been bare rocks. It covered the stiff intractable clays that would otherwise have been the only soils of the region. It in itself constitutes a soil of great fertility. Every part of Iowa is debtor in some way to the great ice sheets of the glacial period.”

• * * * *

“Soils are everywhere the product of rock disintegration, and so the quality of the soils in a given locality must necessarily be determined in large measure by the kind of rock from which they were derived.

“From this point of view therefore, the history of Iowa's superb soils begin with first steps in rock making. The very oldest rocks of the Mississippi Valley have contributed something to making our soils to what they are, and every later formation laid down the surfaces of Iowa, or regions north of it, has furnished its quota of materials to the same end. The history of Iowas soils, therefore, embraces the whole sweep of geologic times.

“The chief agents concerned in modifying the surface throughout most of Iowa since the disappearance of the latest glaciers have been organic, although the physical and chemical influences of air have not been without marked effect. The growth and decay of a long series of generations of plants have contributed certain organic constituents to the soil. Earth worms bring up the material from certain depths and place it in position to spread upon the surface. They drag leaves and any manageable plants into their burrows, and much of the material so much taken into the ground decays and enriches the ground to a depth of several inches. The pocket gopher has done much to furnish a surface area of loose, mellow, easily cultivated and highly productive soil. Like the earth worm, the gopher for century after century has been bringing up to the surface fine material, to the amount of several tons annually to the acre, avoiding necessarily the pebbles, cobbles and coarser constituents. The burrows collapse, the undermined bowlders and large fragments sink downwards, rains and winds spread out the gopher hills and worm castings, and the next year and the next, the process is repeated; and so it has been for all the years making up the centuries since the close of the glacial epoch. Organic agents in the form of plants and burrowing animals have worked unremittingly through many centuries and accomplished a work of incalculable value in pulverizing, mellowing and enriching the superficial stratum, and bringing it to the ideal condition to which it was found by the explorers and pioneers from whose extent dates the historical period of our matchless Iowa.”

It is estimated that the last invasion of Iowa by the glaciers was from 100,000 to 170,000 years ago. For many years scientists have been investigating the causes which have produced the great treeless plains of the Mississippi Valley. East of Ohio prairies are unknown, but as we go westward they increase in number and size. In western Indiana, and from there to the Rocky Mountains west and north the vast prairies^[1] prevail, although groves are often found, and the margins of lakes, rivers and creeks are generally bordered with the same extent as trees. From 98° of longitude west and treeless plains become almost a desert.

The soil of prairies varies in formation and quality to almost as great an extent as in the timbered regions. In Michigan, Indiana and Illinois the prairies are inclined to be quite level, the surface soil is a black vegetable formation to six inches to five feet or more in depth. In Iowa the prairies are more rolling, affording better surface drainage.

In southern Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, western Nebraska, northern Missouri, and western Kansas, the vegetable formation is lighter, sand and gravel being quite common on the surface.

Along the first river bottoms, the soil is generally a deep rich alluvium. The second bench often presents a mixture of sand and gravel while the bluffs show soil of a lighter color, with clay near the surface. Large bodies of broken land, cut up into steep hills, generally extend back from the water courses, through which deep ravines have been cut in all directions. This land is generally covered to some extent with growth of stunted oak and hickory trees, among which are thickets of wild plum, crab apple and hazel bushes. These lands were called “barrens” by the early settlers. The soil of this hill land is productive, producing grain, grass and fruit of excellent quality. The “Missouri Slope” is the name given to that portion of Iowa which is drained into the Missouri River. The soil is a bluff deposit, generally destitute of surface stone and gravel, or rock strata beneath, and produces excellent crops of grain, grass, vegetables and fruit. The bluffs along the Mississippi River rise to a height of from one to two hundred feet, everywhere intersected with deep ravines. They are generally treeless, but in some places small timber is found. Northern Iowa is but gently rolling fifty miles west of the Mississippi, while the southern half of the state is more broken into hills and valleys, and has large tracts of woodland.

Although essentially a prairie state, almost every variety of surface soil is found, showing conclusively that it is not the peculiar soil formation which causes forests to grow in one locality and prairies to be found intermingled with them.

After more than half a century of investigation of the causes which have produced the prairies, the problem is yet unsettled. No theory yet advanced explain satisfactorily why the treeless plains begin in certain sections of Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kansas and Louisiana, without any noticeable difference in soil or surface. In many places in the states where the prairies predominate, remains of forests are found that show evidences of having existed for hundreds of years, and among the mare prairies which furnish no indications of ever having been covered with trees.

The origin of the prairies is one of the most interesting problems that has engaged the attention of all thoughtful people who have seen them before they were touched by the plow. Scientists have sought carefully for evidences to sustain the different theories advanced. Professors Whitney and Hall, who made early geological surveys and examinations of portions of Iowa, gave considerable attention to the origin of prairies. Whitney says:

“The cause of the absence of trees on the prairies, is the physical character of the soil, and especially its exceeding fineness, which is prejudicial to the growth of anything but a superficial vegetation. The smallness of the particles of soil being an insuperable barrier to the necessary access of air to the roots of deeply rooted vegetation. Wherever, in the midst of the extraordinary fine soil of the prairies, coarse and gravelly patches exist, there dense forests occur. The theory that fineness of soil is fatal to tree growth finds its most remarkable support in the fact that in southeast Russia the limits of the black soil of Russia is an earth of exceeding fineness, so fine indeed that it is with the greatest difficulty that the air can penetrate it so as to oxidize the organic matter which it contains. It is easy to see why plains are likelier than mountain slopes to be treeless, it being toward the plains that the finer particles of the material which is abraded from the higher regions is being constantly carried. The more distant the region from the mountains, and the broader its area, the more likely it is that a considerable portion of it will be covered with a fine detritus, whether this be of sub-aerial origin, or deposited at the bottom of the sea. “The exceedingly fine soil of the typical prairie region consists in large part of the residual materials left after the removal by percolation of rain and other atmospheric agencies of the calcareous portion of the undisturbed stratified deposits, chiefly of the Paleozoic age, which underlies so large a portion of the Mississippi Valley. The finer portions of the formations of more recent age in the Gulf States have also over considerable area remained treeless.”

Professor James Hall says:

“Throughout the prairie regions the underlying rocks are soft sedimentary strata, especially shale’s and impure limestones. Most of these on exposure disintegrate readily and crumble to soil. The whole soil of the prairies appears to have been produced from such materials, not far removed from their present beds. The valley soil, containing a larger portion of coarse materials than that of the uplands, seems to have been adapted to the growth of forest vegetation. In consequence of this we find such localities covered with an abundant growth of timber. We sometimes meet with ridges of coarse material, apparently drift deposit, on which from some cause there has never been an accumulation of fine sediment; in such localities we invariably find a growth of timber. This is the origin of the groves scattered over the prairies, for whose isolated position and peculiar circumstances of growth we are unable to account in any other way.”

Dr. Charles A. White, who made a later geological survey of Iowa, in discussing this subject says:

“It is estimated that seven-eighths of the surface of Iowa was prairie when the State was first settled. They are not confined to the level surface, but sometimes are quite hilly and broken; and it has been shown that they are not confined to any particular variety of soil, for they prevail equally upon alluvial, drift and lacustral. Indeed we sometimes find a single prairie whose surface includes all of these varieties, portions of which may be sandy, gravelly, clayey, or loamy. Neither are they confined to the regions of, nor does their character seem at all dependent upon the formation which underlies them; for within the State of Iowa they rest upon all formations from those of the Azoic to those of the Cretaceous age inclusive, which embraces almost all kinds of rocks. Southwestern Minnesota is almost one continuous prairie upon the drift which rests directly upon not only the hard Sioux quartzite, but also directly upon the granite. “Thus whatever the origin of the prairies might have been, we have positive assurance that their present existence in Iowa and the immediate vicinity is not due to the influence of the climate, the character or composition of the soil, nor to the character of any of the underlying formations. The cause of the present existence of prairies in Iowa is the presence of autumnal fires. We have no evidence to show or to suggest that any of the prairies ever had a growth of trees upon them. There seems to be no good reason why we should regard the forests as any more natural or normal condition of the surface than the prairies are. Indeed it seems the more natural inference that the occupation of the surface by the forests has taken place by dispersion from original centers, and that they encroached upon the unoccupied surface until they were met and checked by the destructive power of fires. The prairies doubtless existed as such almost immediately after the close of the Glacial epoch.”

The International Cyclopedia, in an elaborate article on the prairies, says:

“The origin of the very fertile prairies of the valley of the Mississippi River proper has been the subject of many theories. How a soil so rich upon which most of the trees of neighboring forests flourish luxuriantly when protected should have failed to have been covered with them in a state of nature, is the question. It is answered by some vegetable physiologists thus: “'The excrements of vegetable growth from the roots of trees and plants, and even the annual accumulation of their own leaves after a continuous growth of the same species, become poisonous to the genera which emit them, though perfectly nutritious to plants of different families. It is claimed that the long continuance of forest growth on a rich soil made constantly richer by its own annual deposits of leaves, dead wood and excretions from the roots, finally makes it unfit for their growth. Sickliness and decay produce more dead wood so that fires finally destroy utterly what the soil refuses to nourish. Rank weeds and grasses follow, which in their turn ripen and dry in autumn, make food for new flames that destroy the remnant of tree vegetation, and even the young wood of new species which might otherwise hold their ground. Tree roots cannot live when their tops are destroyed. Perennials, on the other hand, have an extraordinary power to preserve life in their roots under the action of prairie fires. Once in possession of the soil it is easy to see that annual autumn fires, where there are not animals enough to feed down the summer growth, will not only preserve the ground won from the forest by grasses, but will singe the surrounding forests, and wherever they are sickly from the cause first named will finally consume them. Ages of the continuous growth of grasses and other perennials have assimilated those qualities of the soil that become noxious to trees; and in nature's rotation of crops, the soil has again become fitted for their growth. It is only necessary to check the prairie fires for a new crop of forest to dominate the grasses. Trees were beginning to resume possession of the prairies when the settlements began. The increase of the buffalo decreased the food for autumn fires by so much as they pastured upon the grasses. The moisture of the ground contiguous to streams, and the sweetness of the late summer grasses in those places, would naturally make spots where the trees could have time to get rooted in the absence of fires.”

It will be seen from these quotations that the subject of the origin of the prairies is by no means settled. Little, if anything new, has been developed during the last quarter of a century by scientific investigation to throw new light upon a subject that will always be of interest in the Mississippi Valley. The fact that prairie and forest conditions have been found on all of the continents, and among the islands, when first seen by men, show clearly that the solution of the problem cannot be found in local or climatic conditions. Some of the treeless plains are the most fertile lands known; some are level as the lakes; some are barren deserts of drifting sands; others are lofty elevations rising into hills and mountains; they exist in the Arctic regions, in the temperate latitudes and in the torrid zones; some are entirely destitute of sand, gravel or rocks of any description. Others are thickly strewn with granite bowlders, and in others arise enormous ledges of rocks. In some places in Kansas the prairies are covered with flat limestone, in sufficient quantities to fence the land into fields with walls, as in New England and Pennsylvania with cobble stones.

---

1. Prairie is a French word signifying meadow. It was first applied to the great treeless plains of North America by the French missionaries who were the discoverers of the prairie regions of the west.