History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/3/Counties/Calhoun
CALHOUN COUNTY is in the fourth tier from the north line of the State, also in the fourth east of the Missouri River and has sixteen townships, each six miles square, making a total area of five hundred seventy-six square miles. It was originally named Fox but at the session of the Legislature of 1853 a change was made to Calhoun, in honor of the famous South Carolina Senator. Twin Lakes, lying in the northern part of the county, cover an area of about seventeen hundred acres and vary in depth from three to twenty feet. The northern lake is about half a mile wide and two and one-half miles in length.
Ebeneezer Comstock was the first white settler in the county. In April, 1854, he moved with his family into the grove where Lake City has since been built and here made his log cabin. His nearest trading point was Des Moines, eighty-five miles distant. He was soon joined by John Condron, J. C. Smith and Peter Smith from Cass County, Michigan.
In August, 1855, the county was organized by the election of Peter Smith, judge; Christian Smith, treasurer; Joel Golden, clerk; William Oxenford, sheriff; and Ebeneezer Comstock, prosecuting attorney. The election was held at the house of Christopher Smith and the entire population of the county was less than one hundred. The county-seat was located by a vote of the people in April, 1856, and Charles Amy was employed to survey and plat a town which was named Lake City. The first house on the plat was built by him in 1857 and the first store was opened the same year by Peter Smith and Daniel Reed in a log cabin. In 1856 David Reed taught the first school near Lake City and the Methodists organized the first religious society the same year.
For many years in the early history of the county Charles Amy was its treasurer and by honest and economical management of the officials the warrants of the county were always kept at par and no debt was incurred, a condition of affairs rare among the counties of northwestern Iowa.
In June, 1859, Judge A. W. Hubbard held the first term of court in the county. In June, 1871, B. F. Gue of Fort Dodge established the first newspaper at Lake City named the Calhoun County Pioneer of which E. W. Wood was the editor and manager. In early days a good wagon road was graded from Lake City to Fort Dodge and the streams were bridged for a distance of about forty miles over unsettled prairies. In 1870 the first line of railroad was built into the county, running through the northern townships. It was the main line of the Iowa Falls and Sioux City road and the towns of Manson and Pomeroy were built upon it. In the spring of 1876 the county-seat was relocated on land belonging to Colonel J. M. Rockwell nearer the center of the county where a town was laid out and named Rockwell City. A court-house was built
THE RACOON RIVER AT COON RAPIDS
In Carroll County
in the spring of 1877. A railroad reached the new county-seat in 1882.