History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/3/Counties/Montgomery
MONTGOMERY COUNTY lies in the second tier east of the Missouri River and also in the second tier north of the Missouri State line. It was created in 1851 and contains twelve congressional townships with an area of four hundred thirty-two square miles. The county was named in memory of General Richard Montgomery an officer of the Revolutionary War who was killed in the assault on Quebec in 1775. The Nodaway and Nishnabotna rivers flow through the county in a southwesterly direction.
John Ross was the first white man to make a home in the county in 1849. Among the settlers previous to 1853 were Amos G. Lowe, S. C. Dunn, John W. Patterson, John Stafford, Carl Means, John and James Ross and Samuel Baker. The first settlements were made along the Nodaway River in the eastern portion of the county.
In 1853 the county government was organized by the election of the following officers: Anos G. Lowe, judge; S. C. Dunn, clerk; John W. Patterson, treasurer, and R. W. Rogers, sheriff. The commissioners chosen to locate the county-seat selected a tract of land in the center of the county where a town was laid out and named Frankfort, July, 1854. The first house was built by John Burnside. Dr. Asa Bond and A. G. Lowe soon located there and the new town made a rapid growth. Samuel Baker taught the first school in the county in 1856. In 1857 Alfred Hebard, David Remick and Charles Hendrie laid out the town of Red Oak on the banks of the Nishnabotna River. The same year Joseph Zuber built the first house on the town site. In 1863 by a vote of the people the county-seat was removed from Frankfort to Red Oak. From that time Frankfort declined and many of its buildings, including the court-house, were removed to Red Oak. In March, 1868, Webster Eaton established a weekly newspaper named the Montgomery County Express, the first in the county. The main line of the Burlington Railroad runs through the county from east to west.