History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/4/Henry Hospers
HENRY HOSPERS was born in Hoog Blokland, the Netherlands, February 6, 1830. He came to America in 1840, locating at Pella, in Marion County, Iowa. Here he taught the first school and established the first newspaper in the Dutch language. In 1870 a new colony was formed in Sioux County where a large tract of land was acquired and Orange City was laid out. Of this colony Mr. Hospers became the leader. The county had been under the control of unscrupulous adventurers and under the lead of Mr. Hospers the county government was reformed and the finances honestly managed. He was elected to the House of Representatives of the Twenty-second and Twenty-third General Assemblies and served in the Senate of the Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh General Assemblies representing the district composed of the counties of Lyon, Osceola, Sioux and O'Brien. Mr. Hospers was deeply interested in education and good government and as long as he lived wielded great influence in the Sioux County colony which he led to northwestern Iowa when that region was one vast wild prairie. He died October 21, 1901.