CHAPTER XXIV
THE pioneers who first erected a cabin in the beautiful groves that lie along the shores of Okoboji and Spirit Lakes, were Rowland Gardner and Harvey Luce, his son-in-law. They had recently emigrated from the State of New York. Crossing the prairies in their canvas-covered wagons drawn by oxen, they found no settlement west of Algona, but continued on over the prairie going northwest until the evening of July 16,1856, when they camped on the wooded shore of West Okoboji. They were so enchanted with the beauty of the lakes, forest and prairie that they decided to here make their homes. They explored the country about them and found the clear blue waters of Okoboji fringed by alternate stretches of sandy beach, pebble shores, walls of bowlders and forests reaching down to the water’s edge. Away in the distance were prairies, while eastward were other lakes and groves. Not a sign of human habitation or smoke of camp fire was to be seen in any direction from the highest point on the lake shore. They were the only inhabitants of the little paradise they had discovered, far away from the nearest settlement. Elk and deer were grazing on the prairies, water fowl were coming and going from lake to lake, great flocks of prairie chickens were seen, squirrels and song birds were heard on every side.
The emigrants selected a site for their cabin on the southeast shore of West Okoboji, near the rocky projection since known as Pillsbury Point. The families consisted of Rowland Gardner, his wife Frances, little Rowland, six years old, Abbie, fourteen, Eliza, sixteen, and Mary, the oldest daughter, wife of Harvey Luce, and their two little children, Albert, four years old, and Amanda, a
