of June. A fierce contest was waged for several years between Rochester and Tipton for the county-seat which was finally settled by a vote of the people in 1852 in favor of Tipton.
On the 6th of April, 1850, the first newspaper was established in Tipton named the Tipton Times and Cedar County Conservative which was succeeded in 1853 by the Cedar County Advertiser. In 1855 the Mississippi and Missouri Railroad was built from Davenport through the southern part of the county. Previous to 1853 the county had voted aid to the Lyons and Iowa Central Railroad Company which proposed to build from Lyons by way of Tipton to Iowa City. This company caused grading to be done near Tipton and secured bonds of the county for $20,000 to aid the work but never built the road.
CERRO GORDO COUNTY lies in the second tier south of the Minnesota line, in the fifth west of the Mississippi River and is twenty-four miles square embracing twenty-four congressional townships, making an area of five hundred seventy-six square miles. It was established from the original county of Fayette in 1851 and named for a battle-field of the Mexican War.
In July, 1851, Joseph Hewitt and James Dickinson, who were hunting near Clear Lake, were so delighted with the beautiful country bordering it that they built cabins on the south and west shores and, sending for their families, became the first white settlers in the new county. They were fifty miles from the nearest neighbor and were frequently visited by parties of Winnebago Indians who came to the lake to hunt and trap. In 1853 David and Edwin Wright made claims about three miles north of where Mason City stands. In September of the same year Anson C. Owens settled at a grove which bears his name in the eastern part of the county. James and Robert Serrine took claims at the east end of Clear Lake the same year. John B. Long and John L. McMillan soon after
