stopped in Mills County on the east side of Key Creek near the Missouri and built cabins to shelter them through the approaching winter. They formed a village to which they gave the name of Rushville. Among them was William Brittain who became a permanent resident of the county. In 1847-8 Silas Hillman, Libeons Coon, Ira Hillman, G. N. Clark, J. Everett and others settled near the present site of Glenwood. In 1849 Mr. Coon laid out a town on his farm which he named Coonville.
In 1851 the county government was organized by the election of the following officers: William Smith, judge; W. W. Noyes, clerk and James Hardy, sheriff. The county-seat was located at Coonville where the first term of court was held in 1851, at which Judge James Sloan, a Mormon, presided. In 1849 the first flouring-mill in the county was built by J. W. Collidge. Here D. H. Coloman, a young lawyer taught the first school in a log cabin ten feet by twelve in size. Mr. Soloman became a prominent lawyer and was one of the framers of the Constitution of the State in 1857.
In 1853 the name of the county-seat was changed from Coonville to Glenwood. Soon after the close of the War of the Rebellion one of the Soldiers' Orphans' Homes was located at Glenwood and later the Institution for the Feeble Minded was built there. The first newspaper in the county was the Glenwood Times, established in May, 1856, by J. M. Dews. The largest apple orchard in the State was planted in Mills County by John Y. Stone. The soil of this region seems to be peculiarly adapted to fruit growing. Malvern is a thriving town near the center of the county. The Burlington Railroad was the first built in the county.
MITCHELL COUNTY, originally a part of Fayette, was created in 1851 and named for the Irish patriot John Mitchell. Its northern boundary is the Minnesota line and it is in the fourth tier west of the Mississippi River.
