Palo Alto County IA Archives History - Books .....Early Speculative County-seats 1910
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Book Title: History Of Palo Alto County Iowa
CHAPTER VII
Early Speculative County-seats
Visions of riches made over night has always been the dream of the
county-seat promoter. If he could only locate a town that would become the
county-seat, his fortune would be made. But many a well laid scheme turned out
to be only a bubble. The western country in the early days was full of such
"stake-towns" and towns on paper. Palo Alto was no exception to the rule, and
the story of the early attempts to locate a county-seat presents an interesting
chapter in our history.
As early as 1858 three Fort Dodge speculators, Hoolihan, Cahill, and
Cavenaugh by name, came up to Palo Alto County. They brought a surveyor with
them and made extensive plans for laying out a town. William Murphy, then a
young man who had come to this county in October, 1857, and pre-empted a claim
(southwest quarter of section 30-96-32), and was living there for the purpose of
proving up, and was also doing teaming from Fort Dodge, was employed to assist
in laying out the town. A site was selected on the west bank of Medium Lake at
its southern extremity, where Call's addition to our present county-seat is now
platted. This was but a mile and a quarter from the log cabin of Martin Coonan,
on the east bank of the Des Moines River, at the place which is now known as the
Riverdale farm.
These parties surveyed and staked out a town and then proceeded to build a
log court house, store, and blacksmith shop. As yet the town was without a name,
but one day when the buildings were well under way the four were talking the
question over. Hoolihan, who was a very well educated man and an enthusiastic
champion of the cause of the oppressed Irish, suggested that they name the town
after Robert Emmet, the fearless Irish patriot, of whom he was a great admirer.
In order to distinguish it from Emmet County, the name "Emmetsburg" was finally
agreed upon, and the four men returned to their work, full of hope for the
future which was to see their town of Emmetsburg the metropolis of Palo Alto
County. Their dreams were in fact realized many years later, but they did not
reap the benefit, and it was only after many temporary expedients and many
vicissitudes that Emmetsburg became the thriving county-seat that it now is. But
alas for their hopes! Their money gave out and they were obliged to abandon the
enterprise and return to Fort Dodge.
This town was therefore never officially platted, or filed for record. The
buildings stood for some time, until they were probably hauled away by someone
who, no doubt, considered that he needed the logs a great deal more than did the
stakes in the abandoned town. Although the venture was a financial failure and
disappointing to the high hopes of its promoters, yet the name "Emmetsburg"
clung to the stake-town, and persisted through the vicissitudes of fortune until
it was finally preserved to posterity and became an important factor in our
county's history. [1]
[1] This description follows the facts as given by Wm. Murphy, who remembers
them distinctly, and he is corroborated by others.
In 1859 another attempt was made to establish a county-seat. John M.
Stockdale, representing a syndicate of speculators from Fort Dodge, bought up
the swamp land of the county in payment for which he agreed to build a court
house and school house. He was an influential man, besides being on the inside
of state politics, [2] so he easily secured the appointment of county-seat
commissioners favorable to him. [1] Accordingly Judge C. J. McFarland, district
judge of the 5th Judicial District of Iowa, appointed Cyrus C. Carpenter of
Webster County, John Straight of Pocahontas County, and William Pollock of
Webster County, to locate the county-seat of Palo Alto County. On January
3,1859, they located it on the north half of section No. 6, in township No. 95
north, range No. 32 west of the 5th P. M., on the town plat of Paoli. This was a
town on paper, supposed to be located on what is now known as the Dooley, or
Consigny, farm, two miles south of Emmetsburg. It was here that Stockdale had
procured control of the land and proposed to build the county-seat as a nucleus
for a thriving city.
[1] See sketch of "Early Days on the West Fork," by Ambrose A. Call in Algona
Upper Des Moines, August 15, 1906.
[2] Stockdale was a cousin of Samuel J. Kirkwood, governor of the state in 1860.
In accordance with his contract with the county, Stock-dale began to build a
brick court house and school house at Paoli, but the work dragged along and when
completed the court house fell down and was rebuilt one-half as large as the
original specifications called for. Considerable litigation resulted over this,
but was finally compromised.
Somehow the new town did not prove attractive. Court was held there for a
time, but the judge and others in attendance had to go several miles away to the
nearest settler for their meals and lodging, and so the bleak old court house
was finally abandoned for more comfortable quarters and soon fell into decay.
The time had proved inauspicious for the founding of a town, the surrounding
territory was not sufficiently settled to make a town necessary, and the plans
of the promoters of the county-seat failed utterly.
Thus the county lost the money they put into the public buildings and the
speculators failed to realize their anticipated profits. The town of Paoli never
was more than a possibility. The frost finally cracked the walls of the old
court house so badly that "the settlers considering it dangerous to their stock
which congregated inside to fight away the flies, made a bee and tore it down."
[1] Later the bricks were hauled away and a few years afterward no trace
remained on the prairie of the once loudly heralded town of Paoli, the
county-seat of Palo Alto County.
[1] "Early Days on the West Fork," by Ambrose A. Call.
Additional Comments:
Extracted from:
History of Palo Alto County Iowa
BY
DWIGHT G. MCCARTY
THE TORCH PRESS
CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA
1910
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