# History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/3/Counties/Winneshiek

​ WINNESHIEK COUNTY was established in 1847 from territory embraced in the original county of Fayette. It lies in the second tier west of the Mississippi River and extends north to the Minnesota line. It is one of the large counties containing twenty townships, embracing an area of six hundred ninety-four square miles. The county was named for a noted chief of the Winnebago Indians whose name appears on the records “Kinnoskik” which signifies “coming thunder.” The surface of the county is divided between prairie and woodland, with high bluffs along the streams. The Upper Iowa and Turkey rivers with numerous tributaries flow through it.
PLYMOUTH ROCK, UPPER IOWA RIVER, Winneshiek County
THE ONEOTA RIVER, NEAR DECORAH
​Fort Atkinson was erected in 1840 when the country was occupied by the Winnebago Indians who remained until 1848. A mission school was also established for the education of the Indian children, in connection with a large farm, where efforts were made to teach them agriculture. After removal of the Indians the mission was abandoned and the farm sold to white settlers.
Among the first settlers were Francis Rogers, George Bachel, David Reed, F. J. Huber, William Day, George Ream, William Painter and Philip Morse who took claims in 1848. In 1849 Painter and Aldridge built the first mill in the county on the Upper Iowa River near where Decorah now stands. William Day built one of the first log cabins, in 1849, where Decorah was located. It was occupied by his family of nine persons and also sheltered travelers until winter when he built the Winneshiek House. Several families built cabins near him in 1850-51 and a village grew up which was given the name of Decorah, for an Indian chief of the Winnebagos, whose village and burial ground was at that place.
In 1851 the first steps were taken to organize a county government and a vote was taken upon the location of the county-seat which resulted in the choice of Decorah. The officers chosen were David Reed, judge; Joseph Brown, clerk; George Bachel, sheriff, and David Kuykendall, recorder and treasurer. The first term of court was held at the house of William Day in Decorah in September, 1851. J. B. Onstine was the first lawyer and Aaron Newell opened a store the same year in a “slab shanty.” Elder Bishop of the Methodist Church was the pioneer preacher who came in 1851. A school-house was built in 1853 in which T. W. Burdick gave instruction. For several years efforts were made to remove the county-seat from Decorah which delayed the building of a court-house until 1856. In 1855 a United States Land office was established which brought many there to enter land.
In 1856 the Decorah Chronicle, a weekly newspaper, ​was established. A college was founded in 1865 at Decorah by the Norwegian Lutheran Synod. A branch of the Milwaukee Railroad was built to the town in 1869.
WOODBURY COUNTY is one of the largest in the State, embracing an area of eight hundred seventy-three square miles. It was first named Wahkaw but changed to Woodbury, January 22, 1851, in honor of Judge Levi Woodbury of the United States Supreme Court. The county lies on the Missouri River in the fourth tier south of Minnesota. Along the river in this vicinity is a broad expanse of level bottom land of great fertility, varying in width from five to ten miles. The bluffs beyond are high, steep and in places broken into deep ravines and lofty ridges, gradually spreading out into gently rolling prairie. The principal interior streams are the Floyd River, branches of the Little Sioux and Maple rivers and Perry Creek. The Big Sioux forms a part of the western boundary.
The Indian title to this part of Iowa was extinguished in 1847. Early in 1848, forty-four years after this region was visited by the Lewis and Clark exploring expedition, a single adventurous pioneer, William Thompson, made his way up the Missouri valley and settled at Floyd’s Bluff, within the limits of what is now Woodbury County. Here he built a log cabin, opened trade with the Indians and laid out a town which he named Thompsonville. After Wahkaw County was created this became the county-seat, but having no steamboat landing, made but little progress and in a few years was abandoned. In May, 1849, Theophile Brugnier a Frenchman who had married an Indian wife, built a cabin on the bluff near the mouth of the Big Sioux about two miles above where Sioux City stands. In the fall of the same year Robert Perry, an eccentric but well educated man from Washington D. C., settled near a creek where Sioux City stands; he lived there several years and his name was given to the creek. In 1850