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

​ WAPELLO COUNTY was created in February, 1843, from territory embraced in the original county of Demoine. It lies in the fourth tier west of the Mississippi River and in the second north of the Missouri State line and contains four hundred thirty-two square miles. The Des Moines River flows through it from the northwest to southeast, dividing it into nearly equal parts. The banks were originally covered with a heavy growth of timber and more than half of the county is underlaid with coal of good quality. The county was named for the Fox chief Wapello, his name signifying “the prince.”
On the 1st of May, 1843, the lands of this county were opened to settlement and several hundred persons who had camped along the western border of Jefferson hastened in to take claims. Many conflicts arose over the hastily made boundary lines which were usually settled peaceably by the claim committees chosen by the settlers for the purpose of deciding such contests.
The first election was held in April, 1844, at which the following county officers were chosen: J. M. Montgomery, L. E. Temple and C. T. Harrow, commissioners; P. C. Jeffries, probate judge; Joseph Haynes, sheriff; Thomas Foster, treasurer; M. J. Spurlock, recorder; Charles Overman, clerk; and Hugh George, surveyor. The commissioners chosen to locate the county-seat selected the ​site where Ottumwa stands. Here a town had been laid out by the Appanoose Rapids Company in May, 1843, and named Ottumwa, and Indian word signifying “rapids” or “tumbling water.” The commissioners gave the place the name of Lewisville but the town proprietors refused to accept that name and adhered to the beautiful and appropriate Indian name “Ottumwa” and thus preserved for the future city the name which had never before been given to a town.
Among the pioneers who made the first improvements at the new county-seat were Dr. C. S. Warden, William Dewey, S. S. Norris, P. C. Jeffries, David Glass, W. H. Galbraith, John Myers, David Hale and Herman P. Graves. In 1844 the town consisted of nine log cabins and one small frame house. David Hale kept the first hotel in a log cabin and S. Richards opened a store in a similar building. The mail was carried once a week on horseback from Keosauqua. Rev. T. M. Kirkpatrick was the first minister in the county, holding services in a wigwam on Keokuk Prairie in 1843. Dr. Charles S. Warden was the first physician, coming from Kentucky in 1843. He for many years practiced medicine over all that region. Ezekiel Rust taught the first school in a log cabin.
In August, 1848, a weekly newspaper named the Des Moines Courier was established in Ottumwa by J. H. D. Street and R. H. Warden and was at that time the most western paper in the United States.
In early days J. P. Eddy kept an Indian trading post in the northwest corner of the county on the bank of the Des Moines River. He continued to keep a store there after the removal of the Indians and in 1843 laid out a town which he named Eddyville. Agency City, seven miles east of Ottumwa, takes its name from an old Indian agency which was established in an early day at that place. It was the first town laid out in Wapello County. In August, 1859, the Burlington Railroad was completed to ​Ottumwa and the following year the Des Moines Valley Railroad came in from Keokuk.