Knoxville journal. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1874-1986, 1875-04-29

roe, and Prairie City, and left Red
Rock nearly as desolate as old Ca
pernium, Whisky is its chief i'm
port and most active commodity.
John Owen, with his mule line,
keeps 1t in daily communication
with the fairer outside world, and
with him I took somewhat tenn
pestuous passage eight miles SOUTH
ward over the wooded hills, along
the base of great lodges of red sand
stone, and through the richest coal
fields of Iowa, into splendid farm
country, and the city of
KNOXVILLE.
The principal part of the letter
appearing under this heading was
given in last weeks JOURNAL
The title of the Sac and Fox Indi-
ans, who formerly held all this beau
tiful valley, was vacated In ls43, and
In the same year
PIONEERING
began on large scale. About sew
enty families, mostly from Ohio,
made pre-emptions In this inviting
region, and the work Of home-build-
Ing began in earnest. A more beau
tiful country never tempted the pio-
neer. Great herds of buffalo, with
fiocks Of deer and antelope, roamed
at will over the prairie. The Des
Moines and Whitebreast rivers were
alive with fish, and the country
swarmed with wild geese, ducks
and prairie chickens. The graceful
white swan came i'm flocks to these
waters from the far nerth, on their
spring-tide pilgrimages. The bluffs
were covered with forests of oak and
hickory, and the bottoms with ma
pie, elm, walnut, sycamore, linden
and cottonwood. Spring brooks
coursed along the ravincs, and the
rich, open prairie was paradise
alike to the herdsman and florist.
Hunters and frontiersmen had car
ried eastward tidings of this fair
land. and now, when these hardy
Buckeyes came with their wives to
make homes In the wilderness of
flowers and waving wild grasses,
their dreams were more than realiz-
ed. With this precious realization,
too, came the harder experience OF
pioneering, isolation from friends,
prairie winters, sickness, speculative
rapacity, writs, executions and home
sickness. These araeverywhere the
fruits Of pioneering.
THIRTY YEARS LATER
a race Of opulent farmers are hepe,
and country which a baron might
covet for his homestead. Along the
stream are great walls Of saad rock
alternating with veins of coal,
which will yet develop for this re-
gion wealth and industries, and a
population far beyond the most san
guine hopes Of even the railroad
workers of to-day. The lands,
which annually produce seventy
bushels Of corn to the acre, and az
ford luxuriance of
BLUE GRASS
pasturage which the Kentucky
herdsmen might envy, and which
piss current at $50 per acre, VIII as
readily command 500. / have seen
nowhere country better suited to
this famous hcrds-grass. 1t is every
where making It's way, along the
bottoms, by the wayside, In the for
est and on the prairie, successfully
fighting its way into supreme occu'
pancy Of the whole region. Next to
these great coal beds, it will yet be-
come the source Of future wealth
here. But ] am hating too long In
4
a region Of which / should be only
too glad to know more. With word
of thanks to Messrs. Clifford and
| Cvaddick, and to Mr.. Amos, OF the
Amos House, for characteristic kind
ness, | must take rdn by stage
along the line Of the projected rail-
way a dozen miles northwest to
PLEAsASrvILLE,
village Of four hundred souls, In
! the northern part Of theconnty. rms
place was settled In 1916 by VIM. r.
| Jordan, and has about II most
/ splepdid farm district. These lands
| would double in value with a rail
way and how these men have lived
here for twenty-five years, paying
tribute to necessity and more Iortn'
nate railway towns, without desper'
ate efferts to make one for them
selves, is beyond comprehension
There Is here good school, a steam
4 n 4 H.. sas a