The Oskaloosa herald., 1902-01-09
FIFTY-FTYE YEARs oF I0WA.

Iowa as state into the Union. 1t
accordingly entered the confederacy
that day, being the sixteenth in the
order of accession, and with the ori-
ginal thirteen the twenty-ninth state
in the Union. Had the people accept
ed the boundaries offered them by con-
gress, Iowa would have been admitted
! into the Union before Texas, and con-
sequently been the twenty-eighth in
| the order. But those boundaries had
very properly been rejected. The state
with them would have been about as
large as now but it's length would
have been from north to south instead
! Of from east to west. 1t would have
been somewhat of the shape of Illi-
nois, with the point to the north.
But Iowa and Minnesota are both bet
ter states by reason Of the wise de-
termination of the pioneers that the
Missouri should be on our western
boundary. They did not object to the
strip of the northward. They had in
deed asked for northwestern line
which would have run diagonally from
the mouth of the Big Sioux to a point
about where the town of Mankato is
now, and thence down the St. Peters
or Minnesota river to it's junction with
the Mississippi, leaving the site of the
city of st. Paul just over the line.
Congress wisely refuse to accept that
line, and then offered the present
boundaries.
When the state was admitted, the
part of the territory assigned to Iowa
had population of about 10000 The
census taken in 1886, with eight Of
the twenty-eight counties estimated,
reported a population of I02, 1888. The
following year thirty-two counties re-
ported population of 116,454. 1t was
truly day of small things. There
were few settlements away from the
neighborhood of the rivers, most of
which were then navigable to some
extent. The pioneer prejudice against
the prairie as a place on which to
make homes still prevailed and few
would venture on the apparently bleak
stretches of ground any considerable
distance from timber. At one time 1t
is said that the treasury department
(which had supervision of the public
lands) was petitioned to stop the sur
vey of the prairies, because their
bleakness would render them practi-
cally uninhabitable. 1t will be re-
membered that at the time referred to
the prairies even to the eastward Of
the Mississippi were only very sparse
ly settled, except perhaps in southern
illinois where the milder winters
seemed to make living more endur
able. OF railroads there was total
of only % miles in Illinois, less than
100 in that state and Indiisna, and less
than 500 in all the states to the west
ward of Pennsylvania and north of the
Ohio, and most of it was in Michigan.
1t nee not be said that Lnere was
nothing of the kind in Iowa. Except
for about 40 miles in Louisiana not a
railroad had been built west Of the
Mississippi anywhere. 1t was yet
many years before Missouri was to
have one. The telegraph was far in
the future for this part of the world. |
1t had not been many years introduc-
ed, and only little longer time had
elapsed since a sapient postmaster-gen-
eral, of the Kentucky brand, mad sol
emnly assured congress that 1t would
only be throwing money away to ap-
propriate public funds in further sup
port of any such ventures: congress
having at one time given $4,000 for
the purpose.
OF our great staple, only about as
J.
of several of our counties now turns |
out. Four years later, 100000 bush |
els of wheat rewarded the labor of
those who grew that grain.
Hardly 100000 acres of land were
in farms, and less than three-quarters
of a million of 1t were improved. The
taxable value of the property IN Iowa |
was reported, after the first assess
ment under state authority, to aggre-
gate $11,277,135. The receipts into
the treasury from taxes on thosa lands
amounted to $5,7S2.36; while for the
last three years of the territory only
$7,973.79 was collected. With such
beggarly revenue, 1t is not surprising
that the territory left to the state an
Indebtedness to care for. This was
done through the issuance of bonds |
amounting to $1,000. This debt bur-
dened the state for nearly fifty years. |
state her representatives, Shepherd
Leffler and Serranus Clinton Hastings
were sworn in as members of con-
gress. Owing to the failuse of the two
houses of the general assembly to
come utogether again after one inef-
feCtual ballot for senator, the state
was unrepresented in the senate of the |
United States for two years after its
admission. Then, in December, 1S4S, |
Augustus Caesar Dodge and George
Wallace Jones presented their Gre
dentials in that body and entered on
their duties as senator's, the former re-
naming for a little more than six |
years and the latter rather over ten. |
Two years after Iowa entered the |
Union, the discovery of gold in Cali |
fornia started great companies of emf |
grants over the plains. AS many of |
them had to pass through Iowa the |
caught glimpses of the wealth |
that lay in the fertile soil of this land |
and awaited only the hand of intelli- |
gent industry to bring it forth. But
the quest of gold was too keen just
then to permit the argonauts to think |
VI SlVpplhb WhclO INC 6Olu hdu W DC
evolved rather than go where 1t might |
be picked up in nuggets. Many too
of the early settlers of the state, with |
the restlessness which often makes |
pioneers Of men, joined the emigrant |
hordes and journeyed from this then
far west to that farther west where
the gold was to be found, or 'where
rolls the Oregon" The influence of
Iowans in the policy of the state nam
ed after that river is seen in its legis-