page_title: History of Sioux City, Iowa
section_title: Nineteenth century
hierarchical_section_title: History of Sioux City, Iowa / Nineteenth century
caption_attribution_description: English: Sioux City, Iowa, early 1900s postcard
context_page_description: Iowa is in the tallgrass prairie of the North American Great Plains, historically inhabited by speakers of Siouan languages.
  The area of Sioux City, Iowa was inhabited by Yankton Sioux when it was first reached by Spanish and French furtrappers in the 18th century.
  In 1803, during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, France sold a vast portion of central North America to the United States of America. This "Louisiana Purchase" was largely unexplored. Jefferson sent out the Corps of Discovery, under Lewis and Clark, to scientifically document the territory. In 1804 the Lewis and Clark expedition traveled up the Missouri and set-up camp near what would become Sioux City, Iowa. On August 20, a member of the expedition, Sgt. Charles Floyd died of "bilous colic" and was buried on a bluff overlooking the river. At the time of Lewis and Clark, the Omaha tribe of Native Americans were present just downstream from this region, and the Yankton Sioux were upstream. William Thompson established a trading post near Floyd's Bluff in 1848, and had early ambitions for founding a city.
context_section_description: The first steamboat arrived from St. Louis in June 1856, loaded with ready-framed houses and provisions.
  The railroad first arrived in 1868. About that time a few small factories opened. In 1873, James Booge opened the first large-scale meatpacking plant and created a demand which ultimately led to the opening of the livestock yards ("stockyards") in 1884. The period from about 1880 to 1890 marked the most rapid and significant progress made thus far in Sioux City's development. In 1880 Sioux City had a population of 7,500.; in 1884, 15,514; in 1886, 22,358; in 1887, 30,842; and in 1890, 38,700. Street cars, water works, electric lights and other improvements appeared. Factories, jobbing houses, meatpacking plants, retail stores and railroads increasingly came on the scene. The city's building boom included an elevated railroad (the Sioux City Elevated Railway) and early "skyscrapers". These changes mirrored growth that was occurring nationwide, especially in the transition of small pioneer settlements to thriving urban centers. President Grover Cleveland visited in 1887, by then Fourth Street was the center of the business district.
  Sioux City is also the birthplace of the Corn Palace, a temporary building made each year as part of the Corn Festival.  The Sioux City Corn Palaces were large wooden buildings with corn cobs nailed to their walls. The first Corn Palace was built in 1887, and was designed by architect W.E. Loft.  The Corn Palace became larger and grander every year.  The last Sioux City Corn Palace, built in 1891, sprawled across the city's downtown area.  The palace had three towers, one of which stretched 200 feet tall.  It also had a large tunnel, which allowed traffic to pass right beneath its center.
  But bad weather brought a poor turnout for the 1891 Corn Festival, as the building was unheated. The Great Floyd River Flood of 1892 drowned any further hopes for the festival, and Corn Palaces were never built in Sioux City again.
  In May 1892, heavy rains caused the Floyd River to rise, sending a destructive wave of muddy water through the unprepared city. At least three thousand people were left homeless. The stockyards and railroad lines were all badly damaged, and a lumber yard caught fire. The final death toll from drowning was twenty-five, according to the Army Corps of Engineers.
  The nationwide Financial Panic of 1893 resulted in number of real estate investors and entrepreneurs in Sioux City losing great paper fortunes. Edwin Peters, the developer and promoter of Morningside, claimed to have lost $1.5 million, only to be left with a debt of $7,000.
  In 1898, all units of the Iowa National Guard—the 49th, 50th, 51st and 52nd Infantry Regiments, as well as artillery and cavalry units—were called to active duty in the War with Spain.  The 49th and 50th entrained for South Florida but did not reach Cuba.  The 51st was sent to the Philippines and engaged in combat action there.  The 52nd remained stateside.
caption: Sioux City at the start of the 1900s; Fourth Street, looking east from Virginia.
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