Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/388

 cabins in that vicinity along a creek three miles north of Boonsboro. Benjamin Williams the same year took a claim near where Madrid stands.

The county was organized in 1849 and attached to Polk. In 1851 commissioners were appointed to locate the county-seat and, as there was no town yet laid out, they drove a stake in the ground near where the first courthouse was afterward built and there established the county-seat. A town was laid out and, upon the suggestion of S. B. McCall, named Boonsboro and a public sale of lots was made in October, 1851. Samuel B. McCall was the sheriff selected to organize the county, an at the first election John M. Wayne was chosen clerk; John M. Crooks, treasurer; S. H. Bowers, sheriff, and W. C. Hull, prosecuting attorney. The first term of court was held in Boonsboro in October, 1851, at which Judge William McKay presided. The first building in the town was a two story log house erected by W. C. Hull on the east side of the public square.

In 1865 the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Railroad was extended in the county to the new town of Montana which had been laid out by John I. Blair and other builders of the railroad. This town was a mile east of Boonsboro and the citizens of the county-seat were required to pay a large bonus to secure the road. Feeling sure of the road, they declined to pay the amount demanded and the construction company turned the road toward the southwest following the valley of Honey Creek, leaving Boonsboro a mile or more from the line. Then began a life and death struggle between the proprietors of Montana and the citizens of Boonsboro for supremacy which lasted for many years. Buildings were erected in each town but in the end the citizens of Boonsboro began to move to Montana, its name was changed to Boone and the old county-seat became a suburb of the new city which had absorbed its business and much of its population. The first newspaper was established by Capron and Sanders